The Faces of Statehood Supporters in India’s Northeast

Vivek Singh, International New York Times, 16 October 2013: It was late July, and the monsoons had finally arrived in Delhi. The month of July had been particularly good for me: my work from the northeast was finally getting some recognition and I had been awarded a prestigious global grant to continue my project on ethnic conflict related displacement in western Assam, India. 

I was in just the initial planning phases for my next trip to Kokrajhar in the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District, home of the Bodo tribals, which was to be the epicenter for my reportage work. Clashes there had displaced more than 400,000 ethnic Bodos and Bengali Muslims just over a year earlier, which I had documented. 

Meanwhile, in the national capital, the government finally gave the go-ahead to the proposal for the formation of Telangana, a new southern state to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh. Soon afterward, many areas in the northeast saw a renewed call for statehood. 

I was particularly interested in the Bodoland areas, where people were calling for a separate state of Bodoland, and Karbi Anglong, one of the largest hill districts in India, where the ethnic Karbis were also demanding their own state. In my initial years as a photographer, I had spent considerable time in both these places covering conflict-induced displacement. 

I found out through my sources in Kokrajhar that the ethnic Bodos would be putting up a rail blockade starting Aug. 2 in Kokrajhar to draw attention to their demand for statehood. At the time, I was still in Delhi, and I was told that traveling by road wasn’t safe. I decided to go anyway, first flying to Guwahati on the morning of Aug. 1 and then catching the evening local from the Kamakhya station to Kokrajhar. 

As it was the last day before the rail blockade, hordes of people were on the train, heading home. Kokrajhar has seen much violence in the past few decades, and everyone seemed edgy as I got into town. 

Nearly 100,000 people turned up the next morning, standing on the railway tracks, blocking all rail traffic connecting mainland India to the northeastern corridor. The chants of “Why Telangana? Why not Bodoland?” stopped only later in the evening. I had never seen such a gathering in this idyllic small and sleepy town. People had come from far-flung villages all over western Assam to ask for a separate homeland. 

There was a strike the next day, a regular occurrence in these parts, followed by another huge rally. This was followed by another strike, which went on for a full 72 hours, bringing the town to a total standstill. Even the cooking gas in our hotel ran out, which meant limited food for a few days. 

Stuck in my tiny hotel room in Kokrajhar, I watched TV. The flashing headlines of a local news channel informed me that numerous government buildings had been torched and train tracks removed in the Karbi Anglong district by angry activists of different organizations demanding a separate state. 

Karbi Anglong, a district in Assam with an area of 10,434 square kilometers (4,000 square miles), has mostly been in news for its militancy and sectarian disturbances, but the statehood movement, which started in 1960, had been fairly subdued in recent years. The fresh demand of statehood in Bodoland also revived the statehood movement in the Karbi Anglong region. 

On July 31, an angry group of students marched up to the Karbi Anglong Autonomous District council in Diphu, the district headquarters of Karbi Anglong, to plead with their leaders to hold talks with New Delhi on statehood. Subsequently, security forces, including the Assam police and Central Reserve Police Force cadres, were deployed to disperse the crowd, which refused to budge. 

Eventually, the officers started firing tear gas canisters and live bullets without any warning, which led to the death of one youth and injuries to nine others. Then the angry mob started torching government buildings and public vehicles in Diphu. I immediately started looking for a way to get to Diphu, which I eventually reached with some difficulty. I spent many days there shooting the scenes of devastation. 

Meanwhile, protesters in the Darjeeling Hills of West Bengal had escalated their demands for their own Gorkhaland. They had blocked access to the hills for close to two weeks by the time I decided to head to Darjeeling. Reporting in Assam can be a tedious task, with access and connectivity being a struggle, but I thought the story wouldn’t be complete without images from Darjeeling, as it sits atop the narrow strip of land that connects mainland India to the northeast. 

After finding a driver who would take me to Darjeeling from New Jalpaiguri for triple the usual price, we spent four hours winding through empty mountain roads that were regularly blocked by villagers. I would then get out of the car with my camera and have a long conversation with the locals, who would then let us through. 

The streets of Darjeeling were usually empty during the day, but they would fill up in the evenings with large crowds, addressed by local college student leaders. I stayed for many days photographing and collecting stories. 

Vivek Singh is a freelance photojournalist based in New Delhi. He reported with the help of a grant from the Manuel Rivera Ortiz Foundation for Documentary Photography and Film.