Nellie, June 3: The wounds have healed and the scars are fading. Twenty years after the worst communal carnage in Assam soaked Nellie in blood, people in the sleepy hamlet seem to have buried the past to set an example in communal harmony.
At an official function to mark the inauguration of a health camp today, people from the minority community bowed in obeisance as Hindu rituals were performed. They clapped spontaneously when minister of state for health and family welfare Rupam Singh Ronghang cut a ribbon to declare the camp open.
Residents avoid talking on sensitive issues, admittedly wary of hurting one another?s sentiments.
?After what we went through on that fateful day and after, nobody here wants violence. We have been living together for so many years and we want to do so in future without any conflicts,? Rothindralal, a middle-aged inhabitant of the village, says.
On February 18, 1983, nearly 1,800 people were butchered in Nellie. It was, at the time, the worst communal pogrom the country had witnessed since Partition. Thankfully, Nellie is now at peace with itself. The residents could not be less bothered even with the controversy over the Centre?s decision to repeal the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act.
?What has happened has happened. We do not want to discuss any contentious issue that will create a communal divide,? Rothindralal says, mirroring the views of other residents.
Standing outside the dilapidated Nellie Library, he recalls that police had picked him up on suspicion of involvement in the massacre. He was then in his mid-thirties. ?Politicians had triggered the carnage and the residents just let the hatred dominate their conscience. I hope politicians won?t play their dirty tricks here again,? he says.
Like Rothindralal, it is not the contentious IMDT Act but the completion of a 30-bed hospital here that Abdul Karim is interested in. He had lost his uncle and cousins in the 1983 carnage.
Karim pretends not to hear on being asked to comment on the bid to repeal the IMDT Act. But he is excited when the conversation veers to the hospital project. ?This is a malaria-prone area and the Nellie dispensary is unable to handle all cases. We need a hospital immediately,? he says.
The foundation stone of the hospital was laid in the mid-Nineties, but the project has not made any headway since.
Karim and the other residents of Nellie hope Ronghang?s promise to get the hospital complete will not turn out to be an empty one.
For a village that was once synonymous with rioting, the fact that the residents are talking about development and communal harmony is in itself a big leap.
P.S. Bordoloi, posted at Morigaon Civil Hospital, says the villagers appear to have overcome the psychological problems that tormented them for many years after the massacre. ?When I was posted at the Nellie dispensary in 1984, I came across many psychiatric cases. The people were so tormented by what they had witnessed that they refused to trust anyone,? Bordoloi recalls.
Rothindralal says the horrifying experience has had a sobering effect on everybody. ?Experience has taught us the necessity of peaceful coexistence. It is with much difficulty that we have restored harmony and we surely will not let go of it again.?