Abstract
This article seeks to comprehend the way the illegal timber economy in the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Council (BTAD) in Assam is integrated within a constellation of power and authority. Based on over ten months of ethnographic field research, our analysis shows that the timber trade is indeed characterized by what can be conceptualized as an excess of sovereignty. However, a burdened agency is still exercised by those in the timber trade. Moreover, the authority structure consisting of state, rebel and non-armed actors do not directly engage violently in the trade, but are more interested in taxation, governance, or indeed wildlife protection, showing the other side of this multiple authoruty structure. As the article shows, different ethnic groups, which are often thought to be diametrically opposed to each other, collaborate in the local timber commodity chain. However, these collaborations are characterized by highly unequal relations of exchange. As we argue, those that have preferential access to the authority structure can use this to dictate the terms of interaction. Finally, while the timber economy is usually characterized by the operation of the constellation of power and authority, there are interstitial moments where the (violent) interactions among the actors embeded in the structure weaken the direct territorial control by them. As a result, times of violence are often also those in which the trade can flourish.
Keywords
The Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Council (BTAD), located at the borders of Assam with both Bhutan and West Bengal, has long been a sensitive space 1 in which rebel movements have been fighting for (Bodo) autonomy. Even after a peace deal with one of the major Bodo rebel groups, the region granted autonomy under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitutions and placed most (if not all) political power in the hands of a Bodo elite, the area has been marred by repeated rounds of ethnic violence, with Bengali Muslim and Adivasi groups mostly bearing the brunt of this violence.
Within this context, an illegal timber economy has been thriving. While this is not remarkable given the proliferation of literature on the linkages between resource extraction and conflict, this has been often linked to conflict financing by armed groups. What this article first highlights is the way in which state, rebel, and non-armed actors integrate in this extraction network. As such, this article wants to unravel the authority structure—akin to what Richard Snyder has called the “institutions of extraction” 2 —making illegal timber extraction possible. However, as the article will argue, the multiple authority structures are not integrating on a level-playing field and there are important limits to the negotiated character of their interactions. Their individual capacity for violence—what some might consider their de facto sovereign qualities 3 —and connection to a greatly disaggregated state, as well as the spatial logic of the timber extraction chain itself allows different forms of authority to claim differentiated access to rents.
Secondly, the article wants to underline the way an ethnically differentiated labor force has been integrated into the illegal timber economy. As such, we illustrate the manner in which multiple ethnic groups (Bodo, Adivasi, Bengali Muslim), who are in the larger narrative of the conflict considered at odds with each other, are deployed in the illegal timber economy. While this points toward interethnic collaboration across conflict lines in order to make trees into marketable hardwood product, our case does not corroborate liberal peace assumptions about potential transformations of economic collaboration into political appeasement. Not only is the deployment of labor spatially divided, the relations of exchange in the labor chain are highly unequal, mediated as they are by violence and political and social exclusion.
While thus focusing on an illegal timber economy, the article also wants to emphasize on the functioning of the authority structure or “constellation of power” 4 in BTAD and the way populations relate to it in a combination of coercion (power) and consent (authority). In the rest of the article, we will use constellation of power and authority and authority structure interchangeably. This constellation of power and authority at the time of our research was the outcome of a particular (colonial) history of forestry and (forced) migration, the postcolonial engagement with both migration and (plains) tribal populations, a long-lasting armed struggle and repeated violence on ethnic lines, which among other things led to the large-scale presence of security personnel and a relative absence of state forestry personnel. Figure 1 tries to provide a schematic overview of authorities and powers present, distinguishing between those with important violent capabilities from those without, and between those that constitute the state in Bodoland, and those that do not.
The authority structure of Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Council.
The conditions of possibility for the specific shape that the illegal timber economy in BTAD takes is the outcome of a long-drawn and sometimes violent negotiation process between different sources of power and authority. As such, our argument is indebted both to recent discussions on the functioning of (public) authority in postcolonial contexts and those engaged with related questions of state and sovereignty (for a full discussion on how these literatures can be combined in South Asian contexts, see Hansen and Stepputat; Klem and Suykens). 5
The work of Christian Lund 6 has been crucial in repositioning public authority as a trope to understand the multiplicity of actors, organizations, and groups engaged in claiming the capacity to rule. These both invoke state authority and resist it and sometimes combine both tendencies. Claims are often overlapping and the particular authority structure is thus a dynamic product of an intense process of negotiation. At the time of this study, the central locus of authority was vested in the leadership of the BTAD, which had emerged after the tripartite peace treaty, signed in 2003, between the government of Assam, central Government of India, and the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT). Its personification and the main center of gravity was Mr. Hagrama Mohilary, chief of the Bodo Territorial Council (BTC) and former head of the BLT. At the same time, not only elected politicians, state bureaucrats, and (former) rebels (of different rebel movements) but also student groups were a part of the constellation of power and authority. While Lund 7 makes a distinction between (legitimate) authority and the more naked display of power, such distinctions become empirically ineffective, as power and/or authority in Bodoland are both spatially and temporally contingent. At the same time, and crucial for the argument made here, the process of negotiation mentioned is far from a level-playing field and, as pointed out by Pauline Peters 8 in Lund’s special issue, there are serious limits to negotiation. Power imbalances and, crucially in our case, the capacity to deploy violence are vital factors that constitute these limits.
The question of violence of course links directly with the concerns of this special issue and with discussions of state and de facto sovereignty. While we do not take questions of sovereignty as a starting point in this article, it is clear that the capacity to deploy lethal violence with impunity is not so easily divided between state and nonstate actors. Moreover, and in line with Veena Das and Deborah Poole’s 9 work on the margins of the state, and, in particular, Deborah Poole’s 10 contribution to the same volume, it is clear that even for those actors associated with the state in BTAD, the distinction between legal punishment and “personalized or extrajudicial violence” 11 is far from clear. It is exactly the blurring lines between authority derived from being the state and the capacity to continue to engage in violence beyond the state, which is central in the BTAD leadership’s practices of rule. Not surprisingly, the state in the timber economy is far from a unitary actor, with elected authorities, bureaucracies like the forest department and state security forces, including police, paramilitary, and military all being differently engaged in governing the illegal timber economy. At the same time, rebel groups continue to be able to craft (unstable) territories of de facto sovereignty, allowing them to use this power to extract rents from the said economy.
