Asian Ethnicity, Volume 4, Number 2, June 2003

Memories of the Massacre: Violence and

Collective Identity in the Narratives on
the Nellie Incident1
MAKIKO KIMURA
(PhD candidate, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi, India)

This article is the first intensive academic research on the massacre of February 1983 near
Nellie, a rural area in Assam, India. This incident saw the Tiwas, an ethnic group based
on the Assam plains, attack the Bengali Muslims, who were immigrants, with about 1,600
people being killed. The context of the massacre was a movement by the dominant
community against foreigners, especially East Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants, from
1979 to 1985. The framework of discussion is that nations construct their identities, at least
to some extent, from violent episodes that see the subject attacked by the ‘other’. The main
part of the research method was on-the-spot interviewing, not to ascertain factual material
but to find out the freely expressed views of people on memories and interpretations of the
massacre, and specifically what had caused it.
The paper argues that, in Assamese society the dominant narrative on the massacre was
that of the Assamese intellectuals, while those of the minority groups were subordinate. The
minority groups decided whether to establish their own historical identities largely on the
basis of their choice whether to seek for autonomy or to assimilate with the dominant
community.

1. Introduction
It has been argued that history is essential in the formation of collective identity (a nation,
ethnic group or community). According to Anderson, just as people need their own
biographies, so nations require histories in order to ‘forget’ past divisions within their
communities and validate continuities.2 And especially, narratives on violence such as war,
riot and massacre constitute an important part of the development of national, ethnic or
communal identities. In his book on violence occurring at the time of Indian partition,
Gyanendra Pandey states, ‘in the history of any society, narratives of particular experiences

1 I should like to express my appreciation to Mrs Rina Pator and Mr Manik Chandra Baruah for their kind hospitality
in Nellie. I am also thankful to Mr Pranab Pator and Mr Sanjeeb Kalita for their help as interpreters during my
interviews, and to Mr Bubumoni Goswami for his help in the town of Morigaon. But my greatest appreciation
goes to the Muslim immigrants and Tiwa villagers, who dared to tell me about their painful experiences.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 14th Biennial Conference of Asian Studies Association of
Australia in Hobart in July 2002. I should also like to thank various people who went through the draft and made
comments, but whose names I cannot mention here. Lastly, I should like to thank Yoshikazu Shiobara, who
accompanied me in the initial phase of this research and has given me much useful advice and many comments
during the writing of this paper.
2 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, London,
1991 rev. edn), pp. 204–5.

ISSN 1463-1369 print; 1469-2953 online/03/020225-15  2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1343900032000089954
226 Makiko Kimura

of violence go towards making the “community”—and the subject of history’.3 In many

parts of the world, the interpretation of recent wars is becoming a topic of serious debate
among different sections of the people, since it is an important part in the remaking of their
nationalism.
It can be said that, by narrating the experience of particular violence, people develop
their ‘common memory’ of who ‘we’ and the ‘other’ are. In the narratives, they stress
the difficulties faced and the cruelties the enemy perpetrated. In this process, they define the
enemy—the ‘other’—and, at the same time, construct the category ‘us’. Also, it is often the
case that ‘we’ are positioned as victims and ‘the other’ is positioned as the attackers. Thus,
a narrative of particular violence becomes an important part of nationalism.
In this paper, I focus on the relationship between minority groups’ collective identities
and memory of violence. Compared with the established nations that have already
developed their official national history, minority groups in sovereign states (so-called
ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities or tribes, etc.) have to choose whether or not to
articulate their collective identities. Although recently there has been a tendency for
minority groups to become politically aware and organise movements, there are still groups
that do not (or cannot) choose to claim their rights as a specific group, and thus assimilate
with dominant nations.
When a minority group chooses to distinguish itself from the dominant nation and tries
to establish its own identity, it needs to narrate its own history and define itself as a subject.
If its members choose to assimilate, they do not need their own version of history. In the
Nellie massacre, which occurred in Assam in 1983, the group generally recognised as
the attackers was active in developing its own version of narration on the violence, while
the victims’ group was not.
In this massacre, the interrelation of the groups was very complex. This is because both
the attackers, the Tiwas, a plains tribe in Assam, and the victims, the Bengali Muslim
immigrants from the East Bengal region (present-day Bangladesh) were subordinate groups
in Assamese society economically, politically and socially. Here, we can see the way the
minorities establish their own version of narratives against the master narrative, and the way
they distance themselves from the dominant group.
In this paper, I compare the narratives of the Tiwas (attackers), the Bengali Muslim
immigrants (victims) and the movement leaders (a dominant group) that I have collected in
a research trip conducted in Nellie area in November 2001 and February 2002. By doing
so, I argue that each group has their own interpretation of the cause of the incident, and in
the process of recalling the past, they select the ‘facts’ from their memories. By looking at
the narration of the violence, the power relations between groups become clear. At the same
time, from the experience of the violence, the power relations are reconstructed and the
boundaries among the communities are redefined. By examining the narratives of the
groups, I will argue that the decision taken by the minority groups—whether to establish
their own history or not—is deeply related to their choice whether to seek for autonomy or
choose to assimilate with the dominant community.
In the next section, I briefly outline the facts of the Nellie massacre and the background
of the incident, that is, the anti-foreigners movement in Assam from 1979 to 1985. Also,
I introduce the ethnic composition in the state of Assam. In the third section, I show
the methodology of the research. I compare the narratives of the attackers, the victims and
the movement leaders in the fourth section. In Section 5, I analyse the strategy taken by the

3 Gyanendra Pandey, Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India (Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 2001), p. 4.
 Memories of the Massacre 227

Tiwas and the Bengali Muslim immigrants in Assamese society and examine the reasons
why the former were successful in developing their own version of history while the latter
failed or did not choose to do so.

