A house of entertainment is the unlikeliest of places for an extremist organisation to be born. But then, the two-storey Rang Ghar — one of Asia’s oldest amphitheatres with a roof shaped like an inverted boat — has been more than a heritage structure designed as a high seat for members of the Ahom royalty to watch cultural programmes on an adjoining field. It has been a symbol of Assamese pride since King Pramatta Singha had it built in present-day Sivasagar in 1744. And of peace.
Peace was perhaps far from the minds of six young men who converged at the Rang Ghar on April 7, 1979, to form the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). Their goal: establish a “sovereign socialist Assam” through an armed struggle. The six were Bhimkanta Buragohain, Rajiv Rajkonwar, alias Arabinda Rajkhowa, Golap Baruah, alias Anup Chetia, Samiran Gogoi, alias, Pradip Gogoi, Bhadreshwar Gohain, and Paresh Baruah.
They had a reason to be agitated. A storm had been brewing in Assam since 1978 over reports that “illegal immigrants” were being enlisted on the State’s electoral rolls. It crossed the tipping point in April 1979 when the Election Commission published the draft electoral rolls for a byelection to the Mangaldoi Lok Sabha constituency. The perceived large-scale enrolment of non-citizens led to an agitation that began in June 1979 and ended with the signing of the Assam Accord in August 1985.