Drawing from and expanding on Snyder’s 12 political economy of institutions of extraction framework, we situate the institution of illegal timber economy in the BTAD within a joint mode of extraction. However, and expanding on Snyder’s framework, while the various actors engage in a relationship of collaboration, it remains crucial to highlight the impact of coercive relations on the institutions of extraction, emerging out of hierarchical positionalities within the institutional structure.
Finally, this article wants to move beyond the institutional structure and understand how different types of labor, in this case ethnically differentiated, are part of illegal timber’s political economy. As mentioned, these different ethnic groups, which are normally thought of as in conflict, are integrated in the working of at least some aspects of the timber trade. Yet, participation in the different sections of the trade and the capacity to profit from it are largely dependent on relations of individuals and groups with the authority structure mentioned above. It must be clear that Bodo, aligned both with the BTAD leadership, with former rebel commanders, with still active rebel movements, with sections of the bureaucracy, and with powerful student groups are able to benefit most, for instance, as timber contractors. Still, this group is far from homogenous, and poorer sections of the Bodo population can be seen to be engaged in collecting firewood or cutting timber, an activity mostly associated with the most disadvantaged group: the Adivasi. Muslims, while forming the main opposition group to the Bodo, are able to bank on individual relations with Bodo contractors and, importantly, a specific skill set to overcome their lack of integration in the main structures of power and authority. As hinted at above and as we will argue in detail below, the integration of the different ethnic groups in different timber commodity chains within the larger institution of timber extraction structure is strongly mediated by violence and exclusion, which is an integral part of the negotiation of power and authority in BTAD.
This article will closely analyze the ways in which the political economy of the institution of illegal timber extraction functions in BTAD, with specific attention to the functioning of its constellation of power and authority. In doing so, we will highlight the manner in which interethnic cooperation seems to overcome narratives of interethnic strife; yet simultaneously is highly dependent on the violence which supports the authority structure. Before turning to the institution of illegal timber economy itself, we will first explicate the gestation of this contemporary authority structure. We will then in detail analyze multiple commodity chains of illegal timber extraction and trade—from firewood and small timber for local markets, to more valuable hardwood logging for house building (according to the Assam Development Report, 13 about 180,000 cubic meters of timber are used annually for the construction of houses in the state of Assam) and even domestic export—in relation to this constellation. We will show that while different authority structures impact on the operation of these commodity chains, the centrality of the Bodo authority makes Bodo contractors and traders the central nodes in all chains. Thus while agency is shown by non-Bodo groups, this agency is greatly burdened 14 by the operation of the constellation. First, however, we will sketch the debate around institutions of extraction and illegal timber logging (in violent contexts) to embed our analysis in this larger academic field.
The data on the illegal institution of timber extraction were collected in three phases, first from February to May 2015, then from February to May 2016, and finally in August and September 2017. Informal semistructured interviews were conducted with forest officials, villagers who were involved in the timber extraction trade, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working on environment, officers of the Eco-Task Force, local politicians including the deputy chief of BTAD and the minister for forest and tourism, owners of sawmills, officials of the Assam police force, and local contractors. This was substantiated with participatory observations, visits to homes of local timber smugglers or traders, sawmills, and villages near forests from where timber was usually extracted. Most of the informal interviews were focused on understanding the modus operandi of the timber extraction chain and with the idea to delve beneath the facade of formalized institutions, groups, and networks down to the “relational substrata of the people.” 15
Illegal Timber Economies in Violent Contexts
Illegal logging in Assam or elsewhere is not a recent phenomenon and has been dealt with in several strands of literature spanning from Asia to Africa and Europe to South America. A review of literature on the problem of illegal logging worldwide by Wynet Smith 16 found that “most nations with significant proportion of forest coverage—tropical or nontropical experience at least some level of illegal logging. Estimates range from 80 percent for the Brazilian Amazon, to over 90 percent for Cambodia and over 70 percent for Indonesia.” Compared to countries like China, Myanmar, Vietnam, and others that are highly integrated in the global trade in timber, Smith 17 found that while India has the third largest amount of forest cover, it is only ninth in terms of industrial roundwood production. Much of the wood is used for domestic consumption, and India also features as a major tropical timber importer (ITTO 18 in Smith 19 ). Much of the available data on illegal logging in India underline the level to which illegal logging in India is more of a village-level problem, rather than an issue of industrial level activity, unlike in other countries. Therefore, it becomes important to understand the local processes of illegal logging in India, where the everyday political economy of the timber trade not only includes complex sociocultural, political, and economic organizations, but also is embedded within networks of exchange. These linkages are normatively governed by localized rules, established codes of conduct, and multiple hierarchies of deference and power. 20
The term illegal logging itself has been differently conceptualized by scholars and can be understood differently within specific social, political, and cultural contexts. Casson and Obidzinski, 21 working on Kalimantan (Indonesia), define illegal logging as the harvesting of logs in a way that is in infringement of national laws and regulations. These laws and regulations were essentially put in place to check exploitation of mainly forest resources and also promote sustainable management of forest. 22 Going by this, “illegal” may therefore comprise logging activities in “protected” areas, the logging of certain protected species of hardwood (in the case of BTAD, it refers to species that includes sal or Shorea robusta, gamari or Gmelina arborea, teak/segun or Tectona grandis, among others), logging outside concession boundaries (usually set according to forest regulations by the state), extraction of more than allocated harvest or firewood, removal of oversized or undersized trees as well as harvesting in areas where extraction is prohibited such as catchment areas, steep slopes, riverbanks, and national parks and reserves. 23 Conversely, Thomas Sikor and Phuc Xuan To 24 find the very terminology of “illegal logging” problematic since this only stresses its criminal nature, but not the way it is operated through complex political–economic networks involving multiple actors at different levels. Sikor and To 25 seek to transcend this statist definition of illegal and use illegal logging to “refer to a particular discourse about unwanted logging and associated social dynamics. We speak of illegal operations when we consider actual practices deemed illegal by statutory legislation.”
