Assam's 150-year-old and Rupees 30 billion tea industry, mostly spread over four districtsof upper Assam (Tinsukia, Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Sibsagar), could be heading for another tempest. The September26, 2003, extortion notice of Rupees 20 million served on the Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL)'s Doomdoomadivision in Tinsukia district by the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is yet another element inthe environment of insecurity within which vital industries operate in the state today. However, the company'sresolute attempt to defy the terrorist group's diktats and to rectify the tea industry's history ofsubmission to terror, may well herald the unfolding of an entirely different saga of resistance.
The extortion notice, signed by Achintya Saikia on behalf of ULFA's Eastern Zonal Council, asked the HLLauthorities to pay up the required amount by October 7. Curiously, though, the outfit refrained from addingany threats or words of caution in case their demands were not met. The demand on HLL, the first since 1990when a similar threat led to the company closing down its operations in the state, has been rebuffed by themanagement, which has not only intimated the state and the Union Government, but has also brought out a publicnotice expressing its inability to pay extortion amounts to any terrorist group.
The character of ULFA's extortion from the tea industry has undergone significant transformations over theyears. Towards the late 1980s, when the group was in need of finance to fund its expanding terroristactivities, the tea industry attracted the attention of the rebel leadership, with its glamour and muchpublicised investments. Any attack on the 'alien masters of the trade', always considered Assam's exploiters,also boosted ULFA's standing, both among the state's masses as well as among its not so ignorantintelligentsia.
In the earliest known cases of attack on the Tea industry, on February 15, 1989, D. Chowdhury, the AssistantManager of Ledo Tea Estate, had been hacked to death by ULFA terrorists. On March 13, 1990, Dr P.C. Scaria ofTata Tea Limited was killed in a shootout at Nalmari. On April 9, 1990, Surendra Paul, Managing Director ofAssam Frontier Tea Company, was killed by ULFA terrorists while visiting a garden. And so the list ofabductions and killings went on. According to one estimate, between 1989 and 2000, 15 persons connected withthe tea industry were killed by the terrorists from the ULFA and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB).And in 1999 alone, 15 tea officials / workers were abducted. In the most recent case, in August 2003,suspected ULFA terrorists killed the owner of the Diasajan Tea Estate in Tinsukia district and his two sonsfor having failed to pay up an extortion sum of Rupees 50,000.
In the initial days of ULFA's attacks on the industry, the rebels' demands for financial contributions weresugar coated with its stated concern for the uplift and progress of Assamese society. Echoes of thesepretensions persist, and, in the October 1 issue of its newsletter, Freedom - which would have beenprepared at about the same time as the draft of the extortion notice to HLL - the ULFA did rake up somesimilar issues. In its editorial 'Resentment at Noon', the Freedom noted: "The act ofestablishment of tea gardens upon our land was itself an invasion upon our only means of subsistence and thepresent policy of depriving the community totally depended upon the tea industry from their due salary, bonusetc. is amounted to hit the social establishment of Assam (sic)."
The tea industry too, due to a combination of fear and lack of belief in the state's ability to providesecurity to its personnel in far flung tea estates - distanced as they are from the bandobast (policearrangements) in the capital - have tended to bend backwards to appease the terrorist groups. In 1997, a majorcontroversy erupted over Tata Tea Limited (TTL)'s cover up deal with the ULFA to treat its cultural secretary,Pranati Deka, at a Mumbai hospital. Cops blew the lid off TTL's plan, as Pranati was arrested at the SantaCruz Airport in Mumbai along with her newborn baby. The then Assam Chief Minister, Prafulla Mahanta haddeclared: "It is the moral responsibility of companies to inform the government, the police orintelligence agencies about extortion by militants." This time around, the HLL has done just that.
The media glare of the recent incident has forced the state to announce visibly augmented signs of crisismanagement. These include the provision of personal security officers to senior HLL executives; the deploymentof two companies of the Assam Police at Samdang and Bisakopi tea gardens in Tinsukia district; and theannouncement by the state Police chief that there has been no security lapse for the tea major in the state.The officiating Chief Minister in the state Bhumidhar Barman (acting on behalf of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoiwho is in the United States) is seen to be doing his best to live up to the expectations of his absent leader.
Regrettably, payment of large sums of money to the terrorist groups under duress by various companies in the state,most notably the tea majors, remains a fact, and has, indeed, been transformed into a smooth institutionalisedmode of money transfer. According to a senior police official, "Each of the tea companies, small or big,continue paying extortion amounts to the outfit." During an interview to a weekly newsmagazine in April2000, the ULFA Chief, Paresh Baruah, had asserted, "Everybody who does business in Assam has paidup." Media reports, a year ago, quoting intelligence officials suggested a well regulated mode of 'tax'payment to the outfit by the companies: since it is otherwise difficult for public limited companies toaccount for money paid to militants, the books of accounts usually show such sums as 'security expenses.' Theterrorist groups in the state have also used small and medium-sized businessmen as bankers and custodians offunds.
A significant aspect of ULFA's demand note to HLL is its sheer timing. The tea industry in the state is notonly facing a crisis over the payment of bonus to its vast labour force, but is at a critical stage ofpoliticisation of the issue. The traditional Assam Chah Majdoor Sangh (ACMS), an old union of the Tealabourers affiliated to the Congress Party in the state, is of late being challenged by unions formed at thebehest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Left parties. As a result,the latest incident is being viewed by some analysts as an attempt by the HLL 'only to escape the bonusburden'.
This is the first prominent case in which a tea company has made such an extortion demand public andcategorically refused to pay up. Given the same company's earlier decision to close down its operations in thestate in 1990 following a similar demand, its new-found confidence appears indicative of the improved securitysituation in the state. Despite its abilities to execute occasional and significant terrorist strikes, theULFA is in disarray and the present attempt at extortion could be a move to augment depleting resources, soessential to meet its huge operational costs. In the month of May 2003, extortion notices bearing thesignatures of one Prabal Neog were circulated in upper Assam district of Sibasagar. Media reports had thensuggested that the group had a target of Rupees two billion from the Sibasagar, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh andGolaghat Districts. This enterprise, however, appears to have failed. It now remains to be seen whether theHLL example will have any followers.
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Bibhu Prasad Routray is Acting Director, Institute for Conflict Management Database& Documentation Centre, Guwahati. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South AsiaTerrorism Portal
