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Resource Library

AMAN Trust records information gathered through research, advocacy, trainings, workshops and other media for supplementing knowledge building and sharing.

Knowledge is a tool for change. Aman documents its work, publishes research, and shares learning openly so that others can build on it. Our publications are freely available and cover communal violence, legal rights, peace-building, governance, and livelihood development.

Curated Reading Lists

Annotated collections of external reporting and commentary compiled by AMAN Trust researchers on major incidents of communal and industrial conflict.

Resources on Conflict in Bodoland, Assam (48 sources)

1. Assam in the centre — Despite protestations that it fights for the oppressed, the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) of Badruddin Ajmal openly promotes “Muslims for the rights of Muslims”. The success of that campaign and the AIUDF’s subsequent emergence as the main opposition party in the state have deepened the communal divide, pushing the Congress into an alliance with the Bodo People’s Front and drawing the contours of a complex and loaded situation. says Seema Chisti .
2. Assam calls for a human response. — Farah Naqvi says that India is yet to recognise the nature of targeted violence in law or uphold the inviolable rights of those uprooted in each such episode.
3. Riots & the bogey of Bangladeshis — Many Muslims from erstwhile East Bengal settled in Assam in early 20th century. But vested interests are out to prove that their descendants today are illegal migrants, says Banajit Hussain.
4. Anger against media for ‘poor coverage’ of Assam — There was much anger against the media for what protesters said was “poor” coverage of the violence against Muslims in Assam and Myanmar, says Rahi Gaikwad .
5. The illegal Bangladeshi immigrant: Do the bogeyman numbers add up? — Bodos don’t want to talk about all the groups that want a piece of the Assam pie. And Muslims would rather play the victim card than talk about the political ambitions they think their demographic numbers entitle them to and which they feel they are deprived of because of seats reserved for tribals. But who wants to talk about all those complex and touchy issues? It’s much easier to blame the Bangladeshi bogeyman, says Sandip Roy .
6. The Myth of the Bangladeshi and Violence in Assam — As for the people themselves, it would be worthwhile for them to discard communal and ethnic prejudices which are essential for harmonious co-existence. Assam never was a religiously or ethnically homogeneous entity and never will be , concludes Nilim Dutta .
7. Land of discord — Origin of the relentless strife in Bodoland lies in a series of blunders, right from colonial times says Arnab Pratim Dutta .
8. From crisis to opportunity — To stop the cycle of violence in Bodoland, old issues must be addressed, writes Jamal Kidwai .
9. Flaws of the accord — Deepak Singh says that The Bodo Territorial Council act is the primary reason for current tensions between Bodos and non-Bodos.
10. Assam’s sorrow — Often enough in much of Assam, all that it takes to set alight the sub-surface nodes of volatility is a mere spark, says Editor of Hindu.
11. Stop Assam’s sparks — Our tendency to accept political violence as a routine matter is dangerous. Hooligans from a wide array of political outfits routinely indulge in violence and get away with it says Editor of Deccan Chronicle .
12. Please come back — As students and workers from Assam and other north-eastern States flee south Indian cities fearing ethnically-targeted violence, India’s tenuous social fabric is once again under severe strain says Editor of Hindu .
13. Violence in Bodo Areas: Deciphering The Causes — The need of the hour therefore is to activate a clean and transparent record keeping of land by the state so that violence based on the fear of outsiders forcibly taking away the most precious commodity, land, is effectively averted, concludes Namrata Goswami .
14. What lies behind Assam violence? — India’s north-eastern state of Assam is a veritable tinder-box. So why does it periodically erupt into violence and blood-letting? questions Subir Bhaumik.
15. Outbreak of violence in Mumbai — Though it is not true that Bangladeshis are migrating in large numbers (this is largely the Sangh Parivar propaganda) by unfortunately Bodos, in order to fulfill their ambition of Bodo-land and for evicting Bengali Muslims and other ethnic communities from the 4 districts of Bodo Territorial Council, are using this propaganda for their own purposes, says Asghar Ali Engineer.
