WHY UPENDRA NATH BRAHMA IS CALLED “BODOFA?”

                                                                                                         U. G. Brahma, Ex-MP (RS)

A highly academic career conscious student in his school & college days, U. N. Brahma aimed to be a scientist in life first. But finally he opted for the path of movement as the career of life and led famous Bodoland Mass Movement from the 1987 to 1990. A question arises regularly that why he is Bodofa and what is “Bodofa?”.  “Bodo” is a name of community and “Fa” mean the father i.e. father of the Bodo – “Bodofa.” Bharat existed before Gandhi also, but independent India was founded by him and therefore, he is called father of the nation.  Bodo also existed before Bodofa as well, but he founded modern Bodo by bringing struggle for existence, and world recognized Bodo as distinct nationality and therefore, he is regarded as the father of the Bodos or Bodofa. His movement brought about new consciousness amongst entire tribal people of Assam about their rights, privileges, identity and created great zeal for existence with distinct identity. He struggled against chauvinistic and hegemonic rule of Assam and fought for the salvation of language and cultural identity of the Bodos as well as the tribal as a whole from any kind of domination. He was neither influenced by any kind of thought of Bodo Chauvinism nor inflexibly anti-Assamese emotion also. Having educated in Assamese medium, he had the strong command in Assamese language also and being Guwahatian during his College and University days, he enjoyed a good circles of Assamese friends too. In fact he was steadfastly against any kind of exploitation because; from his childhood itself he had witnessed how the innocent and illiterate society gets exploited by clever traders or businessmen from outside.  His village was one of the brilliant examples of the way how Bodo villages had been exploited economically and lost lands in the hands of money Lenders or businessmen. In his village maximum families lost their ancestral lands in the hands of shop owners because they had to hand over that to them on failing of making payment of money for the goods they used to take on credit. That was a common phenomenon in many tribal villages till the last part of the 20^th century and such situation forced thousands of Bodo tribe to leave their ancestral lands also. In search of new lands to live they had to travel here and there in the forests or no-men’s land area and transformed into the group of illegal encroachers from the status of indigenous land holders. His determination to fight against any kind of discrimination, exploitation and deprivation originated out of suppressed state of mind and later it got transformed into the struggle for new aspirations of ethnic Bodo as well as the tribal.  He strongly believed that the safety and security of Bodos or tribal people as a whole, was not possible at all in Assam because the Dispur always safeguarded the interests of exploiters and illegal encroachers. That may be the exclusive reason as to why he believed in socialism and used to talk about nationalism on ethnic purview within Socialism. The thirst for Bodoland was to safeguard the tribal entity, their linguistic and cultural identity and economic prosperity under new state of equality. Ethnic nationalism and Socialism can also co-exist in one situation and that cannot be a strange face in the history of the revolution, as he believed.

 He was one of those Cottonians, who used to stay at Third Mess that was known to be berths for economically weaker section. After passing the HSLC examination in 1975 from the Shakti Ashram Higher Secondary School of present Kokrajhar district, he went to Cotton College for college education. He completed B. Sc. from the Cotton College with honours in Physics and pursued M. A. in same subject in Guwahati University and completed in 1986.  The first magazine he edited as editor was the mouth piece of the Guwahati city wing of ABSU namely BIDANGSHRI in 1977-78. In the years 1978-79 he became the President of the undivided Goalpara District All Bodo Students’ Union (GDBSU). The famous anti-foreigners’ movement spearheaded by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) was in the rhyme of era at that time. Being one of the Cottonians he got opportunity to observe closely the situation how that Assam Movement originated and streamlined to the mass people of Assam. According to his feeling expressed time to time the growth of strong and new Assamese nationalism was the sole reason of resurgent Assam Movement and the issue of foreigners’ infiltration gave an ample opportunity to build up such nationalist ideology. ‘Assam for Assamese’ and ‘Assamese was those, who speak Assamese language’ were the popularly voiced mottos of the then Assam movement, which actually had panicked the minds of ethnic communities of Assam and U. N. Brahma was not exception to that.  In the 1980 he edited one weekly Bodo news magazine namely “Orkhi” published from Kokrajhar, which was published to raise the voices of Bodo youths in the form of youth power to resist the growth of opportunist political power within tribal. He ventilated strongly his philosophy and destiny of Bodo people through scientific logic and analysis. In the 1983-84 he was the Vice-President of the ABSU and at that period he was in the Guwahati University Hostel and AT-9 hostel also for some times. Guwahati University Hostel, being an epicenter of Assam Movement, was completely dominated by the AASU leaderships and U. N. Brahma lived there under that situation for the couple of years. But he had the advantage to follow the course of Assam Movement and analyze the problems and prospects of the same from the closed distance. 

