Rabia Begum was feeding her breast to her 17-month-old daughter, sitting on a stool in the veranda of her roadside bamboo and straw hut. Her other children were playing in the small courtyard. Her husband, Chandeh Ali, was busy with some work at the back of the house. They did not even guess what was to come in the next few minutes.
Suddenly, the playing children rushed toward their mother in panic and grasped her. Already, there were hues and cries around their house. Hearing the desperate cries of his children, when Chandeh Ali entered the courtyard, he saw a group of people armed with swords, daggers, knives, tridents, and petrol. The attackers divided into three groups. One chased the running Chandeh Ali. Another set fire to the house. The third struck their weapons on the children and their mother including the one in her lap. In minutes, they were transformed into a heap of human limbs. The house became an ash-heap. And Chandeh Ali? A trident struck him from behind.
This is not a scene from a horror movie. These are words etched into the history of independent, secular, socialist, democratic India, written in the blood of more than 3,000 Bengali-speaking Muslims in remote villages around Nellie, in what was then Nagaon district (now Morigaon) in Assam, on Friday, 18 February 1983. The carnage unfolded over a mere six to seven hours, turning fields into graveyards and villages into smoldering ruins. Read about it, and be afraid. I read accounts of it and couldn’t sleep prow for months. The scenes stll haunt like personal ghosts, terrifying to the core, shaking faith in humanity itself. If we call ourselves beasts for such acts, it insults the beasts. Civilization sometimes turns wilder than the wildest savagery. Nellie reminds us of Auschwitz, Birkenau, and other earthly hells—one of the most horrendous genocides on record.
The massacre was no spontaneous outburst but a calculated eruption amid the Assam Agitation, a movement from 1979 to 1985 against alleged “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh. It began after the 1978 death of Mangaldoi MP Hiralal Patwari, when a by-election was opposed alleging inclusions of “doubtful citizens” in electoral rolls. The All Assam Students Union (AASU) and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) spread fears, portraying Bengali-speaking Muslims, many settled since the 1930s, as threats to Assamese culture, identity, and livelihoods. They demanded detection, deletion from voter lists, and deportation of these so-called “Bangladeshis.”
By 1983, tensions boiled over with the controversial Assembly elections. The central government under Indira Gandhi pushed forward despite AASU’s boycott calls. AASU leaders threatened dire consequences for voters, mapping minority areas. On the other side, Congress workers urged minorities to vote to prove citizenship. Reports emerged that on 14 February many in Nagaon cast votes, infuriating agitators. Plans were hatched in surrounding Assamese villages: the date fixed for February 18, the agenda—genocide to “save mother Assam.”
The attackers, drawn from Assamese chauvinist groups linked to AASU and AAGSP, along with Tiwa (Lalung) tribals, descended on 14 villages: Alisingha, Khulapathar, Basundhari, Borjula, Butuni, Indurmari, Mati Parbat, Muladhari, Silbheta, Borburi, and others. They blocked escapes, burned homes, and slaughtered indiscriminately— women, children, elders unable to flee. Eyewitnesses later identified perpetrators from nearby villages, yet myths persisted that it was solely tribal handiwork, absolving Assamese nationalists.
Investigative works, such as Diganta Sharma’s 2007 book ‘Nellie, 1983: Asom Andolonor Borborotom Gonohatyar Postmortem Report’, strip away these falsehoods through painstaking documentation. Sharma, then a young reporter for the Assamese weekly Sadin, exposed AASU’s direct involvement, reproducing a Janakranti report from April 17, 1983, where Chief Minister Hiteswar Saikia claimed AASU branches issued orders to attack minority areas. President Nurul Hussain denied it, blaming government agents. But Sharma’s evidence points to chauvinist orchestration.
Worse, the police facilitated the horror. A wireless message from Nagaon Police Station’s officer-in-charge, Jahiruddin Ahmed, on 15 February warned of 1,000 armed Assamese assembling near Nellie, with minorities in panic. No action followed. Instead, local police diverted Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) patrols, claiming no trouble— even as smoke rose from burning villages. The National Police Commission’s report on communal riots noted officers shunning responsibility, avoiding scenes or slipping away. In Nellie, they acted in favor of the carnage, enjoying it from afar.
One survivor, Nur Jamal Bhuiyan, filed an FIR identifying 13 attackers who burned his home and killed 12 family members. A charge sheet under sections 147, 148, 326, 379, 436, 302, and 307 of the Indian Penal Code followed. 10 Overall, 688 cases arose from Jagi Road Police Station; 318 closed for “no evidence,” 310 charge-sheeted. But when Asom Gana Parishad (AGP)— AASU’s political wing— took power in 1985 via the Assam Accord, all cases dropped. The Accord ended the agitation but granted impunity, swimming over the blood of over 3,000 in Nellie, hundreds elsewhere, and even 500 AASU workers.
The death toll varies: official figures cite 1,811 in Nagaon (including Nellie), part of 3,023 statewide from January to April 1983, per the Tewary Commission. Locals and witnesses insist on 2,000–3,000 in Nellie alone, mostly children and women. No ex-gratia payments, no rehabilitation. The report was tabled in 1987 in the Assam legislative assembly by the AGP government. However, only one copy was provided to the Assembly Speaker at that time, with no wider distribution to legislators or the public, effectively keeping it suppressed for decades.
Now on 25 November 2025, the Assam Assembly tabled two reports: the official Tewary Commission, focusing on Nellie and rejecting election blame while noting pre-existing foreigner and language tensions; and the unofficial Mehta Commission, by agitation groups, attributing violence to forced polls without roll revisions. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma highlighted the contrasts for political mileage, but survivors question if this brings justice.
Victims, traumatized for decades, now awaken. They ask: Why, in 42 years, couldn’t nationalists prove us “Bangladeshi”? Even now, if proven, we’ll leave. But the haunting persists. Diganta Sharma’s work compares Assamese chauvinism to Lady Macbeth: “A little water clears us of this deed” before exposure; after, “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten these little hands.”
Nellie was India’s great shame, precursor to Delhi 1984, Mumbai 1993, Gujarat 2002. What horrors lurk next? Read about it. Be ashamed. Be afraid. Be haunted. And act— for justice, nothing less, to wash the blood from our hands.
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