N. C. HILLS SCAM & ASSAM POLITICS:

N. C. HILLS SCAM & ASSAM POLITICS: ©subhankar_karmakar

TRAVEL BLOG : THE NORTHEAST INDIA » ECONOMIC MINERALS OF ASSAM LIFE @ TAWANG: ARUNACHAL PRADESH.. MIGHTY BRAHMAPUTRA : THE TRANSNATIONAL RIVER LUMDING: A CUTE SHANGRILA....... ARUNACHAL PRADESH AND JUNG FALLS SCENIC WATERFALLS AND NORTHEAST INDIA, IRRESISTIBLE COMBO-OFFER SUN BIRD, one of numerous avian indigenous species of North-East. a beautiful pond in lower assam THE RARE AND EXOTIC ORCHIDS OF SIKKIM: THE EXOTIC ORCHIDS OF SIKKIM ASSAM: A GREEN DESTINATION THE BRIDGE IN LOWER ASSAM ASSAM: THE LAND AND THE RIVERS ASSAM AND NATURAL DISASTERS EXOTIC BIO DIVERSITY : ASSAM, A NATURAL PARADISE WHEN BAMBOO FLOWERS ARUNACHAL PRADESH: AN UNSPOILT BEAUTY SEVEN SISTERS OF NORTH EAST INDIA ASSAM DEVELOPMENTAL SCHEMES BODOS: THE ETHNIC TRIBES OF ASSAM COLONY CULTURE OF LUMDING POLITICS OF ASSAM ASSAM : NATURE'S OWN LAND SUPER 30; IIT-JEE COACHING AND ASSAM HOME SWEET HOME: ASSAM DIARY KHAJURAHO OF ASSAM: MADAN KAMDEV TEMPLE IN HAJO. EXPLORE ASSAM: THE PARADISE ON THIS EARTH NORTH EAST INDIA: WHY ARE WE SO NEGLECTED? THE SEVEN SISTERS OF NORTH EAST (INDIA) A BRIDGE OVER A LOCAL RIVER: ASSAM LAND OF HILLS AND RED SOIL EXOTIC LANDSCAPES OF ASSAM THE PATHETIC CONDITIONS OF PUBLIC ROAD OWNED BY PWD IN RURAL ASSAM ARMY TOOK PART IN THE SAPLING PLANTATION PROGRAM TO CLAIM FOR A GUINNESS WORLD RECORD. LUMDING RAILWAY STATION An comprehensive diets for malnourished industries of Assam: EXOTIC ORCHIDS OF SIKKIM................ SIKKIM THE LAND OF ORCHIDS AND SCENIC BEAUTIES ORCHID LOVE THE EXOTIC ORCHIDS OF SIKKIM THE RARE AND EXOTIC ORCHIDS OF SIKKIM: ARUNACHAL PRADESH AND JUNG FALLS