 In the late 80s Bodo as well as the tribal politics was let down to such a level by some vested interest corners, they almost had lost even self confidence to survive as the nationality. Their political entity was abridged by the national and regional political course of established Isms. Maximum tribal leaders gave up the political aspiration of tribal for autonomy or statehood in the wave of power politics. As a result, there seemed to be a severe breakdown of dynamism in tribal politics and their struggle for existence. But U. N. Brahma revived that dynamism and hope by reviving Mass Movement for the Tribal Homeland that is called now Bodoland for the plains tribal people of Assam. Tribal societies, especially Bodo society were completely in the turmoil ridden house, where they had been separated into many pieces by the ruling clique in the names of wider nationalism, regionalism or universalism.  Those conditions of the tribal people, mainly the single largest group Bodos, stimulated the minds of U. N. Brahma to jump into the tribal movement leaving aside all individualistic way of life.

He became the 8th President of the All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU) in the 18^th Annual Conference of the Union held at Rowta Chariali of present Udalguri district on the dates of 29^th to 31^st May, 1986. Just after taking over the leadership of ABSU he announced for the political movement for the Separate Statehood for the plains tribal people of Assam. There were no such places in Assam where he did not travel and held meetings with public or organizations representing various ethnic communities. Each and every districts of Assam never left untouched because he wanted to build up popular opinion in favor of Bodoland movement. Students’ bodies of Mishing, Karbi, Lalungs, Rabha, Dimasa, Garo and socio-economic bodies of those communities had been consulted widely about the justification of the movement. Even organization like AASU, the then Koch Rajbongshi Kshatriya Sonmiloni (KRKS) and many others ethnic bodies had also been consulted before the practical movement started. Following the Bodo movement there was a simultaneous assertion of Autonomy movements of Lalungs and Rabha communities though the same was not visible in the case of Mishing during that period. Assertive Karbi & Dimasa movement for Autonomous State was at its peak of the momentum already, Dr. Jayanta Rongphi was in the command of the movement at that time. Dr. Ronouj Pegu, on the sideline of the Bodoland movement, had also developed Autonomy movements for the all ethnic tribal group of people living in Assam. But there was a diminutive layer of differences between movements of Dr. Pegu and U. N. Brahma as because former never favored the bifurcation of Assam. Significantly, in the backdrop of the anti-foreigners movement led by AASU, more or less all communities except high caste Assamese, extended moral support to the Bodoland movement. Inscription of popular slogan like ‘Bhai-Bhai’ (all brothers) brought all communities closer to the movement and that was strategically most effective approach of U. N. Brahma in making movements successful. On the other hand ‘Bodos of the world unite’ slogan was scripted by him to bring all Bodo groups of people living all over the world together and that practically worked in point of fact. Due to that movement the thinking of Bodo people of all corners streamlined under same discipline. Among the Bodo itself there were vast varieties of tones and accent of language, which were not understandable to each other. But that movement totally removed that gap because a massive interaction made them closer to understand each other.  The Bodoland movement was closely observed or followed from many angles for some positive or negative reasons because that had awakened new consciousness amongst tribal people, which was totally in latent state of position.  

Mass Movement for the Bodoland was formally declared on 2^nd March, 1987 at Kokrajhar through a Mass Rally. Before that on the 1^st January, 1987, the ABSU, under the leadership of U. N. Brahma, first submitted a 92 point charter of demand to then Chief Minister of Assam and extended liberal opportunity to settle the Bodo problem to the Assam Government. Because, out of 92 point charter of demands the demand for Bodoland was placed at last and rest were socio-economic, land, infrastructure development and educational problems, which could be resolved effortlessly. But politically prejudiced then AGP Government paid no heed to the cry of the Bodo people and pushed them to the agitation. The same memorandum was submitted to Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India and to Buta Singh, the then Home Minister of India on 24th February, 1987. Further on 30^th February, 1987 the same was submitted to the then President of India Giyani Jail Sing. The cluster of demands revolved around mainly three political issues – (i) creation of separate state (earlier demanded as Union Territory) on the northern bank of the river Brahmaputra, (ii) creation of regional council for non-Karbi people living in Karbi-Anglong (later changed and demanded for inclusion of Boro Kocharis of Karbi-Anglong into ST (hills) list) and (iii) creation of autonomous region for the Bodo people living on the southern bank of the river Brahmaputra.  The charter of demand was the document of past and present condition of Bodos in Assam and their future vision as they desire to be.