16. How not to read the current crisis — The issue of people from the North-East fleeing from many of the metropolitan cities where they study or work in large, unprecedented numbers raises many questions that requires both immediate responses and long-term appraisal says Goulan Naulak.
17. Should shoot at sight orders be given on Indo- Bangladesh borders? — Some analysts argue that if illegal immigration cannot be halted then part of it could be legalized by issuing work permits to a specified number of those coming year. Those with work permits will not be enrolled as voters. This will suit the immigrants too because none of them come into become voters, they merely come to look for opportunities for employment, suggests Kingshuk Nag.
18. ‘Stateless’ remedy to illegal problem — Halfway through my tenure in Assam, Tarun Gogoi became the chief minister. He issued statements to the press about what he referred to as my constitutional impropriety in raking up Bangladeshi migrants’ issue, says S K Sinha, Ex Governor of Assam.
19. Why blood will flow in Assam again — The Assam riots were not the result of a sudden reaction, but an accumulation of years of anger and insecurity. Unless lessons are learnt, they will happen again. Ratnadip Choudhury and Avalok Langer report.
20. Our heart must bleed for everyone… not just for Muslims — Have you ever seen Arab Sheikhs protesting the killing of Muslims in Myanmar or their citizens? questions Adnan.
21. Assam:Demographic invasion — The corrupt politics of vote banks and crass electoral calculi, to the manifest detriment of the national interest, must be defeated. India’s diversity can only be held together by the unity of law and of justice, not by the unprincipled horse-trading that governs politics today, concludes K P S Gill.
22. The Quickfix Syndrome — Land is finite but political and economic benefits can be shared. Gogoi’s real test will lie in bringing leaders of the communities together to respect existing realities. Perhaps an SC-backed reconciliation effort, a process mandated by the court with appointed mediators, can have a role says Sanjoy Hazarika.
23. A Turf War — The aftermath of the rioting in Assam has led to one of India’s largest humanitarian crises, with more than 400,000 men, women and children living in nearly 300 ill-equipped relief camps , says Wasbir Hussain.
24. Assam riots and dilemma of the Indian secularists — As romanticism withseparatism fades away and the people of the Northeast gradually integrateto mainland India, the secularists from the mainland who do not understand the difference between “Narzary” and “Nazrul”, must not further contribute to the renewed marginalisation through narrow interpretation of secularism, concludes Suhas Chakma.
25. Dissecting the Bodo-Muslim Clashes and Attacks on North-East People — Now the government will be engaged in Pakistan-bashing and soon the people of the North-East will be forgotten; not that anyone tried to understand their grievances even when they said their hearts went out to our “North-East citizens”, says Nandita Haskar.
26. The 50-50 shot. — Gogoi’s Hindu card gamble is biting back—with the Bodos , says S N M Abdi.
27. Knowing us, knowing them. — The Assamese are conscious of non-northeastern variety. We have no trouble identifying the Bengali of Kolkata, who speaks a more ear-pleasing version of the language the migrants use at home. We know someone from the southern states is always a Madrasi. He is different from the desuwali, who speaks Hindi and goes on vacation to his des at the end of every 11 months, says Kabir Firaque.
28. Every industry should hire northeast people — Filmmaker and companion of late Assamese poet and singer Bhupen Hazarika, Kalpana Lajmi wants a team from the Hindi film industry to visit the northeast on a peace mission. She tells Bharati Dubey that it’s high time the rest of India opened its arms to the region
29. Lasting Solution A Long Way Off — Former Assam chief minister and AGP (Asom Gana Parishad) President Prafulla Kumar Mahanta , though reluctant to get into the blame game (“it’s difficult to say or comment”), suggests dialogue is the only way to negotiate the minefield that is Assam today. He spoke to Uttam Sengupta.
30. Northeast panic suggests social media should consider regulating itself in crisis. — Add a malicious payload, push it out on Web and SMS networks and you have a social engineering weapon capable of triggering or sustaining unrest, says Pratik Kanjilal.
