A thoughtful post on the Nellie massacre 40 years later:
“I was born in Assam and grew up there. Yet, no one in my family or friends told me about Nellie. I read about it much later in my life. It was just not a part of collective memory or dinner table discourse in caste Hindu families in the state. But, I’m sure everyone who lived through the 1980s – our parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts or elder siblings – knew about it. They must have also known who the killers were or who incited them. But, most of them had either crafted a subconscious mental story to rationalise their ignorance or simply dismissed it as a stray local clash.
Everyone was responsible for Nellie, so no one was responsible for Nellie.
But, Nellie didn’t happen in a vacuum”
Paul Staniland 