2. Background of the Massacre

2.1 The Anti-Foreigners Movement in Assam: 1979–1985
On 18 February 1983, immediately after the state legislative assembly election of Assam,
a large-scale massacre took place in Nellie, a rural area in Assam. At the time, there was
a movement in the state against the inclusion of foreigners (mostly East Pakistani and
Bangladeshi immigrants) in electoral rolls. The movement was led by the All Assam
Students Union (hereafter referred to as AASU), and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad
(hereafter referred to as AAGSP), who called for a boycott of the election forced by the
central government. It is widely acknowledged that the movement was an outcome of the
continued immigration to Assam from the East Bengal region since the colonial period.
The Nellie massacre was not the only violent incident at the time. There were numerous
violent incidents before and after the election period, and both local and immigrant people
fell victims. In terms of the number of the dead, however, the Nellie massacre was the
largest one—it is said that around 1,600 people died because of the attack.4 In this incident,
the local people, including the Assamese and tribes such as the Tiwas, the Karbis, the
Mishings, the Rabhas and the Kochs, attacked the Muslim immigrants from East Bengal.
In 1978, because of the death of Member of Parliament Hiralal Patwari, a by-election
to the Lok Sabha became necessary in the Mangaldoi parliamentary constituency. In the
process of holding the bye-election, it was discovered that the number of voters in this
constituency had grown phenomenally. Soon after, the AASU demanded that the election
be postponed and the names of the foreign nationals be deleted from the electoral rolls. This
marked the beginning of the six-year-long movement, the anti-foreigners movement in
Assam.
The main aim of the movement was to detect illegal immigrants from East Pakistan and
Bangladesh, to delete their names from the electoral rolls and to deport them from Assam.
The movement gained mass support from the people, and was very active from the end of
1979. In early 1980, several talks were held between the AASU leaders and Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi. But no agreement could be reached in the talks because of the movement
leaders’ demand that those who entered Assam after 1951 should be deported, while the
government proposed 1971 as the cut-off date.5 In the latter part of 1980, the central
government became oppressive towards the movement. Also, mass support did not last
long, and from 1981 to 1982 the movement stagnated. From the end of 1982, the movement
was revived again because the central government decided to hold the election in Assam
without revising the electoral rolls. The organisers of the movement called for a boycott of
the election, and during the election period, numerous violent incidents occurred, the Nellie
massacre being one of the biggest.
The election and the massacres, especially the one in Nellie in 1983 was the turning
point of the movement. After the Nellie massacre, some of the Muslim student leaders
parted with the AASU because they opposed the anti-Muslim tone of the movement.

4 Sanjib Baruah, India against Itself: Assam and Politics of Nationality (University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadelphia, 1999), p. 134; Sanjoy Hazarika, Rites of Passage: Border Crossings, Imagined Homelands, India’s
East and Bangladesh (Penguin, New Delhi, 2001), p. 155.
5 The AASU claimed 1951 as the cut-off year because National Register of the Citizens was taken in that year.
The Government offered 1971, since that was the year when Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan.
228 Makiko Kimura

The anti-foreigners’ movement in Assam was one of the biggest ethnic movements that
threatened the national integration of India. Before the movement, Assam’s plain areas were
relatively peaceful compared with other north-eastern regions such as Nagaland or Mizo-
ram, and it seemed that the Assamese people were well integrated into the Indian nation.6
However, after the movement, various movements emerged, including militant ones.
Also, it was rare that pan-Indian media focused on an issue in Assam. However, the
movement, and especially the Nellie incident, was widely highlighted and brought the
matter to the attention of people not only in India but also worldwide. However, no
intensive academic research was done on this issue, though several academic works
appeared on the issue of the anti-foreigners movement as a whole. Hence, this is the first
academic research to focus on the cause of the Nellie massacre.

2.2 Ethnic Categories in Assam

Assam is an ethnically diversified society, it is difficult to explain the status of all the ethnic
groups, moreover the boundaries between the ethnic groups are not static and subject to
change. Therefore, rather than identifying each ethnic group by name, I discuss the major
distinctions that are recognised as important in present Assamese society.
As Sanjib Baruah points out, the distinction between ‘immigrant’ and ‘indigenous’
communities is an important social marker.7 According to Myron Weiner, the first foreign
scholar who pointed out the significance of immigration problems in Assam, the immigrant
communities can be classified into several groups: tea plantation labourers, Bengali Hindus,
Bengali Muslims and Marwaris. Tea plantation labourers are usually tribes from Orissa and
Bihar; they are also called black tribals, since most of them have dark skin.8 As for Bengali
Hindus, most of them came to Assam as staff in the colonial administration. Bengali
Muslims are the largest in number, and most of them are peasants from the East
Bengal region. Marwaris, who came to Assam for business and acted as moneychangers,
bankers and general agents to the managers of the tea gardens, played an important role in
opening up Assam to trade. Apart from these, there are Nepalis who came as ‘Gorkha’
soldiers, but then retired or engaged in cattle grazing.9 Most of the immigrant communities
in Brahmaputra Valley adopted the Assamese language and assimilated into Assamese
culture.10
Among the indigenous communities, tribes are recognised as the earliest inhabitants in
this region. It is necessary to distinguish between the hill tribes and the plains tribes, since
the hill tribes had little to do with the Assamese, while the plains tribes slowly accepted
assimilation into Assamese society.
Compared with the hill tribes, those settled in the plains adopted the Assamese way of
life and language, and regard themselves as a part of the Assamese nationality. The major
plains tribes are the Bodos, Mishings, Rabhas and Tiwas. However, recently, most of them
have started autonomous movements, among which that of the Bodos has become the most
active, and some of them have become militarised.