In our case, we use the term illegal to imply logging activities that are carried out in violation of existing forest laws. Importantly, most, if not all of our respondents involved in the timber trade, were very aware of what these violations consisted of. We also make a conscious effort to work with emic categories of what constitutes illegal logging. Many of our respondents used terms like dui nombori (number two) business, referring to the fraudulent or, indeed, illegal nature of the timber trade. So, it appeared that those who were embedded in the timber economy and those who observed it essentially considered it as illegal. This illegality was used in relation to violation of laws, which entailed risk of arrest, seizure of timber and vehicle, prison term, and hefty fines.
Global Commodity Chains (GCC) have also featured prominently in the discussion around the political economy of illegal timber. 26 Authors like Jesse Ribot, 27 Kevin Woods, 28 and Sikor and To 29 have traced timber from the source of extraction till the node of consumption, usually the (international) market. While we use a commodity chain framework, the chains presented focus on the local extraction to consumption chains, which sometimes are neglected in other literature. 30 Still, the GCC literature shares many of our key concerns. Woods, 31 for instance, uses a GCC framework to explain how timber travels from Burma and crosses the border to reach Chinese markets. Woods notes that valuable global resources like timber often originate in sites of conflict, in this case, Burma, since these regions are not well integrated into global natural resource extraction/conservation networks. In most cases, this violence is completely erased in the journey of the timber from extraction sites to consumption nodes. This provides insight into the lax relationships “between national versus insurgent economies, legal versus illegal resource extraction, (trans) national versus local resource control, and trade versus trafficking. Zones of conflict experiencing the ‘natural resource curse’ help unbundle some of these binaries,” because insurgency aids in political instability and erosion of national government authority and legitimacy. At the same time, our research shows that dividing lines cannot so easily be drawn between state and insurgents when it comes to timber logging in conflict zones. Moreover, Woods 32 elucidates in much detail the various elements that sustain this transnational logging trade, from transborder patron–client relationships, transnational alliance capital, and international consumer desires, all pervading the border.
While not using a GCC framework, Phillippe Le Billon’s 33 work corroborates many of these insights. Based on long-term fieldwork on illegal logging in Cambodia, he finds that the case of state ban on logging is a classic example of a “conflict between a central authority trying to project its control and power over peripheral regions by addressing issues of national security, political dissidence, and illegal trading, and a border population that is better off with close political, social, economic, and cultural interaction across borders.” The wider political economy of conflict scholarship has accentuated that war is less about the breakdown of political and economic relations; rather, it is about their reordering and transformation. 34 This transformative quality of war is often manifested through opportunities in the illegal economy. Although somewhat overstated in the debate around greed as the primary driver of conflict, 35 conflict and war economies, in particular, can provide opportunities for the emergence of alternative systems of profit and clientelism. 36 Warfare functions as an “instrument of enterprise” and “violence as a mode of accumulation.” 37 Still, as Jonathan Goodhand has shown, these “war economies” often should be better conceptualized as local “coping economies.” What our case shows is that a simple equation between war and illegal timber extraction is far too simplistic, as illegal logging has continued after a peace agreement with some sort of democratic transition. Moreover, as Snyder’s institutions of extraction framework highlights simple dichotomies between state and rebel might not be tenable.
Before we turn to the case of BTAD, the environmental cost of resource extraction in these conflict settings has to be mentioned. We do not discount the importance and existence of discourses around conservation and forest management practices and concerns, especially seen in the works of Robbins et al. 38 on the illicit use of resources within wildlife conservation sites or Sivaramakrishnan’s work 39 on colonial forestry and forestland grabs, specifically in West Bengal. However, within the scope of this article, we want to present a grounded understanding of an illegal timber economy to comprehend how the proliferation of multiple yet hierarchically structured sovereign actors have harnessed the economic opportunities that emerged within this institution as part of recurrent ethnic conflicts. We seek to understand how these various sovereigns are embedded within the commodity chain (we use a very local commodity chain framework) and interact with each other as well as local villagers and consumers.
The Constellation of Authority and Power in BTAD: (ex-)Rebels, the Indian State, and the (ex-)Rebel-State
The constellation of power and authority of BTAD is quite complex (see Figure 1). This, of course, is a reflection of the complex, but also violent history of the gestation toward the current BTAD and to the resistance accompanying its formation. As Figure 1 also shows, different authorities and power holders have a different weight, partly the result of their (territorial) scope to engage in violence, and thus a different ability to impact on the whole of the constellation. Populations living in BTAD are impacted upon differently by different sources of power and authority, often depending on their degrees of affinity to them. Again, this closeness is often territorial (see also below), but can also be due to the ethnic background of a specific population. Before turning toward its operation in the illegal timber economy, let us now shortly introduce the historical gestation of the contemporary constellation.
Historical Background
Although Bodo mobilization for a greater autonomy had already emerged in the 1960s with the organization of the Plain Tribals Council of Assam, the struggle for a separate state of Bodoland gained momentum after the participation in the anti-foreigner Assam Movement left activists disappointed with the benefits accruing to the Bodo Community. Through the 1980s, and under the leadership of the All Bodo Student’s Union (ABSU), a crucial authority to date, the struggle for the creation of Bodoland took shape. Dominance at this stage was still clearly located in the Indian state, including the State of Assam. However, from the end of the 1980s, violent opposition emerged, and certainly after the organization of the Bodo Security Force (BSF) the authority structure started to shift. Still, it would only be after a first memorandum of understanding for the creation of a Bodo Administrative Council (BAC) between the Government of India, the Government of Assam, and leading Bodo organizations, including ABSU in 1993, failed to assuage grievances within particular sections that the current constellation of power and authority started to take shape.
