For one who has been closely involved with Assam for the past many years, with the very beautiful people of that very beautiful State, and as one who had lived with them in all their anger, their agony and their travails, this Settlement of 15th August, 1985, is unquestionably a very welcome development.

The 'Settlement' is not, however, free of cruel irony; the most telling being a realisation that every word of this document is the most effective repudiation of policies pursued in that State, not just by various State Governments but by successive governments in Delhi. For so many long decades Assam and the North East have truly been our forgotten frontier. Even in the midst of an accompanying sense of relief now, one is haunted by the knowledge of the enormous cost that has been paid for the 'Settlement', in terms of avoidable human anguish. Though we will never know the exact figure, over 5,000 died in that State in 1983 alone; close to 500,000 were rendered homeless. Of course, there can be no count of the countless many whose psyches were damaged almost beyond repair and deep alienations caused between every fold in the society in Assam. In retrospect, it is cruel that in those early years of 1980, Government ought to have started by suggesting that there was 'no problem of foreign nationals', that they just 'did not exist', that it was all a creation of the Opposition with a view to embarrassing the Government of the day. What continues to disturb is to find echos of the same sentiment even now. It is not the Government alone that is guilty. The Election Commission of India, certainly stands charged with, at first imposing and then persisting with one of the most controversial elections in our current political history. The 'election' of 1983, in Assam is one of the most arbitrary acts of misgovernance that I can think of; a dissolution now, of that imposed State Assembly, conclusive evidence, if that were indeed required, of how the perpetrators of that untenable election could not themselves take seriously, therefore sustain a myth of their own making. It is truly ironic that the Chief Election Commissioner should now wish to appropriate for himself a part of the credit for the 'Settlement' arrived at, on the grounds that under the, (by his own admission), prodding’s of the Supreme Court, he ordered a fresh revision of precisely those rolls which initially, were the cause of perpetrating an horror on the people of Assam. And talking of the Supreme Court, their judgment on the Assam Election Case was certainly one of the most curious examples of judicial ambivalence, on one of the most important election issues that that Court has had to decide upon. That Judgment now makes very strange reading indeed.

If one does not savour delving long upon such a retrospect of Assam, it is because there is little satisfaction to be derived from the now hollow exercises of "we had told you so". There is also little satisfaction in finding that all the criticism that one had heaped on the Government's head for the last five years or so, has been proven right. Or for that, matter, that as early as 1981, specific proposals had been given in Guwahati, as a Seven-point Programme for settlement of issues in Assam, which even then had found favour with editorial comment for their reasoned practical ness and for their inherent potential. What satisfaction is to be derived from the knowledge that the Settlement of 15 August, in essence, is almost exactly what had been proposed as long back as 1981. There is scant satisfaction indeed, against the background of the deep anguish of the people of that land or when a picture of the ravaged face of Assam states one on the face.