6 Amalndu Guha, ‘Nationalism: Pan-Indian and Regional in a Historical Perspective’, Social Scientist, vol. 12, no.
2 (1984), pp. 53–63.
7 Baruah, India against Itself, pp. xvii, 18–20.
8 Myron Weiner, Sons of the Soil (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1978), pp. 88–104.
9 Baruah, India against Itself, pp. 49–64, and Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement: Class, Ideology and Identity
(Manak, Delhi, 1993), pp. 46, 165–277.
10 Because of its geographical conditions, most of the people of Barak Valley are immigrants from neighbouring
districts in East Bengal and over 75 percent of the population is Bengali-speaking.
 Memories of the Massacre 229

3. Method and Locations

I conducted interviews in two Muslim immigrant villages and two Tiwa villages. In each
village, the number of interviewees was 10 to 15. I usually began by meeting a teacher or
some key person with higher education in the village, followed by interviews with a few
individuals, and would then conduct group interviews with the villagers. No sampling was
taken in the research, for it is currently difficult to stay in a village for a long time to study
a violent incident.11 Also, owing to my lack of proficiency in the Assamese language, I had
to rely on the help of interpreters. However, by explaining the purpose of the research to
the interpreters, and also by repeatedly asking questions by myself to the interviewees, I
could get a basic idea of their views on the cause of the movement and ways of defining
the ‘other’.
In this research, I focused on people’s opinions rather than finding out ‘facts’—what
happened on that day, who were the leaders of the attack, who mobilised the people and
who actually killed the victims, etc. Instead, my focus was on the way people recognise
what had happened and what they believe to be the cause of the incident. This line of
inquiry is more important than fact-finding per se for the purpose of this paper, because my
focus is narratives, the way people interpret the past according to their understanding of the
present and the way they define the ‘other’. Therefore, my questionnaire consisted of only
a few questions,12 so as to allow my interviewees to talk as freely as possible.
Apart from the main questionnaire, I asked about essential information on the villages,
such as their history, the number of educational institutions, the basic infrastructure and the
current problems. These will be described below. I also conducted interviews with local
movement leaders, who were members of the AASU and the AAGSP at the time of the
massacre. The same questionnaire was used to interview the villagers.
The interviews were conducted in three main parts—the Muslim immigrant villages, the
Tiwa villages and the town of Morigaon. The Muslim villages were the location of the
massacre. They are situated north of National Highway 37, and the village called Nellie is
beside the highway. As there was a relief camp for the victims of the massacre in Nellie,
it took its name from this village, but the actual location was 10–20 kilometres away.
The Muslim immigrant villages are surrounded by villages inhabited by local people. In
the northern part of the Muslim immigrant villages, there is an area called Tetelia Tribal
Block, which consists of mainly Tiwa villages, but there are a few Assamese and other
tribal villages. The villagers were said to be the participants in the massacre. A river called
Kopili divides the Muslim immigrant villages and the tribal block.
I chose two villages from among the Muslim immigrant villages and Tiwa villages and
conducted interviews there. Apart from these Tiwa and Muslim immigrants villages, I also
conducted interviews with the Assamese villagers in the villages neighbouring to the
massacre. In this paper, I use the term ‘Nellie area’ when I refer to the Muslim immigrant
villages, the Tetelia Tribal Block and other villages around Nellie. People in this area are
the informants who provided me with first-hand information concerning the massacre. Apart
from the Nellie area, I conducted interviews in the towns of Morigaon and Jagiroad. The

11 During my one-month stay in Assam, the police visited me twice and told me not to make research visits with
their accompanying me for ‘security reasons’. In order to do research without their interference, I had to meet
the Deputy Commissioner and report to the District’s Superintendent of Police.
12 (1) Please tell me the details of the massacre.
(2) What do you think of the cause of the incident?
(3) Were there any confrontations between local people and immigrant Muslims before the massacre or the
movement?
(4) Did you cast a vote in 1983 election? If yes, which party did you vote for?
(5) When the movement started in 1979, what did you think?
230 Makiko Kimura

town of Morigaon is the present district headquarters of Morigaon district, and is 35

kilometres away from Nellie. Jagiroad is a semi-urban area situated on the highway on the
way to Morigaon from Nellie, and it is 12 kilometres away from Nellie. Jagiroad is well
connected to both Morigaon town and Nellie by bus. The main interviewees in these places
are the local leaders of the movement, mainly the AASU and the AAGSP participants. Also,
I conducted interviews with some Tiwa political leaders in these areas.
I conducted interviews in villages A and B in the Muslim immigrant area, and villages
C and D in the Tetelia tribal block. I have withheld the actual names of the villages, since
it is a highly sensitive issue and concerns the privacy of the informants.
Villages A and B are similar in their basic features. Most villagers engage in cultivation,
and the main product is rice. There are one Lower Primary School and one Middle English
School in each village, but there are no hospitals or health centres, and no drinking water
or telephones facilities. Compared with these Muslim immigrant villages, Tiwa villages
have slightly better conditions, but there are no significant differences. The situation of
village C is similar to that of villages A and B. The main product of the villagers is paddy
rice, and there is only one Lower Primary School. Village D has the best facilities in these
four villages.
It should be noted here that in village C, the influence of the All Tiwa Students’ Union
(hereafter referred to as ATSU) is strong. This body was established by the AASU in 1989
after the anti-foreigners movement. Several active members of the ATSU and other closely
related organisations such as the All Tiwa Women’s Association are residents of the
village.13
On the whole, Tiwa villages are in a better condition than the Muslim immigrant
villages. In terms of land possession and family members, the Tiwa villagers owned larger
areas of land and have fewer family members than the Muslim immigrants. As for
education, although the number of schools is similar, the proportion of children attending
is very different. In Muslim immigrant villages, people tend to have many children and
there are fewer chances for them to get an education. However, in this locality, it can be
said that the standard of living of the Tiwas and the Muslim immigrants are almost equal,
though the Tiwas have slightly better access to education.

