• Oil and ‘Outsiders’: Outrage in Assam Over the BJP’s Decision to Privatise Oil Fields

    Back in 1980, Dulal Sarma, a leader of the All Assam Students Union (AASU), slashed open his chest with a blade to write these Assamese words with blood on a road in Guwahati – thus creating one of the most enduring images of the six-year-long students’ agitation Assam saw against “outsiders”. The words, which meant “We shall give our blood, not oil”, became one of the most popular slogans of the agitation which helped fuel a widespread assertion of Jatiotabadi or a sense of strong sub-nationalism in the state. When the leaders raised that slogan in protest marches, masses responded with approval, “We shall spill our blood but shall never part with the oil which we own.” The Numaligarh and Guwahati oil refineries are the products of the sentiments this slogan evoked in the 1980s.

    Assam’s newly elected chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal also shouted this slogan at the time. It defined the then conspicuous ‘us versus them’ battle line. ‘Them’ meant the central government, widely looked at in the state as a colonial force akin to the British, interested only in plundering its natural resources. Sonowal in those days was a leader of AASU, which spearheaded the agitation against undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants along with the All Assam Jatiotabadi Yuva Satra Parishad (AJYCP). Much has changed since. He is now the face of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, a party whose government at the Centre has recently taken the decision to auction 12 of Assam’s oil fields to private players – in other words, to “outsiders”.

    Over the years, Sonowal may have shifted his base from AASU to the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and then to the BJP, but it turns out that the traces of the strong sub-nationalism seen in the 1980s around tel (oil) has remained intact. Indications of this have appeared repeatedly in the last two weeks – in local newspaper headlines, heated debates on Guwahati-based TV channels, protests by students’ organisations like AASU, AJYCP and the Tai Ahom Yuva Parishad (TAYP) and various trade unions, and also in conversations on social media and elsewhere.

    Since Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at a press meet in Guwahati on June 25 that 12 small oil fields of the state are among the 67 fields across the country which the Centre would let open for international bidders on July 15, all the political parties, including coalition partners of the Sonowal government – the Bodo People’s Front (BPF) and the AGP – have been raising questions. Those opposed to the move are accusing the government of “selling the state’s resources to outsiders” in the name of bringing poriborton (change), a term the BJP and its coalition partners extensively used to defeat the 15-year-old Congress government in the April assembly elections.

    Firebrand RTI activist and farmers’ leader Akhil Gogoi was the first to protest the move. On June 25, the general secretary of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), with more than 400 supporters in tow, flashed banners and raised slogans outside a five-star hotel in Guwahati where Pradhan was meeting 200 potential private bidders.

    One of the banners said, “Tez dim, tel nidiu”.

    The same day, in the upper Assam town of Duliajan, which has the headquarters of the public sector unit Oil India Limited (OIL), AASU members burnt effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pradhan and Sonowal, demanding the Centre roll back its decision. It also called for a 12-hour Assam bandh. On July 13, it plans a protest march in Nazira, an oil-rich district of the state. TAYP also called for a bandh on July 3. From July 4 to 8, the AJYCP joined the agitation with a series of protests across the state including yet another Assam bandh and blocking the National Highway 31 and train services. It threatened to intensify its agitation if the Centre didn’t withdraw its decision.

    The petroleum minister said, “These 12 oilfields, which have a resource potential worth Rs 170 billion, would not only help roll about Rs 40 billion in Assam’s economy, but will also create jobs and add to the state’s revenue from oil royalty”. Not only that, the Centre also has the plan to turn “Assam into the oil hub of southeast Asia“. The Centre, the minister said, in its Hydrocrabon Vision 2030 for the northeast, has envisaged investing Rs 1300 billion in the petroleum sector in the region in the next 14 years, of which Rs 800 billion will be invested in Assam alone. “In the current financial year, we are investing about Rs 60 billion in Assam,” he said.

    The numbers quoted are impressive. So is the hope for job opportunities for local youth and a potential jump in the state’s earnings from oil royalty, both crucial for the betterment of the state. Yet, not too many seem to accept Pradhan’s argument. “This is nothing but an attempt to sell our natural resources to multinationals,” Akhil Gogoi told local media. He said, “The BJP had promised to protect jati, mati, bheti (ethnicity, land and resources) of the people of Assam in its campaign for the assembly elections based on which people voted for it. But within just one month of coming to power in the state, it has put up 12 oilfields for sale to private companies.”

    In a letter addressed to the prime minister, KMSS said, “Assam’s petroleum resources have served little the interests of the region earlier and this must change. Earnings from these resources must be carefully invested in Assam to allow her to prosper economically. The decision to allow Foreign Direct Investment and thus handing over these oilfields to the private economic concerns will further ensure that Assam will again be deprived of her rightful claim to petroleum.” It is a sentiment shared by many in the state. Speaking to The Wire, AASU president Dipanka Kumar Nath said, “Privatisation of oil fields would take away the people’s right over the state’s resources. In Gujarat, the Centre handed over the oil fields to the state-run Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation through a notification. But in Assam, it is giving the oil fields to private parties though like Gujarat, the Assam government also has a company, Assam Hydro Carbon Corporation Limited (AHCCL), since in 2006.”

    Though AHCCL was formed in September 2006 to explore hydrocarbons and other energy sources, the state has not been able to do much without the Centre’s help. Nath said, “ONGC, OIL or the state-owned oil corporations (there are two more besides AHCCL) could have entered into joint ventures with private parties for these fields. If they are involved, the people of the state will reap the benefit through jobs and other services but an international company doesn’t have any such obligation to the people.”

    The 12 oil fields to be auctioned on July 15 are Sapekhati, Jeraipathar, Sarojini, Duwarmora, Dipling, Kherem, Lakhmijan, Bihbor, Uttar Pothoria, Pothoria, Charaideu and Borsila. While the first six are with OIL, the rest are presently under ONGC. On June 25, Pradhan explained why public sector undertakings have been kept out of it, “Many of the big oil sector companies do not have the technology or managerial skills to exploit small oilfields and so we are allowing firms that have the technology and skill to bid for them”. Guwahati-based political commentator and economic analyst Adip Kumar Phukan did not agree with his explanation. “That argument is wrong. OIL couldn’t work in the Jeraipathar field because of local resistance. The government failed to assure people about the safety of the Rohmoria embankment near the field. However, OIL is still extracting oil from Sarojini,” he said.

    Phukan, also a former AJYCP vice president, told The Wire, “The aim is to systematically weaken the oil PSUs operating in the state and allow private operators to move in. Even though the prime minister commissioned the Assam Gas Cracker Project last year with fanfare, its proposed plastic park failed to take off. GAIL, the main promoter of the project, is now said to have decided to transfer the polymer generated from the project to Kanpur. Plastic industries there will generate employment from our raw material. The same will happen with the oil fields.” He asked, “In the Naga Accord, the Centre apparently has allowed the Nagas to have the sole right over their natural resources. Why can’t it be given to the people of Assam?”

    Phukan felt the state government should instead “think up an education policy linked to the three important resources of the state – tea, oil and coal – to ready the local youth for the specialised posts.” LaDainian Tomlinson Jersey

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