Most crucial for the formation of this was the organization of the BLT in 1996, together with their rival National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) that was formed by the members of BSF rejecting the BAC. Both these organizations deployed violence not only against Bengali Muslims but also against most other non-Bodo communities including Adivasi (mainly Santhal) as well as Koch-Rajbongshi and Nepali. This led to a further deployment of both military and paramilitary forces in the region, but also to the massive displacement of the population, a scenario, which would continue in the region. Still, and certainly in the massive forest areas near the border with Bhutan, the rebel movements were able to carve out a (often overlapping) de facto sovereign space, in which they to a large degree were able to monopolize means of violence. Moreover, the attacks against Adivasi led to the formation of the Adivasi Cobra Force (ACF or COBRA) in 1996 to protect Adivasi against Bodo attacks. While much less powerful, they still hold some measure of (violent) territorial control, particularly in Adivasi-dominated areas. The All Adivasi National Liberation Army (AANLA) also founded in 1996 has some presence in Adivasi-dominated areas of BTAD, although they are a less organized group, with its main operational zone in eastern Assam. Finally, another, smaller outfit operates under the name of Birsa, referring to Birsa Munda, the leader of the nineteenth-century Munda resistance (and millenarian) movement against British domination in current-day Bihar and Jharkhand.
The final and crucial shift in the authority structure took place in 2003, which led to the creation of BTC. As such, the emergent political order clearly has its roots in violence. The council operates largely independent from the state government and comprises four districts (Kokrajhar, Baksa, Chirang, and Udalguri), known together as BTAD. Hagrama Mohilary, leader of the BLT, has since headed the council and has become the head of the political party incarnation of the BLT: The Bodo People’s Front (BPF). Mohilary, along with the ruling Bodo elites leading the BPF, has overtime emerged as the main centrifugal power in BTAD (leading us to position BPF, and not the council as such, within the constellation). The power that Mohilary exerts over the council and within the larger political coalition in Assam clearly has granted him the status of a sovereign personified. Not having turned in their weapons, cadres of the BPF and what is known as ex-BLT still wield considerable armed powers.
This is important, as the Bodo Accord did not end the clashes on ethnic lines. Major rounds of attacks on Muslims in 1993 were repeated in 2008, 2012, and 2014. Similarly, major attacks on Adivasis occurred not only in pre-Accord 1996 and 1998 but also in 2014. All these attacks led to hundreds of deaths. While the brunt of these attacks has been on the non-Bodo population—important sections of which have been relocated to IDP camps—limited retaliation against Bodos have also led to a continued sense of insecurity within the Bodo populations, looking for armed protection. The ongoing violence has also led to a continued presence of (para) military forces, of which the most important are the Border Security Forces (BSF), Sashastra Seema Bal, the Indian Army, the Assam Rifles, and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. They lead anti-insurgency operations against different groups of armed militants. Both the counterinsurgency operations and the formation of BTC also led to the emergence of different factions within NDFB, one of which has surrendered, one, which is under a ceasefire, and finally one that is still fully active. Maybe surprisingly in the context of Northeast India, the paramilitary forces continue to operate with a degree of legitimacy, while most communities also look at one of the (ex-)rebel movements for protection, although often unsuccessful.
To summarize, while in earlier phases the Indian state has tried to violently suppress movement for Bodo autonomy, consequently, through the Bodo Accord, it has delegated (sovereign) power to the party-political incarnation of the BLT. This placed a constitutionalized and democratically legitimized powers within the hands of a particular Bodo elite (and Hagrama Mohilary) but also has fostered the dominance of Bodos in general. This is further supported by the ongoing presence of the various factions of the NDFB and ex-BLT who have not surrendered their weapons. The gravitational center in the constellation is thus clearly controlled by Bodo groups. The counterweight presented through the paramilitary and to a lesser extent Assam police is often limited in time and place. Similarly, COBRA and AANLA rebel groups are territorially bounded. The resulting constellation of power and authority and the way that different groups are able to deploy violence is crucial to understand the functioning of the illegal timber economy. Moreover, while many groups are involved in some section of the timber industry, the enmity between different sources of power and authority—and particularly, paramilitary and armed militants—can also open up interstices that are exploited by those in the timber economy.
The Travels of the Illegal Timber Economy: From Firewood to High Value Logging
We distinguish three different types of illegal timber trade, each scaling up, both with regard to the value of timber involved and the power and authority of the actors engaged in it. The three types are firewood, contracted timber for popular building and furniture making purposes, and mafia-style or syndicate-run timber trade for local elites, including Member of the Council Legislative Assembly, MLAs, and others that further transport toward Dhubri, Barpeta, Bongaigaon upto West Bengal. Our focus lies predominantly on the second layer, with the two others playing particular roles within the illegal timber economy. We will first provide the basic setup of each commodity chain, after which we will analyze in more detail the role of power and authority structures helping to shape the chain(s) (see Figure 2).
Timber commodity chains in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Council.
As stated above, we use a more localized version of commodity chain analysis as opposed to a GCC to show how timber travels from the site of extraction to the nodes of consumption but in a limited domestic and even regional geographical area. To be precise, from the forests in Kokrajhar district, especially within the Haltugaon division up to the towns of Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, and neighboring districts of Dhubri and Barpeta. This type of a micro approach becomes important since we seek to show how the commodity, that is, timber, locally referred to as “golai” links the different sites of extraction, actors, authorities, and sovereigns through often organized sets of networks. Moreover, in the case we discuss, extraction and consumption often take place in a local arena, with social relations often directly connecting those organizing extraction and those consuming the finished timber. This actor-centric focus at each commodity chain node not only reveals the political relations tied to the resource but also sheds a lot of light on existing interactions and power relations among the actors themselves. We thereby transcend the politics of resource extraction to have a more nuanced understanding of interethnic, unequal relationships of exchange characterizing the local commodity chain.
