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ABSTRACT
This article leverages data from an oft-overlooked case of rebel governance – India’s United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) – to demonstrate the importance of de-centring territorial control as a prerequisite for rebel governance. ULFA neither controlled territory nor developed formalised bureaucratic institutions, yet its ‘parallel government’ held considerable sway over Assamese public life during 1985–1990, underpinned by its social embeddedness, influence upon media discourse and crucially its subversion of state structures, until its ability to limit state repression collapsed. The rise and fall of ULFA’s rebel governance illustrates the hybrid socio-political terrain upon which rebel governance is often laid.
Acknowledgments
Fieldwork in India was conducted in 2016 during visiting fellowships in India with the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. I thank Dr David Brenner, Dr Elisabeth Leake, participants of the 2022 European Scholars of South Asian International Relations conference, and lastly the reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Loyle et al., ‘New Directions in Rebel Governance Research’, 6–7.
2. Worrall, ‘(Re-)Emergent Orders’, 716.
3. See note 1 above.
4. Péclard and Mechoulan, Rebel Governance and the Politics of Civil War, 18.
5. Thakur and Venugopal, ‘Parallel Governance and Political Order in Contested Territory’; Suykens, ‘Comparing Rebel Rule Through Revolution and Naturalization: Ideologies of Governance in Naxalite and Naga India’.
6. Interview with a retired police official, 2016.
7. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 55–56; Mahanta, Confronting the State, 85; Hazarika, Strangers of the Mist, 176.
8. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 30–31.
9. Jackson, ‘Life under the Taliban Shadow Government’.
10. The notion of ‘fear psychosis’ gripping Assam was highlighted across interviews with local politicians, journalists and civil society members.
11. Volo and Schatz, ‘From the Inside Out’, 270.
12. Arjona, ‘Local Orders in Warring Times: Armed Groups’ and Civilians’ Strategies in Civil War’, 16; Waterman and Worrall, ‘Spinning Multiple Plates Under Fire’.
13. Worrall, ‘(Re-)Emergent Orders’, 710.
14. Mampilly and Stewart, ‘A Typology of Rebel Political Institutional Arrangements’, 29.
15. Stewart, ‘Civil War as State-Making’.
16. Loyle, ‘Rebel Justice during Armed Conflict’.
17. Mampilly and Stewart, ‘A Typology of Rebel Political Institutional Arrangements’.
18. See note 4 above.
19. Spears and Kingston, States-Within-States: Incipient Political Entities in the Post-Cold War Era.
20. Loyle et al., ‘New Directions in Rebel Governance Research’, 6.
21. Kasfir, ‘Rebel Governance – Constructing a Field of Inquiry: Definitions, Scope, Patterns, Order, Causes’, 28.
22. Kasfir, 24.
23. Kasfir, 22; Arjona, Rebelocracy, 44–45; Furlan, ‘Understanding Governance by Insurgent Non-State Actors’, 478; Schwab, ‘Insurgent Courts in Civil Wars’, 803.
24. See note 20 above.
25. See note 17 above.
26. Albert, ‘What Is Rebel Governance?.
27. For a notable exception see Wenner, ‘Trajectories of Hybrid Governance’.
28. Florea, ‘Authority Contestation during and after Civil War’, 151–52; Loyle et al., ‘New Directions in Rebel Governance Research’.
29. Florea, ‘Authority Contestation during and after Civil War’, 152.
30. Worrall and Waterman, ‘Taxonomies of Rebel Governance’.
31. Staniland, ‘States, Insurgents, and Wartime Political Orders’, 248.
32. Jackson, ‘Life under the Taliban Shadow Government’, 25.
33. Worrall, ‘(Re-)Emergent Orders’.
34. Thakur and Venugopal, ‘Parallel Governance and Political Order in Contested Territory’.
35. This recent attention is perhaps due to the visible trappings of ‘stateness’ in Naga rebel governance institutions. Thakur and Venugopal; Suykens, ‘Comparing Rebel Rule Through Revolution and Naturalization: Ideologies of Governance in Naxalite and Naga India’; Mampilly, ‘Rebel Taxation: Between Moral and Market Economy’; Waterman, ‘Ceasefires and State Order-Making in Naga Northeast India’.
36. Rammohan, Insurgent Frontiers, 48; Singh, The ULFA Insurgency in Assam, 49. State practitioners during interviews would often draw unfavourable comparisons between ULFA and the Naga factions; Naga guerrillas were often framed as more capable, honourable and worthy of respect than their ULFA counterparts.
37. Gogoi, ‘Sovereignty and National Identity: The Troubled Trajectory in Northeast India’, 6–7; Misra, The Periphery Strikes Back, 128–45.
38. Weiner, ‘The Political Demography of Assam’s Anti-Immigrant Movement’, 288.
39. Assam Police data records a total of 471 bomb blasts and 101 fatalities during 1979–1984. See Mahanta, Confronting the State, 48; The Nellie Massacre involved the sectarian killing of 2,000 Bengali-origin Muslims. See Kimura, The Nellie Massacre of 1983.