31. Loops And Holes In The Narrative — Bengali-speaking Muslims discover no proof is enough to dispel doubts says Uttam Sengupta.
32. Exodus 2012: Rout Cause — It wasn’t just rogue SMSes that fuelled the northeasterners’ flight from the IT cities says Pushpa Iyengar and Madhavi Tata. 33. There We See Only The Stumps
33. There We See Only The Stumps — The discourse has moved past Bodo-Muslim clashes, what we are seeing in Assam is ethnic cleansing, says K ishalay Bhattacharjee.
34. A Foreign Hand From The East — Communally-inclined parties find Bangladeshis a rallying factor says Saba Naqvi with Debarshi Dasgupta and Toral Varia Deshpande.
35. Illegal migration not a bilateral conflict — Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni speaks to Barkha Dutt , an Indian television journalist and Group Editor with NDTV on the issue of migration from Bangladesh to India and water sharing treaty between the two countries.
36. Ethnic violence in Bodoland — Ethnicity and identity have been the key issues of mobilisation in all of north-east India. The region has had a long history of being marginalised; its inclusion in the Indian nation is seriously challenged by communities; and identity politics has shaped the politics of resistance. The struggle for power, both political and economic, has thus become bloodied. What lies behind the recent violence in Assam? The failure of the Sixth Schedule to deliver, the contest over and and resources, the lack of development, and the fear of disempowered smaller groups are all tangled in the web of electoral politics of the ruling classes., says Suryasikha Pathak.
37. Conflict country — This is a migration very few know of or care about. But a staggering 1 million people may have been forced out of their homes in the northeast in the past 20 years alone. And the displacement continues. Whenever it is geography, not shared history or culture that binds men, the coexistence is bound to be tremulous and uneasy, reports Anand Soondas.
38. The good, the bad and the downright ugly — The best of times has turned into the worst of times for the North-East. The cheers of national pride for Olympian boxer Mary Kom have been drowned out by ugly ethnic threats. It’s time to go beyond quick-fix solutions, writes Sanjoy Hazarika.
39. A Never-Ending Strife — An overview: from the past to the trigger this time, by Uttam Sengupta.
40. Starting the fire. — The recent strife in Assam and ripple effects in the rest of India point to an insidious game being played by extremists, says Barkha Dutt.
41. The Assam Tangle — The recent violence in Kokrajhar and its spillover in other states reflect Assam’s unique problems- decades of insurgency, a porous border and territorial wrangles.Add to that government derelict, says Samudra Gupta Kashyap.
42. Variety of cultures, united in fear — Attacked, threatened or fleeing, they belong to various N-E states and mostly to communities with no link to Assam srife.A few examples, by John Bosco Tirkey & Nathanel Dang from Karbi Anglong , Jintu Deuri from Assam and Mukut and Jwna Daimary from Assam.
43. Hate begets hate — It is long overdue that the people of this vast diverse nation affirm that nothing — nothing — can justify communal violence, says Harsh Mander.
44. An unending tragedy — This has been ’s season of unending horror which began with a ferry mishap in lower followed by a devastating flood (it’s the first surge, three more are yet to come), the Guwahati molestation shame and now the riots in the Bodo areas, says Sanjoy Hazarika.
45. The Bloodlands of Assam — Besides administrative and intelligence inputs, the Chief Minister chose to disregard two reports from senior Congressmen who visited Kokrajhar after the July 6 killing of the two ABMSU leaders. On July 7, Kokrajhar district Congress chief Lohendra Basumatary and Assam Pradesh Congress Vice-President Y.L. Karna had pressed Gogoi to deploy paramilitary troops to pre-empt an escalation in violence, in vain says, Kaushik Deka and Asit Jolly.
46. In The Beginning Was The Loaded Word — How can a human being be ‘illegal’? How the language of dehumanisation is fuelling the Assam crisis, questions Yasmin Saikia .
47. Why Maps Can’t Redraw The Truth — India’s citizenship laws were ambivalent on cross-border migration. Assam bears the brunt of it, says Sanjib Baruah.
48. Pulling Assam back from the abyss — A call by policymakers, scholars, activists and intellectuals on the situation in the State.