The echo of historic Great Mass Rally at Judges Field of Guwahati still heard because it was the first ever people’s gathering at the heart of Guwahati where the U. N. Brahma first aired the slogan Divide Assam 50:50. That day is remembered for another big reason also that the first martyr of Bodoland Movement Lt Sujit Narzary died on that day. On the 10^th November, 1987 about 1500 odd movement activists assembled at Boat Club of Rajpath, marched from India Gate to Rafi Marg up to the front of Parliament House and the demand for Bodoland was raised in the national capital. Lt. Rajiv Gandhi the then Prime Minister of India and Dr. Balram Jakhar the then Speaker of Lok Sabha met the delegation led by U. N. Brahma and received memorandum on demand of Bodoland. It was the first show of strength of the Bodos in the national capital Delhi and nation came to know about Bodos and their struggle for homeland (separate state of Bodoland today). Next day in all leading national dailies and some international media the colourful rally was publicized with front page coverage and colourful photos of famous Bagurumba dance of Bodo damsels mesmerized the nation as a whole. From that day the course of interactions with national and international media began and Bodos as a community could step in the wider forum.

The ‘Bodoland’ nomenclature was practically finalized through its historic Annual conference held from 18^th to 22^nd December, 1988 at Bashbari under Parbatjhara Sub-division of present Kokrajhar district (erstwhile Dhubri). Before that the proposed state was known as ‘Homeland’ or ‘Tribal Land’ because the movement leaders had a plan to bring all tribal groups together in the movement before finalization of that.  Upendra Nath Brahma was invited to New Delhi by the then President of India R. Venkataraman for talk on 18^th January, 1988 on the backdrop of big Mass Rally organized on 4^th of same month at  the KDSA field of Kokrajhar town. That rally was really wave changer because it is still memorable for the reason that the flood of people bumped up the movement to a different level.   After that total 33 phases of agitation was launched including 1000 hours Assam Bandh, which was called off after the of invitation for the first Tri-Partite Talk received and held on 28^th August, 1989 in New Delhi on the Bodoland tangle. Mr. Prafulla Kr. Mahanta, the then Chief Minister of Assam represented the state, Mrs. Rajendra Kumari Vajpayee represented the centre and U. N. Brahma led the 40 member delegation team in the talk. During the talk he strongly argued as to why the creation of that state was a must and how that was not against any of the national interest. At the end of the talk he successfully could convince the central Government that an inclusive and long term process of initiative to resolve the Bodo problem is needed in the Governments. He also cited the situation how the entire North Eastern states had to suffer due to Bodo movement and so how important was it to bring about immediate solution to that.

During that time Subhash Ghishing’s Gorkhaland movement, Laldenga’s Mizo movement and Tripura’s Kok-Borok movement were at their prime stage of achievements. Upendra Nath Brahma had followed all those movements from close track theoretically and practically. The magnitude of Mizo sufferings during their liberation movement wounded his heart very deeply and he always cited those instances in his many speeches. He had the full sympathy and moral support to Kok-Borok’s movement because they also belonged to same Bodo stock and like Bodos in Assam they also have been subjected to suffer in their own land. In the 1987 once he went to Darjeeling and met Subhash Ghishing to know about their movement. Gorkhaland movement occupied limelight in the nation due to many reasons and one of those was moderate militancy movement grown by Ghising. But he never supported any secessionist movement guided by the anti-India notion; he was true nationalist Indian, who chosen to remain on the path of non-violence. Even he popularized the Gandhian thoughts among the Bodo youths and taught them that Gandhian thoughts generate invincible will power to win over any struggle for rights and privileges. But irony of the situation is the Bodoland  movement also witnessed a moderate violence like Gorkhaland due to over suppressive measures meted out by the Government.

While the Tri-Partite Talk reached its 5^th round of U. N. Brahma was at his last stage. At that time Ram Vilas Paswan of V. P. Singh Government was in charge of Bodo issue and he was greatly impressed by his dedication and commitment. In the last part of 1988 itself he underwent treatment at Cooch Behar but it was CMC, Vellore that actually diagnosed Cancer. An operation was done on the shoulder to prevent the further infection of the disease there but could not prevent as expected. Taking in view his deteriorating health condition he was taken to Mumbai Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital for better treatment. But he could not survive long because by that time the disease reached last stage. When he was at death’s door his Mother Lepsri Brahma also passed away and his colleagues could not inform him about that because of his critical condition. As death keeps no calendar he also breathed his last at 1:32 P. M. of 1^st May, 1990 inside the ICU of the Hospital. Perhaps he was also on the row, just after his beloved mother, to walk towards the heaven because his responsibility on earth was over. Message of his death sent a shockwave to the Bodo heartland and in other areas also as because he was regarded as new Messiah for down trodden communities of India. Bodoland movement was just at its maturing stage and his death had brought a sense of uncertainty among the mass people about the future of movement. There is a saying that “time and tide wait for no men” but in case of Upendra Nath Brahma he could not wait for the time to see the mellowness of the movement.

                                    (The author traveled with U. N. Brahma till his death. He also worked in many capacities within ABSU and became the president in 1996 to 2001. In 2002 he got elected to Rajya Sabha. Mobile No-9435127258)