Caught between the guns of militants and charges of treason, the Rs 20 billion tea industry in Assam finds itself in a bind.
Fear and anguish haunt the top personnel of the big tea companies in Assam which accounts for more than half of the countrys total production of the beverage. Hounded for years by armed insurgents for funds, the tea industry is accused of helping the separatist guerrillas.
If we dont pay the militants, we get kidnapped or even killed. And when we buy peace with money, we are dubbed anti-national, a senior tea administrator said on condition of anonymity.
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If the government could have provided us with adequate security, we would have definately ignored the rebel groups extortion demands, he said.
With the tea industry in Assam, comprising some 800 gardens, caught between the devil and the deep sea, the stage is set for a showdown between the state government and the powerful tea lobby.
The resourceful tea industry will now try to hold the government squarely responsible for all that had happened and for the government it has become a prestige issue to pin down the tea circle after all this hue and cry, a political analyst here said.
Observers think that the fallout of the exposure of the militant-tea industry nexus and the governments tough stand could hurt the states economy.
Now investors and other business houses keen on investing here might have second thoughts as they could think there is no security in the state, a leading industrialist said. At the same time the threats from the militants are real. Now nobody would be willing to take a chance.
The state government is accusing top tea plantation executives of wilfully aiding and abetting terrorism by funding separatist rebel groups.
The biggest of these, Tata Tea Limited, was the first to be charged with providing financial support to the outlawed Ulfa. Two of its top executives were arrested, but one of them, the general manager of the companys northern India plantations division, S.S. Dogra, has since been released on conditional bail.
Instead of helping the state bring back peace, Tata Tea was found to be involved in anti-national activities. The law will take its own course, Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta said. Another big company, Williamson Magor, is also accused of having paid huge amounts to the militants. We have found from audited accounts of the underground National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) that Williamson Magor has paid more than a crore, state police chief K. Hrishikeshan said.
Facing serious charges of conspiring to wage a war against the state, tea executives say that it was the governments faiure to protect them that has led to a situation in which they had to give in to the militants tactics of extortion.
What was the Assam government doing when at least a dozen of our executives were killed and more than a score of plantation managers abducted by militants? asked another senior planter who did not want to be identified.
Simply because some of the company managements refused to pay money to the rebels, those innocent lives have been lost. There is no security at all in several of the vulnerable and isolated gardens and we are at the mercy of the guerrillas, he added.
The Assam government insists that tea companies never sought protection against threats by the militants. The lack of security cannot be an excuse for the industry to help the militants financially, knowing very well their secessionist objective, officials say.
We have information that there are several other big and small tea companies which have been regularly paying off huge sums to both to the Ulfa and the NDFB. Investigations are on and we are looking at the matter very seriously, the police chief said.
While no individual planter or company has come out in defence of Tata Tea, plantation executives cautioned against tarring the entire industry with the same brush. The whole tea industry should not be clubbed together. It will be unfair as many companies have flatly refused to pay any ransom although the chances of being targetted by the militants were very high in those cases, Nitin Baruah, secretary general of the Tea Association of India, said.