4. Narratives on the Nellie Massacre

4.1 Different Narratives on the Cause of the Massacre: The Muslim Immigrants,
the Tiwas and the Local Movement Leaders
In the interview,14 I started asking about the details of the incident. Contrary to my
expectations, the explanations on the sequences of the events relating to the massacre that
were given by the Muslim immigrants, the Tiwas and the local movement leaders were
relatively consonant with one other. The basic ‘agreements’ among all interviewees are as
follows: the incident started in the morning (timing given varied from 5am to 10am). At
first, the attackers started burning houses, and then the immigrants noticed that their villages
were gheraoed15 from every side. After burning all the houses, the perpetrators started
killing the inhabitants by using guns, bombs and daos (axes traditionally used by tribes).

13 The formation of the ATSU and its activity will be explained in details in Section 5.2.
14 In the Nellie area, the interviews were conducted in Assamese through interpreters and in such places as Jagiroad
or Morigaon, they were conducted in English. I did not make any corrections to grammatical mistakes, since I
preferred to show the exact words that interviewees used. The same goes for the interviews through interpreters,
since I believe those are more suitable to express the situation at the time of the interview.
15 ‘Gherao’ is an Indian term indicating an act of enclosing, shutting in or surrounding.
 Memories of the Massacre 231

The violence continued into the afternoon until the police and army arrived, at which point
the attackers left. Attackers were local people, including tribes such as the Tiwas, Karbis,
Mishings, Rabhas and Kacharis, etc., and also the Assamese. Some people, including the
Tiwas, said that the Tiwas were the largest group in number.
The emphases and some of the details such as timings and the grouping of the attackers
differed from each other but, generally, their explanations did not contradict, and it is
possible to find common factors and descriptions of the sequence of events. However, the
opinions on the cause of the massacre are widely different and thus the difference in the
narratives of the violence can be prominently found here.
Broadly speaking, the narrations of the three groups of people—the Muslim immigrants,
the Tiwas and the local movement leaders—have their own style of explaining the cause
of the incident. Although the views on the cause of the massacre are different in so many
ways according to the individual, we can find unique characteristics in each group.

The Muslim Immigrants: Revenge for participation in the election. According to the Muslim
immigrants, the massacre was in revenge for their participation in the election. At that time,
the AASU and the AAGSP called for a boycott of the election. However, some of the
immigrants went to the election office and tried to cast a ballot. Most of them consider this
as a cause of the massacre.
For example, when asked about the cause of the incident, villagers in village A
explained in this way:
The election was to be held. And the people of Assam under the banner of AASU decided.
They decided not to get involved in the election process. So they asked all us people not to
vote. They threatened. But some 15, 16 people went to Alichinga polling centre. They went
there for voting but they found nobody there, no polling officers, no election authority people.
And they got back.16

Also in village B, one villager explained the cause of the massacre as follows:
Some students union told not to cast votes … No one was going to vote on that election, only
from Nellie a few … 6 to 7 people went to vote. No election officer came … Their main
demand was not to cast votes. So out of a few went to cast their vote so revenge was taken
against us.17

From these statements, it is obvious that the villagers take the massacre as revenge for
their participation in the election. Also, when asked about the confrontation with the local
people, all of them replied that, before the movement, there was no trouble between them
and the local people, such as the Tiwas and the Assamese.

The Tiwas: The leadership of the AASU. The Tiwas’ views are more diverse than the
Muslim immigrants’. In village C, the incidents of the kidnapping of girls by the
immigrants are cited as the cause of the incident:
Initially, they were peacefully living. But one point was noticed by us later on, that many girls
were kidnapped and they used to kill them … They used to take girls; they used to keep them
at their homes and some of them they used to kill. We were very much offended, and this thing
was shared by the AASU and the Assamese people, these areas’ people.
The main issue was girls … This thing came into light in 1982–83, but it was happening
silently.18

16 Group Interview with the villagers in village A, 12 November 2001.

17 Group Interview with the villagers in village B, 23 November 2001.
18 Group Interview with the villagers in village C, 15 November 2001.
232 Makiko Kimura

However, in another Tiwa village, village D, people did not refer to the kidnapping of
girls as a cause of the massacre. Although they admitted such kinds of incidents occurred,
they did not mention this matter until they were asked about it. Rather, they claimed that
the election and the movement were the direct causes.
The main issue was that particular movement. We only knew that anti-foreigners’ movement
is going on and led by the AASU. We felt one crisis is going on with the Assamese people,
so we united and we gave a stand.19
Interestingly, when asked whether they had any trouble with the Muslim immigrants,
most of them said there was no trouble and had a good relationship with them. Even in
village C, where the people complained vociferously about the kidnapping of girls, they
reported that these things did not start happening until the early 1980s. Before that—before
the movement—they had no trouble with immigrants.
Also, although their views on the cause of the massacre appear to vary, there was one
striking similarity in the description of the incident. It was that the AASU and the AAGSP
took on the leadership of the massacre, and not they themselves. For example, a villager
in village C, who participated in the activities of the AASU, stated:
I am unable to tell how many people sacrificed. Uncountable … I was not physically involved
in the fight. It was led by the AASU. But they cheated. Everybody supported the movement.
All the villages, areas, societies and district supported. Actually we did not know why we had
to boycott the election. They said the cause was foreigner. And whenever they know that this
village was suffered by this kind of troubles, the girls case suppose, so they triggered, means
they said OK we are with you.20
Also, in village D, after the interview was over and the tape recorder was switched off,
the people started talking about their mistrust of the movement leaders.
We were misguided. We helped the Assamese, but once it came into light they did not take
the responsibility and criticised the Tiwas. They said—‘these people are wild’. Many people
started the violence. Not the Tiwas. But they did not take responsibility and escaped.21
As is clear in the above statement, their emphasis is that the AASU and the AAGSP did
not take responsibility for the massacre, but instead laid the blame on the Tiwas. Although
they did not deny that most of the villagers participated in the massacre, they believed their
role was merely to offer help because the movement leaders asked for it. Therefore, even
if the people in village C claimed there was trouble regarding the kidnapping of girls, this
was just the secondary reason for their participation in the massacre. They suggested that
the AASU used this matter to gain support to attack the immigrants.

