SUMMARY
The ABSU (All Bodo Students’ Union) was a Bodo separatist rebel group that fought an intrastate armed conflict over territory against the Government of India in the late 1980s and early 1990s (see India: Bodoland). Northeast India, sometimes referred to as the “Seven Sisters” after the seven states that comprise the region, has since independence been a patchwork of ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. These relatively small and sparsely populated (by Indian standards) states have experienced a turbulent history, stoked by ethnic tensions and insurgencies. One particularly prominent part of the social and political milieu in the region has been the demographic stress on political conflict brought by the immigration from the rest of India and Bangladesh. The “indigenous” population of India’s seven northeastern states has commonly been referred to as the “tribal populations”. Many of these tribes, but not all, has received special protected status in the Constitution of India; the protected tribes are referred to as the “Scheduled Tribes”. The immigrant population of Northeast India is commonly called the “non-tribal” population, and is comprised of, for example, Bengalis and other ethnic or religious groups found in India proper. Among the tribal populations, there has often been a perception of discrimination, particularly compared to the “immigrant” non-tribal communities. It was in this context that ABSU emerged in the northeastern Assam state.
The ABSU was formed in 1967 at the Kokrajhar College to promote separatist claims on the behalf of the Bodo tribal people. In March 1988, the ABSU forwarded the demand for a separate “Bodoland” federal state, and for two autonomous districts in Neelachal and Lalung. Its transformation into a militant organization began with the appointment of Upendra Nath Bramha as the group’s President in 1987. Bramha quickly established himself as one of the primary representatives of the Bodos, which alienated him from the more traditional elites; he also increased the intensity of ABSU’s activities. The ABSU organized large protest rallies in June 1987, and the group became increasingly radicalized after the death of one of its members during these protests.
The ABSU signed an agreement with the Indian federal and Assam state governments on 20 February 1993 to establish the 40-seat Bodoland Autonomous Council.
At some point after Bramha became President, the ABSU split into the Bramha and Ramsiary factions. In the UCDP data, the Bramha faction was considered the “parent” group, and remained with the name ABSU. In 1988, the Bodo People’s Action Committee (BPAC) was created in order to launch a “mass movement”, and it came to function as the armed wing of the Bramha-led ABSU. It was after the creation of BPAC that the Bodo struggle began to turn violent.
It has not been possible to establish exactly how large the ABSU was, or whether it had any connections to other formally organized groups.
