Two reports – the official ‘Commission of Enquiry on Assam Disturbances’, led by IAS officer Tribhuvan Prasad Tewary
and ‘Report of the Non-Official Judicial Inquiry Commission on the Holocaust of Assam Before, During and After Election 1983’ -- led by the former Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh T U Mehta – were both tabled on the first day of the winter session of Assam assembly on Nov 25, 2025.
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Villages impacted were - Alisingha,
Khulapathar, Basundhari, Bugduba Beel,
Bugduba Habi, Borjola, Butuni, Dongabori,
Indurmari, Mati Parbat, Muladhari, Mati Parbat no. 8, Silbheta, Borburi and Nellie.
Thousands fled to neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh and West Bengal
The inevitable backlash of the Assam violence was that within days of the massacres in Darrang, Kamrup and Goalpara districts thousands fled into Arunachal Pradesh and West Bengal.
"Land pressure likely to lead to hostility between Assamese, Bengalis and tribals" -- reported 'India Today'.
"No where else in India have such sharp divisions along ethnic and lingustic lines occurred since 1947 as in Assam.
In the Assamese-Bengali schism, for instance, what struck observers was the fact that both sides included Hindus and Muslims.
Notably, the then Chief Election Commissioner Ram Krishna Trivedi, took over as CEC in June 1982, had come under enormous criticism for having decided to go ahead with the Assam elections as was desired by the Union Govt.
Reports also claim that:
During the Assam Agitation from 1979 to 1985 against infiltration, over 2,100 people were butchered, mostly Muslims, in a single night in the infamous Nellie massacre of 1983.
Nellie (in Morigaon district) is a cluster of around 16 villages. On February 18, 1983, it is estimated that "Hindus and indigenous tribal neighbours" attacked the villages and killed over 2,100 people in a span of about six hours.
The attacked residents primarily belonged to the Bengali-speaking Muslim community whose predecessors had migrated from former East Bengal from as early as the 1930s.
On July 14, 1983, the Assam government had set up a commission headed by T P Tewari. The 551-page report was submitted to the erstwhile Hiteswar Saikia government in May 1984, but never tabled or made public.
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The violence took place in the midst of Assembly elections in the state, which was under President’s Rule at the time due to the Assam Agitation.
The Congress government headed by Indira Gandhi was in power in Delhi.
The agitation, which began in 1979, sought the detection and deportation of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and was at its peak when polls were held.
As a backgrounder - it can be shared here that following the Nellie massacre, a total of 688 cases were filed. The police submitted chargesheets for 310 cases.
When the Assam Accord was signed in 1985, the perpetrators were given total impunity – a major aspect that indicated denial of the gruesome incident.
Despite warnings from senior police officials, (assembly) elections were held on February 14 and 17, 1983. The leaders of the Assam Movement called people to boycott the elections.
Forty-two years after Assam was ravaged by violence amidst the contentious 1983 state elections – most prominently, the Nellie massacre, which was one of the worst incidents of mass violence in post-Independence India – two inquiry reports, one official and another unofficial, offering differing perspectives on what unfolded, were tabled in the Assam legislative assembly.
The Nellie massacre is one of the darkest and most sensitive chapters of Assam’s history, and the lack of accountability and prosecution of perpetrators – no one was ever arrested for it – means that it remains an open wound.
A key point of difference between the reports and their analysis of the incidents that unfolded is their stand on the decision to hold elections in Assam in 1983.
The official (sarkari) Tewari commission report states that “the decision to hold the elections cannot be blamed for the outbreak of the violence of 1983”.
But the unofficial Mehta commission report says - “the elections were the main and immediate cause of the violence”.
The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP), who led the agitation, had announced a boycott of the elections.
In July 1983, the Congress government led by Hiteshwar Saikia, which came to power after the contentious polls, constituted the Tewari commission to “look into the circumstances leading to the disturbances which took place in the State of Assam during January to April 1983”.
The panel was asked “to examine the measures taken by the concerned authorities to anticipate, prevent and deal with these disturbances and to assess adequacy whereof and indicate ....
whether there were any deficiency or failures on the part of any authority or individuals”.
It was also asked to suggest measures to prevent recurrence of such incidence in future and to make such other recommendations as the commission may deem fit to make.
This commission was decried by the “agitationists”.
In 1984, the Assam Freedom Fighters’ Association constituted the Mehta commission as a “non-official judicial enquiry”, saying that the Tewary commission was a “belated administrative inquiry by a retired Chief Secretary of the UP Government”.
“In our considered view, the decision to hold the elections cannot be blamed for the outbreak of the violence of 1983.
The evidence produced before the commission clearly brings out that the issues of foreigners, language, etc, have been agitating the minds of the people for the last several decades, exploding into violence on several previous occasions…
Most of these disturbances were not related to elections.
Moreover, if the proposition is accepted that no election should be held if there is a threat of violence, then it will be accepting the worst form of political outrage, brigandage and blackmail, which will have the most serious implications,” it states.
It goes on to pin responsibility on the “agitationists”. “AASU and the AAGSP are primarily responsible for launching the agitation and for its consequences.
There is overwhelming evidence that, with a view to preventing the holding of elections, arson, riots, destruction of public properties like buildings, roads and bridges, sabotage of railway tracks, intimidation, picketing, ‘bandhs’, etc, were organised in a pre-planned and extensive scale.
The whole situation got out of their control, and the violence resulted in enormous loss of life and property,” it states.
However, earlier on in the report, in its chapter on the ‘Handling of Disturbances’, the commission acknowledged that the state machinery was
--- cognizant of the magnitude of the challenge of conducting elections in the prevailing atmosphere and had “anticipated difficulties.”
A written submission by the then IGP (Special Branch) S K Das to the commission mentions the difficulties faced by the law and order machinery in handling both the elections and the law and order situation.
“As these villages were under mob attack, the police, already totally pre-occupied with the election work since the first week of February 1983, found its mobility seriously affected by the large scale destruction of road bridges rendering many areas totally inaccessible except by foot,” it states.
This was “further compounded by by several instances of timid handling of situation by some local formations of police surrendering their authority to the mob rule”.
The report also states that because of the mass support for the agitation, including among government employees, the intelligence machinery, particularly at the grassroots level, was compromised, with traditional channels drying up.
The unofficial Mehta commission says --
that the “situation was not at all congenial for holding a truly free and fair election, and that the governments – state as well as central – knew it and the Election Commission ought to have known it”.
“The excuse of constitutional compulsion was an eyewash, as there was no unsurpassable compulsion.
The fact of the matter was that the party in power at the centre wanted to take advantage of capturing the government as the poll was to be boycotted by the movement leaders,” it states.
While the official report puts the toll of the Nellie massacre at around 1,800, the unofficial one pegs it at 3,000, mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims.
The reports also point to other incidents of violence that had taken place across the state during this period, among different groups such as the Assamese, tribals from Assam, Bengali-speaking Muslims, and Bengali Hindus.
The unofficial Mehta report stated: “The foreigners problem is the real problem hanging for its solution since last many years.”
The Tewari report said - “the fear of the Assamese of being overwhelmed by numbers” as a real concern, along with “land problems and deteriorating land-man ratio” and “occupation of land by the migrants”.
“The question of detection of infiltrators and the ejectment of encroachers are inter-linked in certain areas. These two problems should be tackled together in the vulnerable areas through a multi-disciplinary task force, adequately supported by the Armed Police,” the Tewari report states in its recommendations.
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