Articles by Hiren Gohain

ASSAM The LOC Snowball Hiren Gohain While the charge of Indian exploitation of Assam can be sustained without much difficulty, such exploitation would be impossible without true-blue Assamese leaders co-operating heartily in return for a share of the loot. Their share has come in the form of central grants under different schemes and projects. In fact, 'scheme' has meant 'scam' in Assam for several decades. An old and long-drawn-out such scandal known here as the LOC scam, has now returned to haunt the chief minister and his men.

Case of Assam THE hottest question in Assam today is whether talks between the government and the ULFA will materialise. The AGP ministry has time and again offered to talk to the militants without pre-conditions, only to come up against a deafening silence. From the very beginning the ULFA did not appear keen on talks, partly because a section among them considered any kind of talks a sell-out, partly because the last time such talks were held the negotiations seemed only to advance the personal interests of the 'surrendered' (sic!) ULFA. Yet the people of Assam are overwhelmingly in favour of a dialogue between the government and the extremist organisation, and sharply hostile to the line of extermination popular with certain sections of the central government and the army. That does not mean that they are eager to endorse widespread extortions and sundry killings by ULFA in the name of revolution. Now it is this ambiguity in the Assamese response to the extremist challenge that outsiders, whether resident in Assam or not, find exasperating.

Bodo Stir in Perspective Hiren Gohain The Bodo grievances can be best redressed through a package deal which may include eviction of non-tribal people who have encroached on tribal land after a cut-off year, creation of small autonomous regions where the Bodo population is comparatively numerous, special safeguards for Bodo language and culture and, most important, sharing power with the tribals at the highest level in the state, with Bodo members having permanent berths in the state cabinet and the smaller tribes being represented on it by rotation.

What was the social structure and the substratum of ideas and attitudes which gave rise to the bhakti movement of medieval India which drew support from diverse religious sects? What was the impact of Islam on the content of the movement which attempted to dissolve social taboos and prescriptive communal rules? What was the relationship between the phenomenal growth of the movement and the rise and expansion of commodity production and domestic trade in medieval India? And what if any are the parallels between the heterodox sects of the bhakti movement and the radical sects of European Protestantism?

more dangerous tendency has shown itself. Imports of commodities are being resorted to for political populism and by keeping the prices at artificially low levels they destroy the incentives for growth of domestic production. In such cases the government must be i motored to allow the prices to rise so that the domestic industry can grow and modernise. The government may mop up as much of such price rises as it deems fit by imposing an indirect scarcity tax. In this way resources can be gathered instead of being frittered away in situations of scarcity. Some enlightened recommendations on these parameters would have educated us. Lastly, it is quite surprising that a conclave TILOITAMA Misra's 'Social Criticism in 19th Century Assamese Writing' (September 14) presents a rich array of facts, sufficiently documented. I should like, however, to lake a closer look at certain presupposi (ions implicit in her writing.