EVEN AS WORK on this cover story was in progress, the United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent) and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland issued a joint statement calling for a “total shutdown” in Assam on Republic Day 2023, from midnight to 6pm. But Republic Day celebrations are expected to go ahead as scheduled.

The recent developments underlined three things: One, the struggle is far from over for the outfits. Two, the Union and state governments are not being overconfident and are not taking chances. Three, by now both sides want a peaceful solution without loss of face. If both sides are willing to let bygones be bygones, things can only go forward, frankly.

This is not THE WEEK’s first cover on ULFA, and all of them required a lot of legwork and courage. Fitness, too, considering the terrain in which they were set! While we have covered the ULFA struggle in various articles over the past four decades, two recent covers come to mind—issues dated May 13, 2012, and December 2, 2018.

The 2012 story was written exclusively for THE WEEK by Rajeev Bhattacharyya, executive editor of the now defunct Seven Sisters’ Post daily newspaper. Bhattacharyya had met ULFA(I) boss Paresh Baruah in the jungles of eastern Nagaland, even when rumours were afloat that he was in China’s Yunnan province. In my letter in that issue, I had written about how Baruah had said that he was mulling a federal set-up in the northeast in collaboration with other regional and tribal militant outfits.

The centrepiece of the 2018 cover story was an interview with Baruah by Senior Special Correspondent Rabi Banerjee. In that article, too, Baruah stressed that a consortium of militant outfits was operating in the northeast. Much has changed since then as many of those outfits are reportedly in various stages of talks with the governments.

This week’s cover story by Deputy Chief of Bureau Namrata Biji Ahuja brings THE WEEK’s readers up to speed with the current situation. The crisp interview with Drishti Rajkhowa, second-in-command of ULFA(I), is the plus. Namrata and Deputy Photo Editor Salil Bera took great physical effort to bring you this article and the scale of it is visible in the words and the images, dear reader.

Rajkhowa reiterates that Baruah is in Yunnan and that the struggle is not over. There are signs of softening, too, where he says that an open discussion could just well be the beginning of peace. Baruah had earlier asked for a plebiscite in the northeast while Rajkhowa stresses more on talks, and there is also no mention of the militant consortium. Rajkhowa told Namrata that he had Baruah’s blessings to surrender and that, I feel, is the most important gesture.

But why this change of mind now? Rajkhowa himself provides an answer when he says that things have been improving in the northeast since 2010. So, 12 years down the line, the results are slowly showing.

Wasn’t it John F. Kennedy who said: “A rising tide raises all boats.”