Assam To Tone Down Drive Against Tea Industry

The Prafulla Kumar Mahanta government in Assam has evidence of more tea companies having extended financial help to Ulfa and Bodo militants, but after the disclosures about the involvement of Tata Tea Limited, it has decided to tone down the offensive against the tea industry. The idea is not to invite the wrath of the politically-powerful tea industry as a whole.

In 1990, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) government was dismissed primarily due to the lobbying in New Delhi by the tea industry. Tea garden managers were being harassed, and tea magnate Surrendra Paul had been killed by Ulfa. Today, there is a perceptible sense of glee within the AGP that a tea major like Tata Tea has been cornered with documentary evidence of aiding the Ulfa.

Thanks to the industrys political connections, the Centre had arranged to airlift eight tea garden managers and their families from an airbase in Assam without the knowledge of the state government in 1990. The managers had been threatened earlier. Immediately after the airlift, the AGP government was dismissed by the then Congress-supported Chandrashekhar government.

Today, with the United Front government at the Centre, the AGP does not fear any effort to topple its government. However, the Mahanta government is unhappy with the fact that compared with Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, the Centre had extended less financial help to tackle militancy. In efforts to tackle the Ulfa, there seems to a convergence of opinion between Mahanta and Union home minister Indrajit Gupta.

Gupta dismisses the argument that companies based in Assam have to pay Ulfa and Bodo groups out of fear. He said : Are the Tatas the only people in Assam who feel a threat to their lives? This is no argument.... This does not justify your giving help to these militant outfits, he told Business Standard.

The issue of funding militant groups needed to further investigated since money is crucial for the survival of these groups, he said.

Through money they get sophisticated arms, shelter, passports to travel to other countries and air tickets. They use money to bribe government officials, Gupta said.

According to a senior Assam government official, tea companies took the Hiteswar Saikia government into confidence whenever militants demanded funds from them. But no such coordination was evident when the AGP was in power, during 1985-90 as well as since May 1996. This has more to do with the perception in corporate and business circles that the AGP had links with the Ulfa, and that the party could not be trusted to protect their interests.

The official says there are nearly 800 tea gardens in Assam, accounting for an annual production of 400 million tonnes (53 per cent of the countrys tea production). The annual turnover is in the range of Rs 2000 crore. The tea auction centre at Guwahati handles the third largest sales in the world after Colombo and Mombasa.

AGP sources claim that for the first time, the Mahanta government had taken bold steps against the Ulfa. They admit that in several constituencies, the partys candidates were tacitly helped by militants in the 1996 elections, but when the Centre turned the heat on the Mahanta government due to increasing violence, it was decided to take firm steps against the militants.

There is a realisation that matters cannot be allowed to remain in flux. When the Ulfa realised that the AGP had turned against it, there was the attack on Mahantas life as well as against other AGP leaders in districts. There is a crisis of leadership in Assam. If Mahanta goes, things could turn worse. The Centre should help Mahanta in the crackdown against Ulfa, the official remarked.

There is a suggestion that the funds earmarked by tea companies for welfare activities in Assam could be handed over to the state government to raise a protection force exclusively for tea gardens. Such a proposal was made by the Saikia government, but it failed to take off for various reasons. The official says such a force would have been in place had the money paid to Ulfa and Bodo militants been used properly.