There was a great deal of brouhaha over a report that appeared in The Week of February 7 about a Rs 1 ,000- crore swindle of development funds in the North Cachar Hills district and the involvement of seven ministers of Asom, an MP and an MLA as also a former governor of the State, Lt Gen. (retired) Ajai Singh in the swindle. Unfortunately, there was a knee-jerk reaction of sorts both in the political circles of the State and among the media fraternity. This was quite uncalled for, since all that was required was to ascertain whether the worthies named in The Week report actually figured in the charge-sheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) or not. Ultimately it turned out that The Week had far exceeded the limits of journalistic propriety and ethics in naming the ten worthies. Only two of the ministers named did what was mature and expected: Himanta Biswa Sarma sent the magazine a legal notice and Rockybul Hussain filed a libel case against the magazine without bothering about a legal notice. Other ministers expressed surprise and issued denials. The sudden reactions to an unconfirmed magazine report must have struck most psychologists as a typical manifestation of a guilt complex that is also part of native wisdom. I was reminded of the familiar Assamese aphorism that is a question and a reply to it: “Who is in the prayer room?” “No, I haven’t eaten the bananas.” When the dust had settled, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi merely issued a directive to The Week saying that it had to offer an unconditional apology. But this was hardly the kind of response expected from the Chief Minister of a State, seven of whose ministers and an MLA had been maligned. Considering the damage done to the image of his Council of Ministers, Gogoi should have asked all the aggrieved ministers to sue the publication for libel and to claim hefty compensations in civil cases. That is the only way newspapers and magazines can be dissuaded from indulging in unmerited character assassination of people. During the few days following the Week exposé, rival political parties like the AGP had demanded that the investigations be handed over to Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI). They had also demanded the resignation of Tarun Gogoi as Chief Minister of Asom. Quite expectedly, Tarun Gogoi said he did not have to resign since nothing had been proved against him or against his ministers. He also added that if involvement in the Rs 1 ,000- crore swindle could be proved against any of his ministers he would make them resign. But he kept declining to hand over the investigations to the CBI. This was imperative because the NIA had no jurisdiction to investigate cases of public servants involved in corrupt practices. Gogoi’s unwillingness to hand over the investigation to the CBI was very intriguing, to say the least. It is all very well for him to be always talking of proof. But no minister or politician involved in swindles of this kind leaves fingerprints all over the place. On the contrary we even find some of the most corrupt politicians preaching sermons against corruption. For them the facade is all that seems to matter. Naturally, therefore, people have to infer developments and actions from the indirect evidence before them. For instance, the declared personal assets of several candidates of the 15 th Lok Sabha elections show that their personal assets were five to ten times the assets declared for the 14 th Lok Sabha elections. People with a sense of humour are likely to ask whether these candidates were exceptionally lucky with their stock market investments or real estate investments during the five years preceding the last Lok Sabha elections! Be that as it may, it would have been expected of Tarun Gogoi, known for the claims of ‘transparency’ that he makes about his government, to have seized the earliest opportunity of handing over the inquiry of the Rs 1 ,000- crore North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council swindle to the CBI to clear the ministers of his government of any shadow of suspicion if he is indeed so sure that all his ministers are above reproach and that none of them had the means to do anything with the development funds of the district council in question. He should have jumped at this opportunity to prove the innocence of his ministers if they are indeed as innocent as he claims. But are they all so innocent? What I am trying to get at is that no one really needed a report in The Week to know that astronomical sums of money had gone out of the development funds of the autonomous council to help the DHD(G), commonly referred to as the Black Widow, to procure weapons for the terrorist outfit. There was a wealth of other corroborative evidence to establish the involvement of people like Mohit Hojai, the Chief Executive Member of the North Cachar Hills Autonomous District Council and Rejaul Hussain Khan, Deputy Director of the Social Welfare Department in the siphoning and diversion of development funds to terrorist outfits like the Black Widow. On April 2 , 2009 , the Assam Police arrested two members of the Black Widow, Brojen Hojai and Babul Kemprai, on National Highway No. 37 with Rs 1 crore in their possession. This was money that Mohit Hojai had given to the Black Widow to buy weapons from an international arms dealer. The interrogations of Mohit Hojai and R.H.Khan revealed that about Rs 90 to Rs 100 crore had been given to the Black Widow for purchase of weapons. The Black Widow is not an insurgent group; it is a terrorist outfit. So here was a clear case of a public servant in a responsible executive position of the district council actually subsidizing a terrorist outfit with public money! Here was a man who had sworn by the Constitution of India to defend the country and the Constitution actually sabotaging his own administrative machinery and the nation as a whole. This is how some people in the political executive of the State have helped to turn terrorism into an industry in the State. There is also adequate evidence to establish that the then Governor of Asom, Lt Gen. (retired) Ajai Singh had returned from a frenetic visit to Haflong just a day before he handed over charge as Governor of the State. In these days of sophisticated communication facilities, where was the need for the then Governor to make that car trip to Haflong over roads that are like minefields in certain parts in such unholy haste? One must consider two other significant facts along with this. *One is that the District Council was under the direct control of Governor Ajai Singh for six or seven months until an election-related matter came to court. *The other is that the ever helpful Khan came in direct contact with the Governor during those months. This remained an enduring relationship till the very end. All this was very well known much before the Week report. What was also well known was the intriguing fact that it took Tarun Gogoi nearly two months after the arrest of Brojen Hojai and Babul Kemprai to order the arrest of Mohit Hojai and R.H.Khan on May 30 , 2009. Why did he have to wait nearly two months to order the arrest of these two worthies for a crime as serious as funding a terrorist outfit with government money? Did he prefer to wait because of the fallout of the news of their arrest on the 15 th Lok Sabha election results? The Week report has not exposed to the people anything that was not already known to them in bits and pieces. But what the report did was to partially open a Pandora’s box that Tarun Gogoi must have wanted completely shut for all times to come. [This reminds me of how the Pandora’s box idiom came into the English language. Its origin is in Greek mythology. According to it, Pandora was the first woman on earth. Zeus apparently gave her a box that she was forbidden to open, and when she opened it, all the evils flew out of it into the world.] Today’s politicians have stronger reasons for wanting Pandora’s boxes to remain shut permanently. They have all their evil deeds in them. In any case, Tarun Gogoi who was so adamant about not wanting to hand over the N.C.Hills swindle to the CBI for investigation had a very recent summon to New Delhi and a discussion lasting 40 minutes with Home Minister P. Chidambaram. One of the first things he did after his return was to announce that he was handing over the N.C.Hills swindle inquiry to the CBI. People will have to make intelligent guesses whether his meeting with Chidambaram had anything to do with his change of heart. Tarun Gogoi, for his part has said that the N.C.Hills swindle did not figure in his 40- minute discussion with the Union Home Minister. Tarun Gogoi claims that he has decided to hand over the inquiry to the CBI because the AGP has been politicizing the N.C. Hills issue. But why should any political party not politicize it? After all, it is a political issue among other things. Would the Congress not have politicized it if the AGP had been in power? To cap it all, Tarun Gogoi wants to know why he should resign just because the AGP wants him to. “The people of Assam haven’t asked me to step down,” he says. We would like to know what manner of indication by the people of the State he is going to take cognizance of. The only language he understands is the language of votes. For that, he will have to wait till next year. But until then, the Pandora’s box that has been partially opened is likely to reveal a whole lot of things that cannot be good for the electoral prospects of the Congress.