The Local Movement Leaders: Troubles between the local people and the Muslim immi-
grants. The members of the AASU and the AAGSP were the most vocal and very clear in
explaining the cause of the massacre. Most of them claimed that confrontation had arisen
between the local people and the immigrants on various issues such as land alienation and
cultural identity. It was the continued influx of the immigrants from the East Bengal region
that gave rise to this confrontation. For example, Mr X, a member of the AAGSP stated:
Some mistrust between the two communities … Immigrant Muslims and Local people. Mainly
tribal people … The Tiwas and the Karbis and also the Assamese communities. They [are]
gradually grabbing the land. The crisis of identity. Local people feel that they become minority.
Actually religious minority becomes majority in that area … Direct cause is identity. The
identity of indigenous people.22

19 Group Interview with the villagers in village D, 24 November 2001.

20 Group Interview with the villagers in village C, 15 November 2001.
21 Group Interview with the villagers in village D, 24 November 2001.
22 Interview with Mr X in Morigaon, 21 November 2001.
 Memories of the Massacre 233

Mr Y, who was a convener of the AAGSP in Morigaon, narrated it in more detail. He

emphasised that the Muslim immigrants harassed the local people, forcing them to move
from their homes.
The thing is this, if Muslim people are inhabited near the Assamese villages, generally, paddy
field is forcefully harvested by the Muslim people at night. And for such type of misbehaviour
of the Muslim people, the Assamese people generally think that they are harassed by the
Muslim people … In that way, they are stealing their cattle, stealing the Hindu girls, in that way
they are harassing the Assamese people and lastly, it happens that the Assamese people
forcefully [were forced to?] sell the land to the Muslim people … In that way, the Muslim
people were grabbing the land of the Assamese people.23

For the local movement leaders, it was clearly the appropriation of their land that caused
the massacre. From their point of view, the cause was long standing, with mistrust between
the local people and the immigrants. Moreover, when asked about the relation of the AASU
and the AAGSP with the massacre, all of them denied that the AASU and the AAGSP had
taken on a leadership role.
It is possible to summarise the pattern of the narratives as follows. To the Muslim
immigrants, the massacre was seen as revenge against their participation in the election. The
Tiwas, on the other hand, emphasise that the AASU and the AAGSP urged them to attack
the Muslims, though they also have their own reasons for attacking the immigrants, since
they had troubles regarding the security of their members. And the local movement leaders
consider the massacre as an outcome of the continued influx of Muslim immigrants and
their expropriation of land.
Taking a look at the three styles of the narratives on the cause of the massacre, it can
be said that each has developed their own version and selectively picked up the ‘facts’ from
their memories according to what they consider suitable for their stories. However, the
extent of acceptance of the narratives is not the same. Some narratives are more widely
known and accepted in society, while others are subordinate. In the next section, I shall
argue that the local movement leaders’ narrative is dominant, and others are subordinate in
Assamese society, and suggest the reason for it.

4.2 The Dominant Narrative in Society: Land Alienation by Immigrants?

In the writings of academics and journalists in Assam and India, the problem of land
alienation by the Muslim immigrants has up to now been regarded as the cause of the Nellie
massacre. It has been said that tribes in Assam have lost their land because of the continued
Muslim influx. And when scholars and journalists try to analyse the cause of the Nellie
massacre, they have often suggested that land alienation was deep among the Tiwas. For
example, Sanjib Baruah has written as follows:
Some of the worst violence occurred in villages around Nellie, an area where the Tiwa people
once had their kingdom; much of the area is now settled by Bengali immigrants and their
descendants. Tiwas (also called Lalungs) are a ‘plains tribe’ who had lost much of their land
to immigrants from East Bengal.24

The Asssamese journalist Sanjoy Hazarika wrote:

In the case of Nellie and its surrounding villages, those who sold their lands were the Tiwas.
Their bitterness grew as they saw the immigrants nourish the soil and grow more crops, making

23 Interview with Mr Y in Morigaon, 21 November 2001.

24 Baruah, India against Itself, p. 134.
234 Makiko Kimura

profits on fields which were, until recently, their own … Perhaps it (the day of the massacre)
would be better described as pay-back day.25
It is clear that the cause of the massacre given in these two writings is consistent with
that of the local movement leaders. It should be noted here that most of the local movement
leaders in Morigaon were college lecturers or schoolteachers, and so-called caste-Hindu
Assamese.26 Being intellectuals, they had better access to top movement leaders’ claims and
newspaper reporting. It can be said that the local movement leaders’ narrative represents the
dominant narrative of the Assamese intellectuals. And although they talk about the ‘cause’
of one incident, the dimensions of their narratives are different. The local movement leaders
state the structural cause, while the Muslim immigrants and the Tiwas talk about the direct
cause. The Muslim immigrants identified the cause as their participation in the election.
They recognise the violence only as an event, and do not relate it to the history of continued
immigration or the movement. Thus they suggest only the ‘direct’ cause of the incident. As
for the Tiwas, when they talk about the ‘cause’, their statement also refers to the direct
cause, the kidnapping of the female members of their community and the AASU’s
leadership.
However, the movement leaders narrate the cause in a totally different way. They
attribute the cause of the violence to the historical problem of land alienation among the
local people, especially the Tiwas, by the immigrants. They argue that immigration itself
is a fundamental problem and suggest that the cause of the problem is in the social structure
of Assamese society. Unlike the Tiwas and the Muslim immigrants, they make no reference
to any direct cause.
There might be several factors accounting for the difference in the interpretations.
However, it should be noticed that the narratives of the attackers and the victims—people
who actually participated in and were affected by the massacre—became subordinate, while
that of the local movement leaders, which represent the opinions and viewpoints of
Assamese intellectuals, are dominant in Assamese society.

