Freedom fighter questions ULFA's demand for independence

JORHAT, January 28: Leisurely basking in the soft rays of the morning winter sun during the evening of his life at his garden before his Teok Jagduar residence 20 kms off Jorhat, freedom fighter Kumudeswar Bora's mind raced back in time while recollecting his experiences spread over 99 summers. Bora, is one among the district's oldest living 'soldiers' of the Freedom Movement and is now on the threshold of his 100th birthday, having completed 99 years and eight months to be precise. Presently afflicted by a dimmed eyesight and somewhat impaired hearing, Bora is nonetheless mentally agile and still possesses the steel resolve to move about sans any help except a walking stick. The nonagenarian, who was at one time the nayak of the 'Mrityu Bahini' and imparted training to 'volunteers' in guerilla tactics while talking to the The Assam Tribune in a quivering voice lamented on the major drawbacks in the present set-up, adding, "This is not what we fought for". Continuing ruefully he said, "mired neck-deep and wallowing in a cesspool of corruption, which has been further accentuated by graft and nepotism, a major section of our leaders today along with ordinary citizens and government servants alike have collectively fallen victim to the lure of the lucre. Without sparing a second thought for the Motherland, such citizens - if they can ever be termed so - have connived to throw principles of morality and ethics to the winds, busy as they are only in amassing wealth at the expense of the tax-payers' welfare, thus bleeding the State exchequer white in the process." Logically laying the blame for the present chaos on the shoulders of a sizeable section of the State's populace and not just on the Centre alone, as is often done in an effort to push the blame, the to-be centenarian while arguing that New Delhi had singularly been pumping in huge funds to Assam since Independence, claimed, "Had the precious fiscal assistance been judiciously utilised by our 'very own' government officials over the past 53 years, our plight would not have been what it is today". As corruption has slowly but surely stymied development and bred disillusionment, able and full-blooded youths, on seeing jobs and favours being bought for a price, decided to take it no more and took up the gun instead, and thus started the 'revolt within', he justified. Today, as a consequence, the ULFA is demanding independence from the yoke of Indian 'colonial rule,' he continued. "But why haven't 'the boys' realised the futility of the gun, which will take them nowhere?" he asked. "The Centre may be exploiting the Northeast and Assam in particular, but our own people are to be blamed the most", he asserted. "The ULFA would be well-advised to eschew its violent ways and adopt saner methods instead. For, with sincere and concerted efforts they can definitely set up a democratically-elected government, to rule as they please, that too with active support of the masses", he reasoned. "This is possible only in a sovereign, socialist, democratic republic such as ours", he added. "But for the moment at least, from whichever way you look at it", he claimed, "I feel it is we alone who are to blame for the mess that we find ourselves in today." Wisened by circumstances over the years, the grand old man had joined the Congress way back in 1928 and had to sacrifice worldly pleasures even as he jumped into the struggle for Independence and was jailed for two-and-a-half years starting 1943.