Revolution as Business

On Friday, the Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF) announced a unilateral ceasefire from December 1, 2009 to March 1, 2010 in an attempt to get a positive response from the government. “We have taken this decision for the sake of peace in Karbi Anglong. We want a political solution to the problems afflicting the hill district,” said Jijak Dera, publicity secretary of KLNLF. “Ours is not a problem of unemployment, but a political problem that needs to be solved politically. We appeal to all MPs and MLAs of the State to help bring back peace in Karbi Anglong,” he added. This is typical of how ‘revolution’ or ‘insurgency’ has been turned into a business or industry in the Northeast. A group of youths finds a ‘cause’ that can have local backing for militancy; the group starts recruiting young people until there is a respectable number of 300 or 400 cadres. With just a few weapons to intimidate people, they raise enough money to buy more weapons that enable them to take intimidation to a totally different level where they can intimidate district council officers into siphoning development funds from the Centre to buy weapons for the outfit and much else for the leaders, as the DHD(J) has managed to do. In other words, these revolutionaries are able to use arms to coerce the administration into subsidizing an anti-India revolution with public money! And just when things start getting too hot for the outfit it is time to talk about unilateral ceasefires and offering to have talks with the government so that the district or region may return to peace. Well, the district did have peace before you decided to pick weapons to start a revolution that you had no intentions or means of sustaining. And a group that denies that there is a problem of unemployment actually knows there is such a problem. As ordinary students or dropouts they know they have no chance of getting any jobs. So they rely on the bad precedent created by the government of creating jobs for those who took up arms against the government and then said a partial farewell to arms rather  than to those who never picked up arms at all. There is a major aberration working in favour of those who have ‘rebelled’ and wanted to return to the mainstream, and they are capitalizing on this charade of revolution for turning it into a business. THE SENTINEL