Somnath Batabyal’s third novel is mostly set in the Assam of the 1980s and 1990s, when the State was in turmoil over the “outsider question”: to whom does the State rightfully belong? To the indigenous Assamese alone? The subcontinent’s history has ensured that a sizeable portion of the population consists of Bengalis, some of whom were part of the erstwhile Assam province while some migrated from Bangladesh during Partition. As the main city in the north-eastern region of India, Assam’s capital, Guwahati, has a mixed population of Indians from all over the country. Are they all outsiders to be driven out? The militant outfit the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) fought for a State only for the Assamese, resulting in a massacre of everyone they considered to be “foreigners”, especially Bengalis.
Batabyal deftly captures the turmoil of the days of the anti-Bengali protest. The ghosts of the infamous Nellie Massacre of February 1983, in which nearly 2,000 Muslims—mostly women and children—were butchered in broad daylight for being “outsiders” from Bangladesh, haunt his novel. Batabyal uses the ULFA agitation to comment on xenophobia in general, which is often not as personal as it seems to be. Its roots lie in socio-economic problems such as poverty and lack of employment rather than in individual animosity.
Red River
Context
Pages: 364
Price: Rs.699
Narrating the stories of three families across two generations, Red River begins dramatically. It is June 1983: a new television set has arrived at Gopalpur Rajbari in Assam a day before the cricket World Cup final. The rajbari (royal house) is home to Banalakshmi “Lucky” Dutta and her family consisting of her husband, Amol, and their children, Samar and Tina. In the world outside the household, resentment against non-Assamese groups is boiling over, stoked by ULFA activists. That night, as the family celebrates India’s unexpected victory over the West Indies, members of the ULFA pay them a visit to deliver an ultimatum: they must leave Gopalpur within a week.
Interlinked stories
The story then switches over to Major Kabir Singh Chaudhary, an Indian Army officer stationed in Nagaland, who had escorted Lucky out of Dhaka to India in the days preceding the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971 and fallen in love with her. October 31, 1984, is the day we meet Kabir. It is a fateful day: in Delhi, Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards as retaliation against the Indian Army’s Operation Blue Star carried out at Indira’s behest. Kabir is informed by his senior colleague that his father—a former high-ranking Army officer who had resigned in protest over Operation Blue Star—has died in the riots that broke out in Delhi following Indira’s assassination.
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The news of this senseless killing comes close on the heels of a counter-insurgency operation carried out by Kabir against ULFA members who were purportedly armed. The operation went horribly wrong, causing the death of a dozen or so unarmed young men. As Kabir ponders what to do with the lone survivor, a boy named Romen Kalita, he is hit by the news of his father’s death. Batabyal thus shows how in two places separated by miles, similar battles, sparked off by fears of difference, are being played out, resulting in the death of innocent people. Romen will also eventually end up dead, probably the victim of an encounter killing, pointing to the dreaded presence of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in north-eastern India that gives the military unlimited powers. Through such incidents, Batabyal examines sociopolitical issues of migration, statehood, separatism, identity, and so on.
Cover of Red River. | Photo Credit: By special arrangement
Romen is the older son of Madhob Kalita, a headmaster in Assam’s Moramela village. While Madhob is initially wary of the “anti-foreigner fervour” sweeping across Assam, he ends up joining the ULFA when Romen’s bullet-ridden body turns up at the ghats of the Brahmaputra in Moramela.
The next generation
The story then moves to the next generation as fate conspires to bring the disparate families together in Guwahati. Madhob’s younger son, Rizu, is the star of his school. His closest friend is Lucky’s son, Samar, a voracious reader. Rizu finds his popularity challenged when Kabir’s son, Rana, joins the school after his father gets posted to Guwahati. Rana’s goodness and charm soon have everyone singing his praises, making Rizu jealous.
However, an incident where Rana comes to the rescue of Rizu and Samar in a street fight cements the friendship between the three. Then an act of terrorism rips through Samar’s neighbourhood, upending the carefree existence of the three young adults.
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Batabyal’s prose in Red River is spartan, with the occasional flourish and moments of indulgence. The austere style evokes the tumultuous atmosphere and the finer nuances of the relationship between the three boys with precision. The balance of power in the friendship is determined by questions of identity even though they trust one another. Samar, a Bengali in Assam, seeks social protection through his bond with Rizu; at the same time, he detests this feeling of inferiority. When Rizu falls for Samar’s cousin, Leela, Samar exults in the advantage he thus gets over his friend.
The novel begins to falter when Batabyal decides to shift the story’s point of view to Samar. With Samar controlling the narrative, the details of Rana’s and Rizu’s lives seem like an afterthought. Ditto with the women in the story, especially Lucky and Leela, who seem to have been created just to keep the plot moving. In Red River, Batabyal makes a strong case against othering by showing how it uproots and ravages lives while not gaining anything for anyone concerned. But the effectiveness of the message is lost in the lazy storytelling. Red River ends up as a novel big on ideas but weak in execution.
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