The background to the long-standing conflict is that the Rabhas are recognized as a Scheduled Caste tribe in Goalpara district of Assam but not in the contiguous East Garo Hills district of Meghalaya. People of both the ethnic groups – Rabhas and Garos – live on either side of the border. The East Garo Hills district has its own Autonomous District Council under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. But because the Rabhas are not a Scheduled Tribe community in Meghalaya, they never had their representation in the elected District Council.

For quite some time the Rabhas had been agitating in the Garo Hills for giving them the Scheduled Tribe status. But the Garos – and the Meghalaya Government – are opposed to it. Off and on, the Rabhas had been giving bandh calls to press their demand, bringing life to a standstill in both the districts. The Garos resented it, all the more so, because the road link between the two parts of Meghalaya – the Garo Hills and Khasi Hills – lies through Assam. If one has to travel from Tura, the headquarters of Garo Hills, to Shillong, capital of Meghalaya situated in Khasi Hills, one has to go through Assam, via Goalpara and Guwahati. Naturally, any bandh and the consequent road blockade, cuts off all road communication between two parts of Meghalaya.

On the New Year’s Day this year, the Rabhas again gave a bandh call. Tension between the two communities mounted immediately. Things came to a head when the vehicle of a Father of the local church in East Garo Hills was not allowed to move by the Rabhas because the bandh was on. Usually in the tribal areas – of whichever tribe – people are not even allowed to move on foot on a bandh day. Decades ago, this writer was gheraoed by Khasi students in a Shillong road on a bandh day. Even his identity as a press reporter did not cut any ice. Fortunately, the late Stanley Nichols Roy was passing that way and picked him up in his car.

To the Garos, the ongoing agitation by the Rabhas was nothing but an economic blockade of their district. In retaliation, the Garo National Council of Assam called a 12-hour bandh in Goalpara district on January 3. This added fuel to fire. Inter-tribal clashes began. Both sides attacked each other, killing and maiming, evicting people and indulging in arson.

Mob fury reached fever pitch. On January 8, Former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno A. Sangma, his daughter and Union minister of state for rural development Agatha Sangma, and his son and Leader of the Opposition in the Meghalaya Assembly Konrad Sangma were on their way to visiting a Rabha relief camp at Chotimati village in Goalpara district of Assam. Their vehicle was surrounded by a two thousand strong mob of Rabhas armed with lethal weapons.

Policemen at the small local outpost could do little as they were vastly outnumbered. Agatha called up the Army on her cellphone, giving her identity as a Union minister. This worked. Help arrived and the Sangma family was rescued from a situation that might have turned very ugly. Later, the East Garo Hills administration urged ministers and legislators not to go to riot-hit areas without prior intimation to the local administration and getting police escort. Eventually, the Army had to stage a flag march in the affected areas along the Assam-Meghalaya border to give a sense of confidence to the people.

A Union Home Ministry team led by a joint secretary also visited the affected areas. The team hinted that the ethnic clashes were “well-planned”, possibly by “underground groups”, without identifying any group as such. The team, however, did not think further deployment of the Army was necessary as more Central paramilitary forces were being sent.

The Rabha-Garo clash has also seen the police forces of the two States getting divided along ethnic line – the Meghalaya police backing the Garos and the Assam police taking the side of the Rabhas. To observers of the North-East, this is all too familiar. Whenever there is a clash between the Nagas and the local people on the Assam side of the border in the Sivasagar or Golaghat area in Upper Assam, the same thing happens. Sometimes it leads to exchange of fire between the police forces of the two States.

The fury generated by the latest Rabha-Garo clash will subside but the possibility of a renewed flare-up at some time or other will persist till the basic problem – the granting of Scheduled Tribe status to the Rabhas living in Meghalaya – is tackled and settled once for all. And that will not be easy. Assam has the same problem internally. The Bodos, a plains tribal community of Assam, are not recognized as tribals in the two hill districts of the State, namely, Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills. The Bodos have been agitating to give them tribal status in the hill districts. (IPA Service)