The first type is fairly straightforward (Figure 2: commodity chain 1 [CC1]). In this, woodcutters would enter the forest and cut a cart or bicycle load of timber. Woodcutters would mostly be Adivasi, although Bodo also engage in this practice. The woodcutters mostly transport the firewood themselves to the local markets where they sell directly to the consumers at about 150–300 rupees (all amounts in 2015 (INR prices) per cycle load (depending on the size, quantity, and quality of timber), which mostly consist of either local villagers and sometimes also middle-class and lower-middle-class consumers from Kokrajhar town. According to 2001 Census data, around 75.9 percent of the households in Assam use firewood for cooking. Sometimes, the firewood is also used for the woodcutter’s household consumption. According to Assam Forest Policy, 40 villagers living around the fringes of the forest are allowed to collect dried up tree branches, twigs, or cut wood from trees that have naturally fallen, all for self-consumption. Compliance with these rules is at the discretion of the forest department. However, they are not legally allowed to make profits by selling this wood and neither are they allowed to cut trees in order to get firewood. In interviews, we were told that “since these are poor people, we cut them some slack. Even they have to live. We are okay as long as they do not destroy the forest or engage with and aid timber smugglers” (conversation with a high-level forest official).
The second type involves the most complex set of relations (Figure 2: CC2) and engages the full array of the ethnic communities involved, as well as the full constellation of power and authority in the area. Whoever needs timber (mostly sal but also lali, segun, teetachapa, shirish, and gamari) to construct a house in or around the main towns of Kokrajhar, Chirang, or Bongaigoan, first contacts a timber smuggler or contractor. These timber contractors are in most cases Bodo and often have a history in a rebel movement, as former BLT or former NDFB cadres or enjoy the patronage of a more powerful authority within the extraction economy. In this case, the timber is delivered to the house of the consumer where it is processed, or, in other cases, the Bodo contractors delivers the logs to Muslim traders for sawing and processing purposes. These Muslim traders are also directly contacted for golai, and they order it through their Bodo networks. After processing, they are also responsible for delivering it to the consumers. Therefore, Muslim traders emerge as a vital link in the commodity chain. Respondents stated that it was important to know the contractor or trader personally to not risk getting inferior quality timber. Usually, Bodo contractors were in charge of procuring logs. Logs were sourced from the forest and the trees were felled usually by Adivasi laborers, but sometimes also by Bodo youth from nearby villages. Some of the timber would be roughly cut up in makeshift sawmills inside the forest, with the bulk being directly loaded on thelas (wooden carts) usually fitted with large truck tires for transport. These carts have to be pulled and pushed by six to seven persons, usually also Adivasi, who received around INR 700 each. Carts are mostly organized in processions with an SUV (the Mahindra Scorpio being particularly popular) going ahead to check whether the road is free. Still, a number of checkpoints, both of forest departments and police, are to be negotiated. Important in this regard is whether the timber has to be delivered “highway ke iss par aur us par,” to the north or the south of the highway, as crossing the highway entails more risks and possibly more payments on the way. This first part of the trade takes place at night (from around 1 a.m. till 5 a.m., before the sun rises). In almost all cases, the logs are transported to Muslim villages, since they are considered to have the necessary skills to saw the logs into usable timber. Some consumers, almost all Bodo, and especially those with some form of economic and political leverage (NGO personal, youth leaders, and local businessmen) would get the timber delivered directly to their houses. A Muslim artisan would then be called to saw and process the timber on site.
However, the norm seemed to be that the wood is delivered to a Muslim timber trader who organizes (Muslim) labor to cut the logs. After the logs are cut and sawed according to the demands of the customers, risks generally decrease as a legal grey zone is exploited. While possession of timber in the form of rough planks is a crime, finished timber produce is not considered illegal, with the processed logs taking up an intermediate position. The finished timber is sometimes directly delivered to clients and households, but also to markets or furniture shops that further process the timber. It should be mentioned that the demand for wooden furniture is very high, as it is not only durable but also a status symbol. Most respondents who bought timber illegally did so because it is easier and cheaper to procure timber in the “black” market. The size of one piece of golai can easily measure up to 50–60 cft or cubic feet. On an average, it is INR 1,000 cheaper per golai when bought illegally, and a timber smuggler can profit up to 2,000 INR per golai.
The third type (Figure 2: CC3) is quite similar to the second type. Yet the value of the timber and the power of the people involved (most importantly as clients) distinguish it from the relative petty timber trade discussed above (and makes it also more difficult to research in detail). Respondents, including forest rangers, local journalists, NGO workers, research assistants from the Bodo community, Bodo, Adivasi and Muslim student union leaders/members, and even some villagers who often see truckloads of timber leaving the forest describe it as involving a timber mafia or syndicate. Clients in this trade are the power holders in BTAD, including ministers, who source it for the construction of their houses. This trade involved higher members of the bureaucracy and the forest department. Often, this timber would pass through official sawmills, also operated by friends and aides of the BTAD leadership where it could be mixed in with timber that was seized and auctioned by the forest department (see below), or that was illegally sold to contractors by forest department officials directly. While part of this timber is for local consumption, it is also smuggled using the river. There are two main river routes both originating in Bhutan. The first one uses timber sourced in the Chirang reserved forest on the Indo-Bhutan border. It is then tied to inner tire tubes and floated on the Sarphang (name in Bhutan), known as Saralbhanga in India. This takes the name of Sankosh in Jharbari, flows into Dhubri and subsequently to West Bengal and Bangladesh. The second route comprises of the part of the Aai River originating in Bhutan and flowing to Chirang district. It then flows via Goalpara into the Brahmaputra and is then floated upriver to Guwahati. At several points, the floated timber can hit the shore to be collected by timber traders, after which they follow the same trajectory as of those transported through trucks and carts.
When asked about this third layer, an ex-timber dealer (Muslim) who now works as a political entrepreneur for Muslims but also maintains a good relationship with the ruling BPF said, “I went to the house of a high level politician and happened to have a look at his godown [warehouse] where I saw huge stacks of Sal. I asked his party men what this was for and they said, the leader was planning to construct a new house.” To this, my respondent added, “we do not supply timber to these guys, they have enough power and channels to source it themselves.”
