ULFA in Lakhipathar

Abstract

Studying the ULFA movement at its peak during late 1980s, as it was experienced in Assam and in and around Lakhipathar more specifically, this chapter marks out different perspectives from which ULFA was looked at and understood. The chapter also offers an analysis of the implications this divergence in perspectives has for the emergence and strength of an alternative source of authority. The primary material that I work with in this chapter is mostly drawn from the field, complemented by a few interviews with movement leaders. The chapter enables us to understand the specific legitimate space of authority that the ULFA had occupied in Lakhipathar in the pre-operation Bajrang years. The chapter provides the ground work for the larger argument of the work, about acceptance of power structures and wielders of violence, however fractured that may be.