This river crusader’s death turned tide against ULFA

Twenty years ago to this day, at the riverine island of Majuli, a 38-year-old man set out to speak to village men at a goat farm. But, what happened thereafter, changed the discourse of the state’s politics forever.

Sanjay Ghose, a rural development activist, who was working in the island to help the local people deal with the onslaught of the Brahmaputra, set out to meet the villagers who stayed close to the river to discuss ways of dealing with the problem. Soon after, some men who said they were from the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) asked Ghose and his colleague Chandan Doley to cycle with them. That was the last that anyone ever heard of Ghose. 

Ghose’s wife, Sumita, who was at another end of the island, remembers the endless wait. “For the longest time we did not know what happened. ULFA gave out contradictory statements, and there was a lot of running around. If a violation is caused by the state, you can go to the police, the court, an MP or an MLA to complain. But, who does one protest to about a outlawed organisation, which is faceless,” says Sumita.

Ghose’s legend lives on in various ways. In March this year, as part of the ArtEast Festival held at the IIC, the National Foundation of India (NFI) showcased a programme called Mukhabhaona, where the centuries-old mask-making tradition was shown along with a choreographed performance by bhaona artists from Majuli. The programme paid a personal tribute to Ghose.

It was later revealed that Ghose was killed soon after the abduction, and his body was thrown into the Brahmaputra. It was never found. Ghose’s disappearance led to a huge uproar, especially in the national imagination. His disappearance, and eventual death, was also the moment when in the popular imagination, the tide turned against the ULFA. When, in 2007, ULFA leader Mrinal Hazarika and some cadres surrendered, they apologised for Ghose’s murder. ULFA leader Paresh Baruah, too, went on to say that no instruction came from the leadership for his murder. Sumita says that the apology was a shallow one. “It did not touch me at all. No leader apologised to me personally,” she says.

Last month, in Guwahati, too, the Maati Centre carried out a performance by artiste Parnab Mukherjee. In the performance, organised by Q-Rated, Mukherjee carries out a performance where a pregnant man, tries to reason with the unborn child who does not want to be born. The performance, too, was a tribute to Ghose.

“I wanted to look at the idea of Sanjoy, and the costs that he bore for being a stringently independent voice who spoke out against the dispensation,” says Mukherjee. Vivek Lohia of Q-Rated says that it was important to hold a tribute to Sanjoy in Guwahati. "Sanjay said that if Assam is a microcosm in India, then Majuli is a microcosm in Assam," he says.

Majuli is still battling the continuous assault of the Brahmaputra. In 1905, when it was first recorded, Majuli’s land mass was 1255 sq km. By 2011, only 520 kms remain. “Sanjoy started the awareness about the erosion and spoke about it in the national space. He tried to initiate people’s action to stop the erosion. These are the reasons was why he was stopped,” says Sumita.