The People's Consultative Group (PCG) was a citizen's group in

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

, India, comprising 11 members and established by the

United Liberation Front of Assam The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) (Assamese: সংযুক্ত মুক্তি বাহিনী, অসম) is an armed separatist organisation operating in the Northeast Indian state of Assam. It seeks to establish an indep ...

(ULFA) on September 8, 2005. Its objective was to initiate the peace talk process as mediator between the

central government A central government is the government that is a controlling power over a unitary state. Another distinct but sovereign political entity is a federal government, which may have distinct powers at various levels of government, authorized or dele ...

and ULFA. The PCG was dissolved by ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa in February 2011. ULFA continued the peace talk process without the PCG on 10 February 2011 in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

Members

The following is a list of PCG members released by ULFA chairman

Arabinda Rajkhowa Arabinda Rajkhowa ( Assamese: (real name Rajiv Rajkonwar), alias Mijanur Rahman Choudhury, is the Chairman of the banned group ULFA. He is one of the founder members of the group. He was also the Vice-President of the Indo-Burma Revolutionary Fr ...

Mamoni Raisom Goswami Indira Goswami (14 November 1942 – 29 November 2011), known by her pen name Mamoni Raisom Goswami and popularly as Mamoni Baideo, was an Indian writer, poet, professor, scholar and editor. She was the winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1983 ...

was appointed as the chief interlocutor between ULFA and the government. Some of its members are believed to be ULFA sympathizers or ex-ULFA cadres. #

(

Jnanpith Award The Jnanpith Award is the oldest and the highest Indian literary award presented annually by the Bharatiya Jnanpith to an author for their "outstanding contribution towards literature". Instituted in 1961, the award is bestowed only on Indian w ...

ee writer) # Reboti Phukan (Former footballer and childhood friend of

Paresh Baruah Paresh Baruah, also known by ''aliases'' Paresh Asom and Kamruj Zaman Khan, is the army chief of the ULFA, which is seeking Independence for Assam from the Indian Union. He is the vice-chairperson and the commander-in-chief of the United Libe ...

) # Arup Borborah (Lawyer) # Lachit Bordoloi (

MASS Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

leader) # Mukul Mahanta (Engineer) # Ajit Bhuyan (Editor, ''

Aji Aji or AJI may refer to: Location *Aji (town), Tieling County, Liaoning, China *Aji Island, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan *Aji, Kagawa, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan * Aji River (disambiguation), rivers with the same name Other * Aji (Go), a latent tr ...

'') # Haider Hussain (Editor, '' Asomiya Pratidin'') # Diganta Konwar (Ex Auditor, Advocate) # Brajen Gogoi (Doctor) # Dilip Patgiri (Adviser to the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad) # Hiranya Saikia (Sports organiser)

Reactions

P. V. Sumant, the Director-General of Police in Assam, welcomed the move but made it clear that police operations would continue since no ceasefire agreement existed. Though he considered it a laudable step, he expressed concern that terror outfits are known to make similar overtures to buy time. The

state government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, or ...

also agreed to facilitate the peace talk process but denied any unilateral ceasefire with the outfit.

Activities

On September 11, 2005, three days after its formation, the PCG launched a statewide opinion-sharing campaign through letters, SMS, fax and email. It adopted two further resolutions during its first sitting. It appealed to the

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

Tarun Gogoi Tarun Gogoi (11 October 1936 – 23 November 2020) was an Indian politician who served as the Chief Minister of Assam from 2001 to 2016. He was a member of the Indian National Congress and led the party to a record three consecutive electoral vi ...

to expedite the peace process. It also expressed concern over Director-General Sumant's remarks that police operations would continue with regard to

ULFA The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) (Assamese: সংযুক্ত মুক্তি বাহিনী, অসম) is an armed separatist organisation operating in the Northeast Indian state of Assam. It seeks to establish an indep ...

. On November 5, 2005, at a rally in

Nalbari Nalbari (Pron: nɔ:lˈbɑ:rɪ) is a town and a municipal board in Nalbari district in the Indian States and territories of India, state of Assam. Nalbari town is also the headquarters of Nalbari district, Nalbari District. The town is one of ma ...

, the group launched a campaign seeking an immediate end to army counter-insurgency operations.

The talk process

The future of the talk process became uncertain when state security forces killed 12 ULFA cadres on September 14, 2005, in upper Assam, using mortars and other explosives.

, the commander-in-chief of the armed wing of ULFA, reportedly said, ‘‘We will be compelled to call off the peace initiative because of the state’s attitude. While we took a major step by forming a PCG to work out the modalities of the talks with the government, what the state has done is nothing but sheer betrayal’’. The PCG held an emergency meeting in

Guwahati Guwahati (, ; formerly rendered Gauhati, ) is the biggest city of the Indian state of Assam and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the ...

taking note of the security force's operation and also threatened to call off the peace process if such operations were not stopped.

Present status

Declared unconstitutional by ULFA leadership, the PCG was dissolved in the first week of February 2011 by ULFA leaders, led by Arabinda Rajkhowa.

References