INDIA – Tea Trouble (23’31”) July 2001 Sunrise in India | Music | 00:00 |
| Montage: People of Assam. | Corcoran: The North East Indian state of Assam, an exotic blend of the subcontinent and East Asia. This is a centre of Tantric Hinduism, built upon the tenets of spiritual purification and control. | 00:16 |
| Large swimming pool | Music | 00:33 |
| Goats in pool | Corcoran: Goats now substitute for the humans routinely sacrificed here as recently as the 19th century. | 00:41 |
| Temple | But outside the confines of the temple, human blood still flows, as this ethereal world collides with the Realpolitik of the 21st century. | 00:52 |
| | Music | 01:03 |
| ULFA troops crossing river. | Corcoran: North East India serves as a crucible for more than a dozen insurgent groups. One of the largest - the United Liberation Front of Assam, or ULFA, has spent more than 20 years waging a war of secession against India – a struggle that’s claimed more than ten thousand lives in the past decade. | 01:23 |
| ULFA Militant | ULFA Militant: we are fighting against the Indian state that is exploiting Assam. All wealth generated here is taken away from Assam and there is no development here. We are fighting against the tyranny of the Indian State. | 01:45 |
| Loading magazines | Corcoran: The government insists the rebels are all but defeated – that Assam has finally embraced peace. | 02:04 |
| Srivastava | Srivastava: If you have felt that this is a place where there is an insurgency, I’ll be surprised – I think that life has come to a normalcy. | 02:11 |
| Women and children. | Music/wailing | 02:18 |
| | Corcoran: Despite such hollow assurances at least 800 people were killed here last year. In Assam the Gods have always been appeased through sacrifice. | 02:31 |
| | And more blood will be shed in this conflict that barely penetrates western consciousness. | 02:46 |
| Map of Assam. | Music | 02:53 |
| Tea Gardens of Assam. | Corcoran: The faded glory of the British Raj lives on the great Tea Gardens of Assam. | 03:15 |
| Krishna Kalita | Every morning, Krishna Kalita sets out from his sandbagged homestead, flanked by police bodyguards. What was a life of privilege has turned into one of the most dangerous jobs in the State. As manager of the Menoka Tea Estate he’s a key target of ULFA guerrillas who operate from the sanctuary of camps in Bhutan barely two kilometres away. Krishna offered to fill in for three months - he’s been here nearly two years. | 03:31 |
| | Krishna: The management selected a few people to come to take over from me – to release me – they have failed to come and report so as a consequence I am continuing here. | 04:03 |
| Corcoran in tea estate. | Corcoran: The people Krishna Kalita fears are in fact his next door neighbours . His tea estate lies right on the international boundary with Bhutan – the small mountain kingdom where sympathy for the insurgents of ULFA run high. In fact there’s an ULFA camp just over that hill, and Krishna knows that at any time he can be killed or kidnapped, despite the massive presence here of more than 100,000 Indian troops who are either unable or unwilling to stop the attacks. | 04:16 |
| | Over the past decade dozens of estate managers have been kidnapped or murdered by ULFA. Krishna’s predecessor was abducted then released after the equivalent of one million U.S. dollars was paid. Twice the rebels have come for Krishna - and twice he’s convinced them to consider the welfare of his workers. | 04:47 |
| Krishna in tea estate. | Krishna: They came with their guns, with AK-47 rifles and we had some interaction and I said – what is wrong with me? I am at least keeping the garden alive. The families – of 5,000 population here – so if you people go on creating the disturbance, the production will immediately be a grinding halt. | 05:11 |
| | Corcoran: The highly lucrative tea industry is seen as both the saviour and curse of Assam. More than a million people are employed on the immense tea gardens – planted a century ago during the days of the Raj. | 05:37 |
| | The British are long gone – the masters now, managers such as Krishna working for Indian Corporations based in far off Calcutta. | 05:51 |
| | ULFA claims this is simply colonialism by another name --siphoning off huge profits while Assam remains one of the most undeveloped states in India. On this point at least, Krishna Kalita, himself an Assamese, can only agree. | 06:02 |
| Krishna | Krishna: Since the last 40 years I remember, there has been no significant development in Assam – particularly in the North East | 06:19 |
| Streets of Guwahati | Traffic | 06:28 |
