Oil is not well in Assam

Parbina Rashid

One of my early childhood memories is getting together with my cousins and taking out mock processions while shouting slogans like, Tej dim, Tel nidiu; Joi Aai Asom (We will give blood but not oil). We used to imitate the protestors led by All-Assam Students Union leaders. The protest came to be known as the Assam Agitation in the late 70s and early eighties. 

I was flummoxed as to why on earth we should be protecting the oil (tel) which my grandmother kept in her kitchen at the cost of our blood? As the agitation turned intense, we turned wiser. When student leader Khargeswar Talukdar took the police bullet to be the first martyr of the revolution, those slogans ceased to be child’s play. We grew up to the reality of our ‘tel’ and its significance. The picture that flashed on the local TV channels and newspapers of the police detaining hundreds of activists to prevent a march against the proposed move to lease out 12 state oilfields to private firms by the Centre through an open bidding brought back those childhood memories.

The protest march was launched by 11 Left parties. Interestingly, just before the march, there was a protest meeting which was addressed by Assam Gana Parishad leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, an ally of the ruling BJP government. As the general resentment is that “Corporates are being given the licence to exploit the state's resources,” Mahanta has appealed to the Centre to reconsider the decision as like in other North-Eastern states, the right to resources should be with the people of Assam.

Now, the state BJP unit has given him the sobriquet ‘Mum Mahanta’ as they remind him that the move to auction the oilfields through open bidding is in accordance with the National Exploration and Licensing Policy which was adopted by the Deve Gowda-led government at the Centre in 1997 when Prafulla Kumar Mahanta was the Chief Minister of Assam. So what stopped him from objecting to the policy at that time?

The BJP’s argument for auctioning the 12 small oilfields of Assam is that it is indispensable in order to keep the oil refineries in the state functioning. And in order to keep them running, crude oil to the tune of 7 metric tons per annum is required. However, the total production of crude oil in Assam is just 3-4.6 metric tons per annum. At present the refineries in Assam are being fed with crude oil from the Godavari basin.

If Mahanta was mum then, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is mum now. For, Sonowal, as president of the All-Assam Students Union in 1991, had publicly demanded that the issue of exploration and development of oilfields should be transferred from the Union list of the Constitution to the state list.

In the meantime, the question the Assamese people are asking is —why are these oilfields not being developed by either OIL or ONGC, or the state government?

Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s answer is that these small fields ‘require micro-level management and specific technologies’, which makes it ‘unattractive’ for public sector oil giants like ONGC and OIL to invest in. Hence, despite being discovered 20-30 years back, these oilfields have been lying there unproductive. These are estimated to contain oil and gas deposits of 86 MMT amounting to around Rs 70,000 crore of reserves.

The people fear private players would suck those oilfields dry, damaging the environment. Private players have also earned the notoriety of avoiding protective operations like oil well servicing to cut expenses. And then there is another question: how many indigenous private parties are capable of bidding for the oil fields? Would the parties from outside bother about the economic or ecological health of the state?

O mur apunar desh

A visit to the BJP office at Hengerabari had opened my eyes to two facts: time seemed to have stopped there as the wall clock in the office had the picture of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and not of Narendra Modi; and second, the office of a senior RSS leader in the same building had ‘O mur apunar desh’, the state anthem, written across the wall. I could not see Bharat Mata Ki Jai written anywhere.

It got me thinking, the religious divide which was created on the basis the Bharat Mata slogan was based on the flimsiest of foundation. Saying it or not saying it has nothing to do with one’s religion but everything to do with one’s language and culture. I may not be moved to tears while listening to Lata Mangeshkar’s Ai mere watan ke logon, but I definitely get sentimental when I hear Bhupen Hazarika singing ‘Koto jawanar mritu hal’ (so many jawans have died).

Language is as uniting a factor as it is dividing.

[email protected]