Resources on Labour Protests at Maruti Suzuki Industry in Manesar, Gurgaon (28 sources)

1. Notes from the warfront: Maruti workers ‘on trial’ — There is a ‘list of 162’ workers that has not been disclosed but which forms the basis for the police to either arrest or let go of Maruti workers once they are picked up. The family members of these 162 are being harassed and intimidated and being visited thrice a day by local police, sometimes accompanied by Gurgaon police – at times 12-15 police show up, says Rakhi Sehgal .
2. Appeal from the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union — Appeal from the MSEU (Maruti Suzuki Employees Union) to All Trade Unions, Organisations and Individuals, by Shiv Kumar, general secretary, MSEU, via Rakhi Sehgal of the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI)
3. Workers strike thrice in five months, How Maruti Suzuki lost connect with them — There isn’t a single burning, insurmountable issue because of which workers at Maruti’s Manesar plant have struck work thrice in the last five months . Sruthijith KK & Chanchal Pal Chauhan report from Manesar that at its core lie accumulated grievances and resentment, and events are adding fuel to the fire
4. Lockdown And After — The strike at the Maruti Suzuki plant shows workers’ rights is still a simmering issue , says Arindam Mukherjee .
5. Gurgaon: Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Strike — While Gurgaon is a fertile ground for future working class struggles in the country, the one missing element is the absence of a genuine working class organization that will guide the workers in not only overcoming the brutal exploitation of the multinational corporations but also in paving way for a democratic socialist alternative,says Anand Kumar.
6. The Autopsy Report — A foreign management ethos divorced from labour realities inflamed Manesar,writes Arindam Mukherjee .
7. Fear of a dead future haunts Manesar — Local village economy has suffered a huge blow after the labour-management dispute at the Maruti plant in Manesar, writes Soumik Mukherjee.
8. Notes from the dead house — It is India’s worst industrial strife post liberalisation. Revati Laul examines the ground reality at the Maruti plant in Manesar to gauge what went wrong, and why.
9. The high drama and anticipation continue at Manesar — Striking workers inside pose with bottles of urine with no water to drink. The water supply inside the plant has been cut off. The food preparation that was on at a celebratory pace outside the factory has been forced to shut down. , reports Janani Ganesan .
10. Globalise owner, worker alike — Bharat Jhunjhunwala advocates a world market-friendly industrial policy for India.
11. Truce signed, Maruti strike ends again — While the third round of strike by workers at the Manesar plant has come to a close with the signing of another pact, the larger demand for a new union still remains unaddressed, says Janani Ganesan .
12. Why they strike. Why you should care — What is happening in Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant? How do workers present their case against the noise of modern India? The devil is in the details, find Nisha Susan & Gaurav Jain
13. Strike after, challenges galore at Maruti Suzuki — If analysts are to be believed, the worst is not yet over for Maruti Suzuki India, says Sindu Bhattacharya . Death and the Factory – The Casualties of Maruti Suzuki, Manesar
14. Death and the Factory – The Casualties of Maruti Suzuki, Manesar — A living wage is harder to come by than death on the cheap,says Suddhabrata Sengupta .
15. Who is the ‘Ravana’in the Maruti story gone wrong? — Will Modi be able to exceed his brief and assuage Suzuki? It is not either about Haryana or Gujarat but about India!,remarks Rakesh Khar.
16. Can India Inc. face the truth about Manesar violence? — Instead of shedding crocodile tears about the worsening ‘investment climate’, the oligarchs who make up Indian Inc. and their MBA underlings would do well to engage in some soul-searching. For a change, they can ask themselves: Should I continue to treat the Indian worker simply as a cost factor that has to be reduced to zero, or can I treat them with a little more respect, so that they too can live, and work, with dignity?, argues G Sampath .
17. Maruti Suzuki Manesar Workers – Casteist Attack and Repression — The following is a statement issued by the Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union (MSWU) on 19 July following violence and repression at the Manesar plant yesterday.
18. ‘It Is Primarily A Criminal Act, Not A Labour Dispute’ — Tamaki Tsukuda, minister (economic) of the Japnese embassy in New Delhi spoke to Pranay Sharma in the aftermath of the violence at Maruti-Suzuki’s Manesar plant.
19. ‘It’s Easier To Coerce Outsiders And Treat Them Like Slaves’ — Complaining of one-sided media reports, four arrested Maruti employees offer an alternative narrative to the carnage that befell the automaker’s Manesar plant on July 18
20. ‘Book The Guilty’ — Maruti Suzuki COO (administration), S.Y. Siddiqui , the chief negotiator for the management, on the present crisis — spoke to Outlook .
21. A Grinding Of Gears — Earlier, workers were less educated and submissive; now, the younger lot is educated, aware, assertive and aggressive. A change that, perhaps, the Japanese management at Maruti—which has been in control in the last five years—did not factor in while bringing in new strategies and practices into the company, says Arindam Mukherjee .
22. Workforce Woes — Unions accuse companies of preferring underpaid contract labour on the shopfloor. The result: growing industrial unrest, writes Rashmi K Pratap and Sebastian PT .
23. The Leader’s Slip — It may still be India’s No. 1 carmaker by far, but Maruti Suzuki has to work hard to regain lost ground, Deepak Goel .
24. The Third Wave — The first-quarter results have dampened Maruti’s hold, as competition is rising. Now, the incumbent is placing new bets, writes Kunal N Talgeri .
25. The Test Drive — When we started Maruti, everything was uncharted territory. It was important to be open to learn how to make cars, R C Bhargava tells Kunal N Talgeri .
26. Down and out on India’s shop floor — India’s manufacturing sector is shedding permanent jobs and hiring casual hands to increase profits. This has divided the labour movement and stoked tensions. The Manesar violence is a symptom of a worsening problem , writes Aman Sethi .
27. After Manesar, be prepared for more urban class wars — In the land of a “million mutinies”, the violence at Maruti’s Manesar plant exhibits all the symptoms of class conflict, argues R. Jagannathan.
28. Maruti strife: Management is out of sync with its workers — Issues at Maruti are getting global attention because of a more organised labour force at its facility compared to workers at nearby parts’ suppliers and vendors and also because Maruti’s troubles echo far and wide across the globe, says Sindu Bhattacharya .