5. Establishing Collective Identity in Counter-Narratives

In the previous section, I showed that there were three styles of narratives on the cause of
the massacre, and among the three, the local movement leaders’ narrative is the dominant
one in Assamese society. In this version, the immigrants are projected as an ‘enemy’ who
harassed local people and forced them to leave the place. Thus, they suggest that though
the local people are the attackers in the violence, they are actually the victims of the
immigrants’ misbehaviour. In this style of narrative, the immigrants are positioned as the
‘other’ and the local people, including the Assamese and the tribes, are lumped into one
category distinct from the immigrants.
However, even though the Tiwas supported the AASU and the movement and partici-
pated in the massacre, they later came to identify themselves as a different subject from the
Assamese. On the other hand, the victims did not choose to define clearly the attackers or
the AASU as the ‘other’. I analyse the reason behind the difference below.

5.1 Defining the ‘Other’: Identity in Counter-Narratives

As noted in the Introduction, by narrating the experience of the violence, people define who
the enemy was, the ‘other’. In this process, they construct the boundary between ‘we’ and

25 Hazarika, Rites of Passage, p. 46.

26 The term ‘caste-Hindu’ indicates that a person belongs to the four varnas of the Hindu caste, and is not an outcaste
or ‘untouchable’. Hinduised tribes like Tiwas are not included in caste-Hindu Assamese.
 Memories of the Massacre 235

‘they’. However, in the case of the Muslim immigrants, although they stress the gravity of
the sufferings they experienced, they do not describe the attackers. When asked who the
attackers were, some of the people replied they did not know, while others vaguely defined
them as ‘local people’.
As shown in the previous section, they state that members of the AASU took revenge
on them because some of the Muslim peasants had gone to cast a vote. However, they do
not define the AASU as a complete ‘enemy’. When they are asked what they think about
the movement, they acknowledge that the movement leaders’ claim itself was right. But at
the same time, they point out that the movement leaders harassed the immigrants who came
to Assam before the partition and independence of India. Their main criticism was on this
point. Therefore, the point of the argument was on the misidentification of the foreigners
and not on the movement policy itself.
It can be said that as there have been doubts over the legitimacy of the immigrants’
existence in Assam, criticism on the movement policy itself could be a dangerous act for
immigrants. When they expressed their criticism, they were often regarded as illegal
foreigners. The movement leaders often used the logic that ‘if you are Assamese, you
should support our policy’. Therefore, it was—and is still—difficult for them to criticise the
movement policy itself, and they had some reservations in differentiating themselves from
the ‘Assamese’. If they define the movement leaders or the local people as the ‘other’, that
means they are different from those ‘indigenous and genuine’ people, and it could
undermine the legitimacy of their residence in Assam.
The Tiwas were more successful than the Muslim immigrants in defining the ‘other’ and
developing themselves as a subject. The Tiwas’ narrative is the most interesting in this case
because, although their ‘enemy’ at the time of the massacre was the Muslim immigrants,
in the narrative they differentiate themselves from the movement leaders and the ethnic
Assamese. One Tiwa woman, a member of the All Tiwa Women Association, observed:
Before the massacre, there was no difference among the Tiwas and the Rabhas [another plains
tribe in this area]. We were all tribes as well as the Assamese. However, though the AASU said
‘We are all Assamese’, they cheated us. They had slogans like ‘come out of your home’. We
participated in the movement because when they become government they will do the
development properly but they did not. The AGP came into power in 1985. The All Tiwa
Students’ Union was formed in 1989. The situation is [the] same for the Rabhas or Plain
Karbis. They [were] disappointed [with] the AGP and the AASU so they formed their own
organisations.27

In the above statement, the AASU, the AGP and the Assamese community as a whole
are criticised for betraying the expectations of the Tiwas and for failing to attend to the
economic development of the people. It can be seen that the speaker not only questions the
issue of the leadership in the massacre, but also raises the economic backwardness and
neglected status of the Tiwas in Assam politics. Hence, the Nellie massacre is narrated as
a symbol of the system that forced them to stay at the bottom of the society.

5.2 Autonomy or Assimilation? Choice of Strategy and Identity by Minorities

Although their narratives are equally subordinate in Assamese society, the degree of success
in developing themselves as a subject in their own history differs in the case of the Tiwas
and the Muslim immigrants. As explained in the previous section, the Tiwas are much quite
successful and positive in distinguishing their identity from the Assamese, while the