40. Chadha, Low-Intensity Conflicts in India, 242.
41. Goswami, India’s Internal Security Situation, 70.
42. Mahanta, Confronting the State, 72–85; Das, ULFA, 73–75; Hazarika, Strangers of the Mist, 176.
43. Baruah, Durable Disorder, 154; Goswami, ‘India’s Counter-Insurgency Experience’, 74.
44. Data drawn from Mahanta’s breakdown of ULFA camps during 1986–1990. See Mahanta, Confronting the State, 106–9. Map produced using http://164.100.167.25/mapmyexcel/.
45. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 51.
46. Nath, ‘Assam: The Secessionist Insurgency and Freedom of Minds’.
47. See note 40 above.
48. Hazarika, Strangers of the Mist, 185.
49. Saikia, ‘Allies in the Closet: Over-Ground Linkages and Terrorism in Assam’.
50. See note above 21., 26.
51. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 41–64.
52. See note 49 above.
53. See note 8 above.
54. Dutta, 30–31.
55. Mahanta, Confronting the State, 59–61.
56. See note above 38., 288.
57. Interview with a journalist posted in Assam during the late 1980s, 2016.
58. Sinha, ‘Insurgencies in North-East India: An Appraisal’, 50.
59. Interview with a retired police officer based in ULFA-affected districts of Lakhimpur during the 1980s, 2016.
60. Sarma, ‘Factional Politics in Assam’, 76.
61. Sarma, 153.
62. Sarma, 138, 153.
63. For an overview of the conditions hampering the Accord’s implementation see Sharma, ‘Immigration, Indigeneity and Identity: The Bangladeshi Immigration Question in Assam’, 97–98.
64. See note 59 above.
65. Interview with Assam-based journalist, 2016.
66. During an interview with the author in 2016, former Chief Secretary H.N. Das noted that AGP-ULFA relations were shaped by 1) ideological sympathies, 2) financial incentives and 3) pressure applied by ULFA. Interviews with journalists based in Assam highlighted the political incentives driving whether AGP members accepted or tolerated ULFA activities.
67. See note 48 above.
68. Sharma, Police and Political Order in India, 21.
69. Raghuvir, Governor D. D. Thakur’s Report to the President of India, 26.11.1990, reproduced in Peoples Union for Human Rights v Union of India.
70. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 51.
71. Interview with an Assam-based journalist, 2016.
72. Interview with a police officer posted in Lakhimpur, Assam during the 1980s, 2016.
73. Routray, ‘Terrorists in Uniform’.
74. See note 69 above.
75. Mahanta, Confronting the State, 75.
76. Mahanta, 75–76; Das, ULFA, 72–74.
77. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 71.
78. Nacos, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, 270.
79. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 44–63.
80. Dutta, 71–74; Five months prior, ULFA had bussed journalists from Guwahati to Lower Assam for a press conference. See Goswami, Along the Red River, 233.
81. Goswami, Along the Red River.
82. Mahanta, Confronting the State, 85; Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 78–86.
83. See note 20 above.
84. Translates as “Assam National Development Council.”
85. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 56.
86. Mahanta, Confronting the State, 82.
87. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 55–56.
88. Interview with local Assam-based journalist, 2016.
89. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 56, 82.
90. Dutta, 56; Mahanta, Confronting the State, 82–84.
91. Mahanta, Confronting the State, 81.
92. Gokhale, The Hot Brew, 25.
93. Das, ULFA, 83.
94. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 83–84.
95. See note 48 above.
96. Data drawn from Mahanta, Confronting the State, 81–82. Map produced using http://164.100.167.25/mapmyexcel/.
97. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 10, 51.
98. See note 69 above.
99. Khanikar, State, Violence, and Legitimacy in India, 179–81.
100. See note 92 above.
101. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 53–55.
102. Mampilly, ‘Rebel Taxation: Between Moral and Market Economy’, 83.
103. Das, ULFA, 84–85; Hazarika, Strangers of the Mist, 179.
104. See note 92 above.
105. Interview with a journalist based in Assam during the 1980s.
106. Mampilly, ‘Rebel Taxation: Between Moral and Market Economy’, 84–85.
107. See note 92 above.
108. Goswami, Along the Red River, 243.
109. Interview with a journalist based in Assam during the 1980s, 2016.
110. See note 48 above.
111. See note 69 above.
112. Saikia, ‘The Political Economy and Changing Organisational Dynamics of the ULFA Insurgency in Assam’, 47.
113. See note 69 above.
114. Dutta, Creating Robin Hoods, 84; Mahanta, Confronting the State, 85.
115. See note 92 above.
116. Gokhale, 38–40.
117. See note 49 above.
118. See note 4 above.
119. Arjona, Rebelocracy; Breslawski, ‘The Social Terrain of Rebel Held Territory’.
120. van Baalen and Terpstra, ‘Behind Enemy Lines’.
121. Fair and Ganguly, Treading on Hallowed Ground.
122. Innes, ‘Deconstructing Political Orthodoxies on Insurgent and Terrorist Sanctuaries’; Korteweg, ‘Black Holes’.
123. Sack, Human Territoriality.
124. Worrall, ‘(Re-)Emergent Orders’, 714.
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Alex Waterman
Alex Waterman is a Research Fellow (India/Asia) at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg, Visiting Fellow at the University of Leeds and Co-Editor of Civil Wars. His research has been published in leading journals such as International Peacekeeping, Asian Security and Civil Wars, and in 2020 his doctoral research won the Global Policy North Outstanding Thesis Prize. He has held affiliations with the Modern War Institute at West Point, the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MPIDSA) and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).