UNDERSTANDING THE BODO MOVEMENT: IDENTITY POLITICS AND THE RISE OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE

Abstract

The Bodo movement refers to the socio-political mobilization that emerged in the late 20th century in Assam emphasizing the indigenous Bodo community’s aspiration and struggle for the recognition of unique identity, cultural heritage and territorial rights. With its desire to attain greater autonomy and self-determination the movement mobilized the Bodo people through various forms of protests including strikes, rallies and civil disobedience. This paper makes an attempt to analyse how a complex interplay of historical, economic and cultural factors have shaped the trajectory of the movement. Focusing on the exclusivist tendencies generated by the movement the paper makes a critical investigation of the serious implications when a particular ethnic group obsessively pursues its identity politics with definite territorial claim in a multiethnic and multi-cultural society. Territorial claim based on narrow ethnic lines driven by exclusivist tendencies and informed by militant politics renders the other minority communities in the particular living space in a position of grave disadvantage undermining their rights. The paper argues that attempts made by the Bodo leadership to create a homogenous Bodo-inhabited area by carrying out a string of indiscriminate attacks, and process of ethnic cleansing against the non-Bodos in a shared homeland that is characterized by ethnic diversity not only in terms of plurality but of shared geographical and cultural space, essentially problematized the idea of democratic living in a shared homeland