| | Corcoran: To visit the state capital Guwahati is to immediately appreciate another grievance of the Assamese. | 06:34 |
| | In just three decades Assam’s population has doubled to 25 million. | 06:42 |
| | The vast majority have entered illegally from neighbouring Bangladesh, and continue to pour in at the rate of 300 thousand people a year. | 06:51 |
| Local musicians | Music | 07:03 |
| | Corcoran: Assamese tribes such as the Bodo’s fear being swept away by this tide of humanity. They have much in common with the forest people of Burma and Thailand - to them, the brash, entrepreneurial newcomers are from another world. Little wonder then that this is the heartland for ULFA and other insurgent groups. | 07:13 |
| | Music | 07:35 |
| Rajen | Rajen: Of course I support the ULFA and Bodo militants who want to drive away the Bangladeshis. | 07:37 |
| Boro fishermen | Corcoran: The Boros say early attempts at peaceful co-existence failed because there were simply too many newcomers. Treasured forests were destroyed and their all important fish stocks depleted. When pleas for Government assistance failed – this village elder took matters into his own hands. | 07:49 |
| Rajen | Rajen: Yes, I sent in the elephants to drive them away. I had warned the government that if all other means fail I'd get the people of my village to clear off this forest and then drive the illegal settlers away. | 08:04 |
| Streets of Guwahati | Corcoran: On the streets of Guwahati, we find Krishna Kalita’s son Prabin, who has no intention of following his fathers career path to the estate. | 08:27 |
| Prabin | Prabin: We are worried about him staying there – because his garden is in a militancy infested area and moreover there is a huge communication gap between where I live and his garden. | 08:37 |
| Streets of Guwahati | Corcoran: Prabin is a journalist – with the equally perilous task of covering the insurgency for one of India’s national papers, the Hindustan Times. Delving into the grim underbelly of the conflict – he says reveals corruption on a massive scale. | 08:54 |
| Prabin | Prabin: The fact is both the government and ULFA leaders, they think that the militancy is an industry here and in fact it is an industry. | 09:11 |
| Streets of Guwahati | Corcoran: Both sides in this neglected corner of India use the insurgency as a substitute development fund. ULFA leaders line their pockets with hefty tea executive ransoms, while State Government officials take their cut out of the chaos. | 09:22 |
| Prabin | Prabin: If they actually spend ten dollars in combating the militancy their bill submitted to the central government will be around fifty dollars which means they have an extra income of forty dollars. | 09:41 |
| Indian troops | Corcoran: Prabin’s claims are given currency as we are stopped and searched by Indian troops near his father’s tea estate. There are some 2,000 ULFA rebels in the nearby hills of Bhutan, and we are unwelcome witnesses to a military build-up – as the Indians – with Bhutan’s permission prepare to destroy the rebel camps. | 09:56 |
| | Everyone – including ULFA – knows the attack is coming – just as everyone knows the camps are now deserted – but the Indian forces will still go through the motions. And of course New Delhi will get the bill. | 10:17 |
| Prabin | Prabin: It’s an industry – it’s a very good business. | 10:33 |
| Fireworks | Fireworks | 10:36 |
| | Corcoran: Assamese New Year – a time for celebration. Guest of honour is the State’s Chief Minister, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta - New Delhi’s man in Assam. | 10:40 |
| | He’s survived numerous assassination attempts, and these days, exudes a heavily armed confidence. | 10:55 |
| | His are the politics of denial. ULFA, he says, is all but finished – merely a shadow of the insurgent group that very nearly took control of Assam a decade ago. He says public confidence has returned and the tea estates now free from rebel attack. | 11:03 |
| Prafulla Kumar Mahanta | Chief Minister: Today there is a sea change in the situation and people roam around freely and fearlessly after dark. We are able to concentrate on development activities. Peace has returned. Extortions have stopped. | 11:26 |
| Fireworks | Fireworks | 11:49 |
| | Corcoran: But this bland reassurance is contradicted by the reality on the streets. The colour and chaos of New Year gives ULFA an opportunity to slip into town undetected. We’re directed to a safe house to meet cadres of the movement. | 11:56 |