Finally, it should be mentioned that the district of Kokrajhar has only one legal sawmill in the town of Kokrajhar itself. The legal way to obtain timber is through the Forest Department. Contractors who are in need of timber for public works, for example, construction or renovation works for various government departments of the BTAD, can get the timber through a permit system. According to the permit system, these contractors have to apply to the Council Head of Forests. The Council Head then forwards this request to the concerned Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) and the DFO issues the permit to the contractor. Any timber that is left is then auctioned to legal sawmills or timber dealers after which the forest department marks the timber and issues a permit. All timber sold in official sawmills must be licensed timber obtained through this permit system. Once the trader obtains the permit, he or she can get the timber. 41 A forest department officer said that the BTAD forest department annually generates about 50–60 million INR from the sale of seized timber. However, another senior forest official stated that “since 2009 there has been no auction of timber in BTAD.” Other sources revealed that the loophole provided by the permit system is mostly used, also for nonpublic purposes.
(Unequal) Relations of Exchange: Power, Authority, and Control over the Timber Trade
As the text above already mentions and Figure 2 shows, many authorities and power holders engage in the timber economy. As such, the timber economy is not characterized by a lack of regulation, but rather by an excess of it. While a number of authorities try to curtail the trade in timber, most are engaged in regulating (part of) the trade, and most importantly in taxing the timber economy (or extracting rents if one would prefer that terminology, although tax or fees emerged as the emic category during interviews). As will be shown below, while the threat of violence is omnipresent and backs the capacity for taxation, lethal violence is not often used directly in connection to the trade. Moreover, the connections of some actors, and, in particular, the contractors, to the dominant power holders in the area, result in highly unequal relations of exchange. Finally, while the timber trade is clearly not incapacitated by the regulatory excess, the real booms are associated with periods with particular types of violent conflict, drawing a number of actors away from regulating or curtailing the trade.
Regulatory Excess: Taxation, Protection, and Seizure
Given the high number of authority and power structures within the timber economy, we argue that the timber commodity chain is rather characterized by regularity excess 42 who argues for African sovereign excess rather than the absence of power, connection, and capital), than by an absence of regulation. The full gambit of the constellation of power and authority in BTAD engages in some stage of the commodity chain. Of course, given the difference of value between the different chains, involvement varied quite substantially. Moreover, and this will be treated in a later section, the specific rationalities of engagement would also differentially affect different groups in the timber economy.
The firewood collectors, given the limited value they represent, were relatively less affected. Still, at the time of collecting or harvesting firewood, they would have to pay local forest guards. This allowed them some leeway in the exact application of the forest law. Our respondents put that they only collect firewood and do not fell trees. “We sometimes cut branches of trees but not big logs. For one bicycle load of firewood, we usually pay INR 20–50 to the forest guard otherwise he confiscates our cycles.” Forest rangers and guards use the bribe mechanism to exert authority. Given the limited value, we found no evidence of rebel movements taxing this part of the economy. However, the presence of rebel movements would sometimes restrict who would be able to collect firewood. Certainly, at times of tension, the returns for collecting firewood were sometimes not worth the risk of running into a rebel group associated with a rival ethnic group. A visit to an Adivasi relief camp in the aftermath of the 2014 violence between Bodo and Adivasi revealed that after the episode of violence, the Adivasis had lost access to the forest since they were too scared to go inside for the fear of encountering Bodo. A similar, but reverse situation was observed in a Bodo village, where the Bodo had temporarily stopped going into the forest for fear of Adivasi. 43
When transporting the firewood to the market, firewood collectors would again have to pay informal taxes or contributions to a number of authorities and power holders. The common practice was to throw a log of wood when passing the offices of the forest department, the police, and student groups, including ABSU, BSU [Bodoland Students Union], and AKRASU [All Assam Koch Rajbongshi Students Unioin]. This would happen against the threat of (nonlethal) violence.
Unlike this more limited form of taxation, in which the seizure of firewood was not common, the timber trade proper (CC2) would entail more risks. Given that the returns were also much larger, many more authority structures were firmly integrated in operation of the trade, while some were active in trying to curtail it. A formidable part of the necessary capital was spent on “taxes” or “bribes”—often referred to as “line tax” or “line fees,” paid by timber traders and this was said to have multiplied in recent times, indeed, due to an overproliferation of authorities, as a result of regulatory excess. To and Sikor 44 also found, in their work on timber logging in Cambodia, that those directly engaged in the timber trade are likely to be embedded in wider networks involving a further variety of actors beyond the point of extraction. The wider these networks, so is the regulatory excess and resulting nodes of taxation. One former timber dealer named Raheem 45 explained this situation: “I was in this timber business for seven years but over the years more and more authorities have come up who want a cut and my profits have continued to diminish. So I have decided to exit.” Raheem’s statement resonated with that of a Muslim timber dealer who said that on an average he paid INR 5,000 on taxes each month.
As can be seen in Figure 2, the authorities to whom these taxes commonly accrued to were the Assam Police, the forest department, the Border Roads Task Force, ABSU, AAKRASU, NDFB, and ex-BLT. Since part of the fieldwork was conducted right after the ethnic violence of 2014, the COBRA and AANLA forces had temporarily retreated and their place had been taken over by the AAKRASU. We also found evidence that these authorities also negotiated among themselves regarding the amount of taxes to be levied on their respective ethnic communities. This was observed in a tea stall inside a forest when an NDFB militant said to a COBRA militant, “we charge INR 150 from the Adivasi so you should not be imposing more tax on the Bodo.” These different authorities and power holders used their territorialized power to extract these taxes and bribes at particular nodes in the chain. Some of the militants were more powerful in and near the forest areas, while police operated around the highway. (Lethal) violence while not common was always a possibility and was certainly used to back territorial claims. According to a senior police officer, who of course had his reasons to stress that “the militants and timber smugglers are hand in gloves,” “the militants do not hesitate to kill the timber smuggler if their transaction conditions are not satisfied.”