27 Interview with Ms U. in a village in Tetelia tribal block, 15 November 2001.

236 Makiko Kimura

Muslim immigrants are not. It is my argument that the reason for the difference lies in
the Muslim immigrants’ present status in Assam politics and their strategic distance from
the Assamese. As this point, though it is difficult to prove with concrete evidence, I would
suggest the probability of a relation between the development of collective identity and the
strategy they adopt in society.
It has been argued that the plains tribes like the Tiwas have slowly adopted the
Assamese way of life and the language, and that they are in a process of assimilation.28
However, from the late 1980s, a section of Tiwa people have started to establish their own
identity.
Tiwa movements were not totally absent before the 1980s. As early as 1967, they had
established Lalung (another name for Tiwa) Darbar, a socio-economic and cultural organ-
isation which demanded the creation of a separate autonomous district for the Lalung tribe
under the sixth schedule29 of the Constitution of India. The main purpose for creating an
autonomous district at the time was to promote the economic development of the Tiwa
people.30
To realise this objective, the All Tiwa Students’ Union (hereafter referred to as ATSU)
was formed in 1989 and, together with the Lalung Darbar, demanded the establishment of
the Autonomous Tiwa District. In 1994, an Ordinance of the Governor of Assam created
the Lalung Autonomous Council (hereafter referred to as LAC). At that time, the Congress
was the ruling party at the Assam Legislative Assembly, and the LAC was realised under
the leadership of chief minister Hiteswar Saikia.31
However, the LAC did not wholly meet the demands of the Tiwas. The main demand
of the Autonomous Lalung District Demand Committee (an offshoot of Lalung Darbar and
some other Lalung organisations) was the adoption of the sixth schedule and hence the
creation of the Autonomous District with a distinct territory; and this point was not fulfilled.
Also, according to the Ordinance, 26 out of 30 members of the General Council were
elected directly by the state government. Therefore, when the ruling party of the state
government changed, the members of the General Council would also be re-elected.32
Because of the inadequacy of the LAC, some people have termed it a puppet
organisation of the state government and continued their demand for an Autonomous
Council. This led to the creation of the Autonomous Demand Struggling Forum (ADSF) in
1994. They also formed the United People’s Front (UPF), the political wing of the ADSF,
and contested the election for the State Legislative Assembly. The ADSF is an organisation
mainly for the Tiwas, but the UPF includes other tribal communities such as the Rabhas and
the Plain Karbis. Presently, the ATSU has a strong relation with the ADSF and is a part
of UPF, as well as of the students’ unions of the Rabhas and the Plain Karbis.33
The Tiwa autonomous movement is not only political and economic, but also has a
cultural aspect. Tiwa Sahitya Sabha, the Tiwa literary organisation that was formed in 1981,
has a strong relation with this movement. Initially, Tiwa Sahitya Sabha did not have any
political links, but in 1993, Mr Tulsi Bordoloi, the present chairman of the ADSF, became
the president of the Sabha. Also, after this period, Tiwa Sahitya Sabha started using the

28 Hussain, The Assam Movement, p. 171, and Guha, ‘Nationalism: Pan-Indian and Regional in a Historical
Perspective’, p. 59.
29 The Sixth schedule of the Constitution of India states that a new autonomous district can be created by the
Governor’s public notification.
30 Interview with ex-member of the Tiwa Autonomous Council in Nellie area, 15 February 2002; The Lalung Darbar,
Memorandum to Shri Rajiv Gandhi. Prime Minister of India, New Delhi (10 November 1987), pp. 2–3.
31 The Assam Gazette Extraordinary, 13 July 1995; Autonomous Lalung District Demand Committee, A
Memorandum to Shri Hiteswar Saikia, Chief Minister of Assam (10 May 1993).
32 Ibid.
33 Interview with Mr Tulsi Bordoloi, chairman of the ADSF, in Jagiroad, 13 November 2001.
 Memories of the Massacre 237

Roman script instead of the earlier used Assamese script. In 1995, the Sabha published
Tiwa Matbadi, a Tiwa–Assamese–English Dictionary, and in it adopted the Roman script.
It can be said that the Tiwa Sahitya Sabha is moving toward establishing its own language
and literature, apart from the Assamese language.34
Therefore, it is clear that the present movement by the ATSU and the ADSF is aiming
for the creation of their own identity. These groups are trying to establish themselves as
politically, economically and culturally distinct from the Assamese.
Compared with the active movement by the Tiwas, the Bengali Muslim immigrants are
less articulate in establishing themselves as a distinct ethnic group in Assamese society. It
has been pointed out that the Bengali Muslim peasants have adopted the Assamese language
and reported it as their mother tongue at the time when the census was conducted. Indeed,
it was the Bengali Muslim peasants’ adoption of Assamese language that made Assamese
the majority language in the state of Assam.35 Commenting on the development, Myron
Weiner, the first foreign scholar to study the immigration problem in Assam before the
anti-foreigners’ movement was started by the AASU, pointed to an ‘unspoken coalition
between the Assamese and the Bengali Muslims against the Bengali Hindus’.36
This situation has continued to the present. In 2002, Assam Sahitya Sabha (ASS), the
largest literary and cultural organisation of the Assamese people, held its annual session in
Kalgachia in Barpeta district. Kalgachia is an area dominated by the Bengali Muslim
immigrants. It was the first time in the history of the ASS that the session took place in such
an area, and the Bengali Muslim people in Kalgachia largely welcomed it.37
There has been a significant change in ASS’s stance toward linguistic minorities in
Assam. In the 1960s and in 1970s, ASS was the most influential organisation that
encouraged the introduction of Assamese as the official language in the state and a medium
of instruction in schools. At the time, ASS was strongly criticised for imposing Assamese
on tribes and other non-Assamese speaking people. In the anti-foreigners’ movement, ASS
was one of the core organisations that formed the AAGSP. However, in 2001, Mr Homen
Borgohain became ASS’s president, and he adopted the policy of building a greater
Assamese nationality. His concept of a greater Assamese nationality does not exclude the
people whose mother tongue is not Assamese. His view is that those who work to promote
Assamese literature and show interests in Assamese language and literature should be
accepted as Assamese people.38
The Bengali Muslim people in Kalgachia seemed to welcome this move. Compared
with their response, the Tiwas are still doubtful about this change in ASS’s stance. To my
query whether the ASS is now changing their stance, Mr Tulsi Bordoloi, a chairman of the
ADSF and the ex-president of the Tiwa Sahitya Sabha, replied as follows:
Yes, it is ah … Actually, some measure has been taken by the ASS in case of development of
language or the culture of the ethnic people. And they have also taken the Muslim people
migrated to Assam, given the name to them as ‘new Assamese’. But it is not sufficient. How
much damage had been already made, especially in case of ethnic people. In comparison to
that, that measures taken by the ASS is not sufficient … Many times, this Sahitya Sabha has

