The tea tribes, engaged in the plantations, are also in a limbo. The bulk of the tea labourers, who number around eight lakh, are illiterate. Their living conditions are deplorable, with even drinking water being unavailable. In the last month itself, at least 100 tea labourers in the districts of Sivasagar and Jorhat are reported to have succumbed to diarrhoea.

For the ruling Congress Party, these tea labourers and adivasis are part of a vote bank that the former Congress president, Dev Kant Barooah had identified, comprising Muslims, local tea labour and Bengali-speaking migrants. Today, the Congress’s vote-bank politics has come to haunt it, as visuals of protesting adivasis being brutally beaten and women being publicly stripped feature on primetime television.

The Gogoi government has had to face considerable embarrassment and pressure because of these developments. But how it chooses to defuse the volatile situation is till a matter of speculation.

sg_kashyap@rediffmail.com