Himanta blames Prafulla Mahanta for burying Tiwari report, vows public release after 38 years

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on November 13 criticised former Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta for failing to distribute printed copies of the Tiwari Commission report, despite having tabled it in the Assembly in 1987 with a promise to supply copies “in days to come”.

 

Sarma said that although Mahanta placed the report before the House, “printed copies were never provided to the MPs, MLAs”, and even the Assembly library does not have a copy. He called the omission a long-standing gap that kept crucial findings out of public reach for nearly four decades.

 

The Chief Minister announced that the current government will circulate the report to all MLAs and place copies in the Assam Legislative Assembly library on November 25.

 

Recalling the circumstances that led to the commission’s formation, Sarma noted that Assam “had witnessed unprecedented violence” in 1983, when more than 2,000 people were killed and close to three lakh residents lived in relief camps for months.

 

Addressing the commission’s section on the Nellie massacre, he said the document outlines the “factual situation” leading up to the incident. According to his reading, a series of earlier events had “antagonised the tribal population”, prompting a retaliatory attack on the immigrant Muslim community.

 

However, Sarma stressed that the commission’s most significant observations relate to long-term trends rather than individual episodes. “The highlights of the report are not about the incident; the highlights of the report are about demographic changes that have happened in Assam since 1951,” he said.

 

The state government maintains that releasing the report now will allow lawmakers and researchers to examine a key document that has shaped Assam’s political and demographic debates for decades.