34 Interviews with Mr Udhab Senapati, the founder-president of the Tiwa Sahitya Sabha, in the Nellie area, 15
February 2002; Mr Tulsi Bordoloi, 14 February 2002; Kholar, V. Len, Tiwa Matbadi (Tiwa Dictionary), (Tiwa
Sahitya Sabha, Guwahati, 1995).
35 Guha, ‘Nationalism: Pan-Indian and Regional in a Historical Perspective’, p. 59; Anindita Dasgupta, ‘Political
Myth-Making in Postcolonial Assam’, Himal, vol. 13, no. 8 (August 2000), pp. 15–19.
36 Myron Weiner, ‘The Political Demography of Assam’s Anti-Immigrant Movement’, Population and Development
Review, vol. 9, no. 2 (1983), pp. 284–5.
37 The Assam Tribune, 13 February 2002.
38 Homen Borgohain, Address of the President, Sixty-sixth Session of Asam Sahitya Sabha (9 February 2001); The
Assam Tribune, 13 February 2002.
238 Makiko Kimura

been used as the platform of ethnic chauvinism. Mistakes, before. If the ASS would have
contributed for the development of Assamese language, ethnic culture, then there would not be
any ethnic Sahitya Sabha.39
From the above argument, it can be said that the situation and the strategy taken by the
Tiwas and the Bengali Muslim immigrants are very different. The Tiwas started seeking
their own identity separate from the Assamese, and the Bengali Muslim immigrants
continue the same stance of assimilating to the Assamese language. It is clear that the
difference in the narratives of the Tiwas and the Muslim immigrants is related to their
present strategy, as to whether or not they seek a distinct identity. The Tiwas clearly
differentiate themselves from the Assamese, while the Muslim immigrants are ambiguous
on this point. Therefore, it can be said that people select the ‘facts’ from their memories
and create their own version of narrative histories according to their political, economic and
cultural status.

6. Conclusion
From the analysis in this paper, it is possible to say that there are so many ‘facts’ around
the massacre and thus there are many interpretations concerning what caused it. From these
various interpretations, people choose one interpretation that best suits them, or the one that
is least harmful to their interests.
These narratives are not equally accepted in society. That of the local movement leaders
became the dominant one, while the Tiwas’ and the Muslim immigrants’ narratives became
subordinate. The Tiwas are getting some social and political space for their claims through
their autonomous movement. At the same time, they are developing a counter-narrative
about the violence, different from that of the Assamese. Among the three groups, the
Muslim immigrants are the least clear and vocal in narrating the massacre. They do not
have their own organisations or media to express their interests.
From the arguments in this paper, it can be said that minority groups’ strategies have
a significant influence on their narratives of the past, in this case, memories of violence. The
minority groups choose the strategy according to the political, economic and social
conditions in society, and they decide whether or not to pursue their own identity. When
they choose to establish themselves as distinct and separate from the dominant group, they
need to narrate their own version of history, to define themselves as a subject in it, and to
differentiate themselves from the dominant group. When they judge that assimilation is the
best way to retain their status in society, they do not need to define themselves as a distinct
group.
The Tiwas are in the process of establishing their own identity in order to attain an
autonomous district. In this process, they need to define themselves as different from the
Assamese, and the experience of the Nellie massacre is interpreted in this context. They
emphasise the betrayal by the Assamese people, and claim that the Assamese exploited the
Tiwas on behalf of their own interests. We can conclude that the experience of the massacre
and participation in the movement against foreigners clarified the power relations between
the Tiwas and the Assamese. Successively, the autonomous movement of the Tiwas
redefined the boundary between communities.
As for the Muslim immigrants, they still choose (or are forced) to assimilate with the
dominant Assamese community. For them, it is not only unnecessary, but even harmful, to
distinguish themselves as different from indigenous Assamese society. From my research

39 Interview with Mr Tulsi Bordoloi in Jagiroad, 14 February 2002.

 Memories of the Massacre 239

in the Nellie area, I posit two possible interpretations of their reasons for keeping their old
policy of assimilation into Assamese society.
The first one is that the Muslim immigrants do not have the power to establish a distinct
identity and mobilise themselves as an ethnic group. The second is that, although they have
the power, they judge that it is more beneficial for them to assimilate with the Assamese.
In the latter case, the Nellie massacre should be forgotten, as Anderson stated. In order to
clarify this point, further research and examination are necessary. In my opinion, Muslim
immigrants in the Nellie area do not have the power to establish their own identity. As a
whole Bengali Muslim community in Assam, it might be possible for them to establish their
movement.40
Until now, there has been no intensive examination of relationships between narratives
of history (especially those involving memories of violence) and the identity formation of
ethnic minorities. From the analysis in this article, it can be said that minorities have to
choose whether or not to articulate their identities, especially when we make comparisons
with established nations that have already developed their official histories. This formation
of collective identity has a strong influence on the development of the counter-narratives
against the dominant official history of the majority. Further studies on minorities’
collective identity formation and the narratives of their history are necessary in order to
understand the complex realities in which multiple narratives of histories by dominant
majorities and less powerful minorities intersect.

40 Being an immigrant group, Bengali Muslims lack a territorial base in Assam, and that is one important reason
why they have no autonomous movement, as the Tiwas do. I thank my guide, Dr Tiplut Nongbri, Associate
Professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, for her suggestion on this point.