Killing the Gelekey Legend

Nilikesh Gogoi was a coal trader, a poet, a farmer, a collectivist, an oral historian and frequently resolved conflicts between people in the hills and the authorities. On January 23, 2007, he and his two business associates were returning from the hills that border Gelekey and overtook a slow-moving jeep of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). Just as they were going clear of the vehicle, they were shot at. Nilikesh Gogoi and his pillion rider – Bholu Gogoi – died instantly, but Arup Saikia survived the shooting. That the CISF personnel felt empowered enough to take their life in this manner and expected to get away with it is a statement about the tragedies that unfold with GoI’s security policy for the north-east.

The universe of Nilikesh Gogoi – the undisputed scamp and pixie-king of the Assam-Naga foothills – stretched from Sibsagar town to the villages of Anakhi Imsen, a small tract of land full of history, myths and folklore. Always in a hurry to point out where history, politics and economy met in this universe, over several shots of rum, he could reel off names of Naga villages and towns of old. At times like this, his conversations – like his wonderful imagination – would be free from chronological and political fetters. The past, with its myths and immense possibilities of romance, was what could happen tomorrow, according to him. He half-jokingly wore the mantle of a latter-day Supatphaa, the great Ahom adventurer king of the seventeenth century, issuing mock commands to his grinning friends. In the course of a rough ride up the mountain, many of his impossible projects involved rum. When berated on a recent occasion for this almost adolescent trespass, to make up, he sang a Naga Bihu song: “Milakpani te ahibo, sopna te dekhibo …” (I shall come to the River Milak and you will see me in your dreams). This song is now a personal anthem for some of us.