A blame game appeared apparent between the Police Department and the Department of Forest. Most senior police officials accused the lackadaisical attitude of the forest department, which according to this one official was actually perpetuating the timber trade. On the other hand, forest officials accused the police of taking bribes from timber smugglers and were disappointed that most of the forest guest houses had been allocated to the army and now acted as army bases to maintain patrol over conflict affected villages.
While police and forest department were commonly said to be part of the timber economy (although at some points also operating against it), the paramilitary forces mostly made up of nonlocal personal were active in curtailing the trade. Given that they, like the militants, often operated inside the forest allowed them to monitor the trade. While they would normally not operate against the timber trade directly, they would tip off the forest department, which would then (be forced to) conduct a raid. There, the forest department, but also the Eco-Task Force, could conduct raids. The latter actor is particularly interesting as it consists of former army personnel (with some regulars as a core), and is raised for the “ecological restoration of terrains, rendered difficult due to either severe degradation or remote location or difficult law and order situation.”
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Given that they also worked in the forest areas, they would also tip the forest department about timber activity. The Forest Department, however, argued that they only had limited means to curtail the timber trade. A high-level forest official explained: we seize timber inside the forest, and conduct forest raids but it is an expensive operation, which requires a lot of resources and also the help of army and state police. Once the trucks leave the forest it is impossible for us to seize, since we get calls from ex-BLTs, politicians, etc. who put pressure on us to release the trucks […] as soon as the truck leaves the forest, the stake holders increase and it becomes difficult to seize.
The latter part of his statement becomes all the more relevant when we look at the third commodity chain. As said, it was difficult to get clear-cut information on this part of the timber economy. While it partly operates like the second chain, the scale and value of the timber sources and the consumers it is targeting would lead to lesser involvement of the lower rungs of the different relevant departments. Pressure would be put directly on the higher branches of the forest and police departments to limit the involvement of these actors. It remains unclear to what extent both rebel movement and paramilitary are involved in the trade. While we have indications that NDFB and ex-BLT are facilitating the trade and extract taxes, the role of the paramilitary is even more difficult to ascertain. It remains unclear whether the BTAD-specific power networks are strong enough to penetrate the paramilitary.
Violence and the Timber Economy
While the previous section clearly shows the way that regulatory excess saturates the timber economy, to the point where some of the timber contractors move out of the trade, the overlapping presence of many claimants of power and authority also provides opportunities in the timber economy. While this sometimes worked in favor of those trying to curtail the economy—as when the NDFB informed the DFO that members of their rival ex-BLT were extracting timber—these overlaps and confrontations between authorities often allow for a flourishing of the timber economy.
Given the close cooperation between the different ethnic groups in the trade, one would expect that moments of violence would disrupt the trade. However, and depending on the way that different authorities align and confront each other during these violent episodes, violence can provide an interstitial space where the regulatory excess becomes reduced. While we have already mentioned that during periods of conflict Adivasi or Bodo villagers are not too keen on entering the forest depending on which rebel movement might be present, in discussions with forest officials, NGO personal, and officials of the Assam Police, it became clear that during times of conflict the timber trade was usually at its peak due to the withdrawal of certain armed actors. During counterinsurgency operations, the militants usually left the forests and fled across the borders into Bhutan. The forest guards and rangers also mostly left their posts, with paramilitary often engaged in combating militants rather than catching timber smugglers. This usually lifted existing patterns of territorial control. This was exploited by the timber “syndicate.”
Also, and this seems to go directly against the dominant narratives of never-ending ethnic conflict, it was not only paramilitary operations which facilitated the trade. Likewise, when ethnic violence occurred in a different part of BTAD, this could benefit the timber economy. Ethnic clashes would draw away the paramilitary and police, making the puzzle slightly less complicated. In some cases, rebel movements would also be drawn away to participate in the violence (either actively or as a protection force). This would again lift the normal patterns of territorial control and allow the trade to exploit this. While this would, of course, depend on the fear of a spillover of the violence to the timber extracting communities, it remains hard to ascertain how such calculations are made.
In contrast, during elections, the timber economy faced a draught due to the presence of additional security forces and checkpoints, which heightened risks. Since data for this article were collected during the BTAD council and Assam Assembly elections, interviews with both Bodo and Muslim traders revealed that “business is down now because of elections. There is too much security and we cannot extract as much timber as during times of conflict or otherwise.” Elections are also the times when usually authorities like the army, paramilitary, and police took control of the forest and heightened counterinsurgency operations so as to avoid any form of electoral violence.
Coping Economies and Unequal Relations of Exchange
From the previous sections, it becomes possible to outline three types of relationships of exchange in the commodity chains: one between the different groups of laborers involved in the commodity chain; one between these groups and the power and authority structures; and finally between the various power and authority holders themselves. When we delve deeper into these three relationships of exchange, the inequalities between the different actors and groups become apparent. Moreover, it highlights a particular group that up to now has remained in the background: the BTAD leadership, including most centrally the BPF and its leader Hagrama Mohilary (which we indicated to be the central sovereign body in Figure 1). The absence of the latter in Figure 2 can be attributed to two seemingly contradictory elements. First, the BPF leadership is omnipresent in all stages of the trade, and secondly, this omnipresence is hard to locate as they are not engaged directly in (the taxation of) the trade. As such, the trade is dependent on their approval, while they are directly engaged in its operation (except as consumers). It is not surprising, therefore, that most big constructions in Kokrajhar town like hotels, guest houses, hospitals, showrooms, and petrol pumps are owned by Mohilary himself, his relatives, or one of his close aides. Until about 2016, a good friend of Mohilary was running the only licensed sawmill in Kokrajhar. Moreover, a number of other authorities and power holders are partly dependent on BPF patronage. This includes ex-BLT, BSU, forest department, district administration, among others. This is reflective of the all-pervasive nature of control (not only physical but also psychological) exercised by Mohilary and his BPF aides.
