A School In Nellie Brings Hope To Its People

Many of the children who study at the Nellie Anchalik Secondary school come from families who were directly affected by the massacre yet there is little acknowledgement of their grief in our collective public memory.

- Nasreen Habib

The four-lane Asian Highway no 1 that connects India with Thailand runs through the districts of Kamrup (Metro), Morigaon, Nagaon, and Golaghat before entering Dimapur in Nagaland. It also crosses through Nellie in Morigaon, a word that is met with deep silence in Assam. On a cold Friday morning in February 1983, when the Assam Movement or ‘Gondogul’ as it is called in Nellie was at its peak, 3,000 Muslim men, women and children were killed by their neighbours for voting in a hastily held election they had boycotted. The victims belonged to the Bengali Muslim community; the Assam Movement which had begun as an Anti-Foreigner Movement to drive out illegal Bangladeshi immigrants had soon turned into a violent Anti-Bengali Movement. Till today, no action has been taken by the State to book the perpetrators of the violence although a clause in the Assam Accord clearly mentions perpetrators of ‘heinous’ crimes should be brought to justice. In the mainstream Assamese imagination as well, there is little acknowledgement of this dark chapter of Assam’s history.