| Safe house | They welcome our interest in a conflict largely ignored by the outside world. A couple of these militants weren’t even born when the struggle began in the late ‘70s – but the issues remain the same. Assam, they say, has been swamped by outsiders, neglected by an indifferent national government, exploited by the tea barons. | 12:15 |
| ULFA Militant | ULFA Militant: The tea industry has never done anything for the people of this state. Had they bothered to spend even a fraction of the money that they are making out here. Assam would have been a much more developed and prosperous state. | 12:37 |
| Prafulla Kumar Mahanta | Chief Minister: The government has been able to tackle the insurgents and secure the release of the abducted people. The kidnappings are carried out for ransom. But kidnappings have stopped now. | 12:56 |
| | Corcoran: But it’s been widely reported in the local press here that four tea executives have simply vanished off their estate – that there is no other explanation – that the widely held view here is that they are being held captive. Chief Minister: No, not now. Corcoran: No? That’s not true? | 13:19 |
| Safe house | Corcoran: ULFA says such claims are absurd. Tea companies, they argue, are legitimate targets of the struggle and managers continue to be kidnapped despite Government denials. | 13:35 |
| | ULFA Militant: Yes, in December we took two captive and one each in January and February. All we have done is make them understand our rights and to convince them that if the government of India understands and takes steps, we shall release them. Otherwise we shall take the necessary measures against them. | 13:49 |
| | Corcoran: “Necessary measures” is of course a euphemism for murder. And the man with the task of making the “necessary response” is Police Commander G.M. Srivastava – the mastermind of Assam’s counter-insurgency campaign. He’s a somewhat eccentric figure – a former archaeologist and university lecturer – fond of drawing parallels with his past career. | 14:20 |
| Srivastava | Srivastava: I have been a trained archaeologist – I have excavated a few sites. | 14:49 |
| | Once I’ve taken up the task I have to do it with the same sincerity as I would have done teaching my students over there, and maybe the teacher in me makes me study the problem a little deeper. The teacher in me takes them as the younger students who have to be corrected. | 14:52 |
| Police commandos. | Corcoran: It may be a nice academic turn of phrase – but there’s nothing collegiate about Mr. Srivastava’s methods. In Guwahati his so called “student correction” usually takes the form of a dawn raid by heavily armed police commandos. | 15:08 |
| Raid Commander | Raid Commander: If they do have weapons – definitely they will try to fire on us – then definitely we will open fire – we will kill them. | 15:25 |
| Police raid | Corcoran: They’ve heard that ULFA is attempting to infiltrate a hit team into the city and we join a raid on the suspected guerrilla hide out. This is a deadly serious business. | 15:33 |
| | Half of such raids end in a shoot-out at point blank range – many of the 435 militants who died last year were killed this way. | 15:47 |
| | Police: Why are you lying? Tell the truth. Is he here? | 15:57 |
| | Police: Where are your guns? | 16:04 |
| | Man: Please, I beg , do not beat me Police: Why are you crying before we started? Man: They will bet me. | 16:11 |
| | Corcoran: But there’s no ULFA hit team to be found – just a student who hails from the Boro tribal area we visited a few days earlier. He’s immediately detained for questioning. | 16:25 |
| | Police: Why are you crying - we haven't started beating you yet. We have to do some beating to get a confession. | 16:37 |
| Raid Commander | Raid Commander: They are under the pretence of students but they are doing all the recces regarding police movements, regarding VIP movements - everything – so they are being financed by ULFA. | 16:43 |
| | Old Lady: We do not know what the college boys do - We do nor know. | 16:53 |
| | Corcoran: Later, police tell us that after lengthy interrogation, 21-year-old Nilu Das has confessed to being an ULFA intelligence officer. He now faces a lengthy jail term. But the authorities don’t always win. As we filmed this raid another four police commandos were killed by ULFA in an ambush outside town. | 17:04 |
| ULFA guerrillas | These ULFA guerrillas are more than just a bunch of youthful idealists. They prowl the jungles of Assam trained and equipped by those with a very different agenda. | 17:28 |
| | ULFA has an alliance with India’s archenemy Pakistan. And the guerrillas confirm what has long been suspected – their close links to Pakistan’s Intelligence Service – the ISI. | 17:39 |