Analyzing the role of the ethnic background of the different actors in the chain, the benefits are usually tilted in the favor of (elite and influential) Bodo. This ethnic community holds most positions within different crucial authority structures, including the BPF and active/ex militants, but also in central authority structures, including the forest department and different student groups. While Adivasi labor is crucial in the first stages of the chain, and Muslim know-how is crucial for the cutting of the raw timber, it is the Bodo contractors, often with a background in a rebel movement or a close relation to the chief, which control all the interactions between the different groups. They are able to use their (Bodo) social networks, both in the administration and in the executive leadership to smoothen and make possible the timber trade and allow them to gather the necessary capital to engage in the trade. Importantly, while Adivasi rebel movements like COBRA, AANLA, or Birsa were present and were able to extract taxes from the timber economy, Bodo militant, including NDFB and (ex-)BLT controlled larger swaths of forest land.
Therefore, although it may appear that the different ethnic groups share a relationship of collaboration against the backdrop of bitter ethnic violence, this relationship is not equal socially, economically, or politically. As such, the integration of different ethnic communities in the illegal timber economy should not be thought of as having potential to integrate across ethnic groups and overcome the clear-cut ethnic divisions in the area. We observed that in most cases the relationship was contained to the economic sphere without having a spillover effect on everyday social or even political interactions. The second phase of data for this article was, for instance, gathered during the time of Assam State Assembly elections. In this context, it was found, during an interview with a local Muslim timber dealer, that while in front of his Bodo suppliers he “pretended” that he and his co-villagers would vote for the ruling BPF party, as soon as the Bodo men had left, the trader told us that they would definitely vote for a Muslim party. 47
When compared to Adivasi laborers, the Muslim timber traders were clearly better off. Because of their distance from the nodes of extraction itself, they usually enjoyed a fairly lax regime in terms of risks and also possessed access to capital to procure and process timber. Still, a visit to the home of a Muslim timber trader revealed that he had to fully depend on Bodo suppliers to deliver the big logs to his home for further sawing and supply, as well as for the costumers who mostly engaged a Bodo contractor for their supply. On the day of visit, we also met the Bodo suppliers and when asked about them, the Muslim trader whispered, “these boys are ex-NDFB, look at him without a hand and an eye. He lost it in a blast.” Although it is hard to ascertain the truth of this information, the fear in the eyes of this Muslim trader was apparent. The village itself had also been completely gutted by Bodo, most likely from neighboring villages during an earlier episode of ethnic violence in 2012. Given that Muslim and Adivasi were mostly at the receiving end of the violence, one could think that amicable relations might develop between these groups as part of their engagement in the timber trade. However, given their relatively different class background and the fact that their relation was fully mediated by Bodo contractors, we found no traces of such emergent relationship.
The Adivasis, despite having the closest physical proximity to the forest, could be said to have the least control over the trade. They were either engaged in firewood collection or worked as laborers to fell the trees and to transport the timber. Due to a lack of capital, but also the necessary networks, they were mostly not part of procurement or processing. As some of the Adivasi firewood collectors stated: “We do see syndicates operating inside the forest and militants, but we do not meddle with them since what they are doing requires capital and is all part of the black market.” Except for some forest areas that are claimed to be a hotbed of Adivasi militants like the COBRA, AANLA, or Birsa, the Adivasi did have limited control over forest areas. Moreover, in recent times, most of these militant groups have surrendered their weapons, which further weakened the Adivasi access to powerful patrons. 48 Still, a Forest Ranger argued: “Santhals [one of the main Adivasi groups] are the main destroyer of forest since they aid timber smugglers.”
This indicates that access to forest profits itself is dependent on one’s embeddedness within social and political networks. The unequal power relations within the commodity chains were also reflected in terms of economic returns. Let us give some indication based on the petty timber trade. We already mentioned that an Adivasi gets about INR 500–700 for pulling a cart load of timber. It has to be kept in mind that for most of these Adivasis, this was an irregular source of employment. When it comes to the costs associated with the commodity itself, the Muslim trader paid about INR 400–450 per cft to the Bodo contractor. The timber that lay in front of me in one of my visits to a Muslim trader’s house was worth about INR 54,000 and measured around 75 cft. The timber was clearly marked with “do not take,” which indicated that it was sourced from timber seized by the forest department. The Muslim trader would have to pay an additional cost to cover taxes or bribes that were paid on the way. Besides, he would also pay labor costs for sawing at about INR 100 per cft. He could then sell the sawed timber to a customer for about INR 1,000–1,500 per cft, depending on the social and economic status of the client. According to the son of this particular timber dealer, “in a good month, we can make upto INR 25,000.” It has to be kept in mind that Bodo contractors could make over INR 50,000 for those involved in the petty timber trade, whereas those involved in a more syndicate or mafia-type trade could earn “lakhs” (meaning anything over INR 100,000; interview with an experienced local journalist).
While the above indicates that good profits continue to be made within the timber economy, it is necessary to state that for many actors, if not for most, it continues to be not much more than a coping economy. According to a high-level police official, “more than sixty per cent of the rural population engages in one or the other form of timber trade.” This is most apparent for the Adivasis. They engage in firewood collection and can be found at the lower rungs of the timber trade, where they work as laborers inside the forest and for transport. Moreover, while the Muslim trader is able to work for profit, his aides, while skilled, do not benefit similarly. Finally, while Bodo contractors operate the chain, and Bodo elites benefit, in the form of bribes, taxes, or as consumers. A majority of Bodos remain excluded from these benefits. As such, while this article might have given the impression of a full-fledged Bodo dominance, for many, Bodo firewood collection remains a part of their everyday coping strategies. And some Bodo youth take up a similar position as the Adivasi, also being engaged in the felling of trees. As such, while ethnic boundaries and the ways these are maintained are crucial in understanding the political economy of BTAD, we should not turn a blind eye to class-based lines of distinctions which run through the different ethnic communities.
Conclusion: Everyday Timber Extraction Consumption
In 2012, on World environment day, the forest department conducted a drawing competition in a forest village, that is, a hot spot for timber extraction. The theme of the competition was “bon” [forest]. Almost all the children drew trees being cut, and timber/logs being carried out in carts. (Interview with a high-level forest official)
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.