| Safe house | ULFA Militant: The only link we have with the ISI are that they help us buy weapons. The ISI is involved in drug trafficking - ULFA will never get into drugs. The ISI gives us Pakistani weapons smuggles through Bangladesh. Burma and Bhutan. | 17:53 |
| Civilians massacre | Corcoran: Disturbingly, the insurgency has now entered a new phase – sliding into the familiar template of modern conflict - where civilians are targeted for their ethnicity. Last December, 28 migrant workers from the Indian state of Bihar were lined up and shot. Two boys survived the massacre – witnessing the murder of their fathers as they fled. | 18:20 |
| Assamese Boy | Boy: The bearded one finally said, in Assamese Kill all Biharis! I said to the other boy, let's run for it - and if they shoot us from behind it's okay. | 18:45 |
| | Corcoran: In the past, ULFA had killed migrant labourers and swiftly claimed responsibility – but no one was willing to take the credit for this massacre. | 19:06 |
| Safe house | ULFA Militant: Yes the labourers from Bihar have taken away jobs but they are poor people and we have no quarrel with them. Our objective cannot be achieved by killing them and we are not involved in the massacre. It was a big conspiracy to defame us. | 19:19 |
| Ceremony | Corcoran: ULFA points the finger at these men. | 19:47 |
| | Pledge: We pledge to give up terror and hatred | 19:50 |
| | Corcoran: In a public relations coup for the police, 300 ULFA guerrillas formally surrendered to Chief Minister Mahanta last year. After the ceremony, their guns were promptly handed back and they joined a pro-government militia – the Surrendered ULFA – known as SULFA. | 19:53 |
| | Pledge: We pledge to uphold the principle of Indian democracy. | 20:11 |
| SULFA militia | Corcoran: It’s a cornerstone of Police Commander Srivastava’s strategy of fighting terror with terror. He boasts that his SULFA militia can kill the rebels anywhere, anytime. | 20:21 |
| Srivastava | Srivastava: One such agent of mine – in their camp – he killed nine of them and came out. They can take a lesson from that. If I really want to go destructive and go for the inhuman methods of containing this militancy I can engineer another such case and the whole camp can be blown over there. | 20:35 |
| | Corcoran: But since this ceremony, dozens of civilians have been mysteriously murdered. Most were relatives of rebels still fighting for ULFA. There’s growing suspicion that the Government sponsored SULFA is nothing more than a death squad. | 20:57 |
| Prabin | Prabin: In quite a few instances there are a few survivors who can say – who actually have said – that they have identified their attackers who were former ULFA militants. | 21:13 |
| Krishna | Krishna: I am afraid of now. I am deadly afraid of SULFA’s not ULFA’s. | 21:28 |
| | Corcoran: The ones who’ve surrendered to the Government? You are more frightened… Krishna: That’s right, because they are supported by the Government. Now the election is coming, the paper news says that either the ruling party or other parties want to come for next election to win and rule – they are taking the help of these people. Corcoran: And the surrendered ULFA are killing people? Krishna: Killing people. | 21:36 |
| Percussion band | Percussion band | 22:00 |
| | Corcoran: Last week Chief Minister Mahanta himself was felled – not by an ULFA bullet but at the ballot box. His Hindu Nationalist coalition soundly thrashed in a State election. But ULFA can at least take part of the credit. Mahanta was unable to mobilise his party network - so vital in India’s system of political patronage -- because ULFA had killed 25 of his campaign staff. And the voters certainly had no doubt as to who was backing the mystery death squads. | 22:12 |
| Prabin | Prabin: Innocent relatives of ULFA leaders – they were killed -- there again – by secret killers – and I think that really backfired on Mr. Mahanta. | 22:46 |
| ULFA troops | Corcoran: So the terror continues, with the people increasingly alienated by authority and insurgent alike. Assam’s new State government is now calling for a ceasefire. ULFA has responded by announcing an extortion campaign to raise the equivalent of 50 million dollars this year, while the army is quietly preparing to send in more troops. | 22:56 |
| | Ten thousand dead in a decade - yet few outside the subcontinent seem to know or care. This forgotten, yet highly profitable little war, looks set to drag on. | 23:21 |
| Credits: | Assam Tea Wars Reporter: Mark Corcoran Camera: Brett Ramsay Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen Research: Savitri Choudhury Producer: Ian Altschwager | 23:49 |