Why Assam is seething with anger

Parbina Rashid in Chandigarh

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A WhatsApp alert woke me up in the middle of the night. It was a message in the form of a long letter addressed to a member of the Rajya Sabha, requesting him to oppose the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB), which was to be tabled the following day. The message was sent by a school friend as a last-ditch effort to stop the Bill.

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“It’s déjà vu of the worst kind,” I replied, reminding her of the days back in 1980s when holding placards and shouting slogans like “Ei jui jolise, jolise, joliboi” (This fire is burning, it will burn, it must burn), we hit the streets in our school uniform. Fighting for the same issue — influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

Even before the Lok Sabha had passed the contentious Bill on December 9, protests erupted in Assam and the neighbouring states.

Thousands of university students marched on the streets of Guwahati. Slogans like “Joi Aai Axom” (Hail Mother Assam) reverberated through the air. The concern — the rights of the ‘khilonjiya’, that can be roughly translated as ‘indigenous’. It marked the end of two decades of relative peace in the region. After the AASU movement ended with the 1985 Assam Accord, the state for the first time witnessed such a large-scale spontaneous protest.

“Only this time the situation is much worse,” emphasises Dileep Chandan, editor of Asom Bani and a renowned author. Chandan, who was a prominent member of the All-Assam Students Union during the ‘Assam agitation’ days, knows what he is talking about. “The Centre has lost the plot altogether. The Bill is so anti-people and divisive that it’s simply not fair,” he says. “Now we are going to have a law under which when someone can simply give an affidavit that he or she had entered Assam before 2014, citizenship will be granted. If this is not vote-bank politics, what is? The future of Assam seems bleak,” he adds.

The legislation amends the Citizenship Act of 1955 to make illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and who had entered India on or before December 31, 2014, eligible for Indian citizenship. It also seeks to relax the requirement of residence in India for citizenship by naturalisation from 11 years to six years for these migrants. It, however, leaves out Muslim immigrants who may have entered India the same way as non-Muslims.

Vociferous opposition

There is no dearth of people who feel the legislation is in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. “CAB is definitely unconstitutional. However, for the people of Assam, CAB is not only about religion. The threat to Assamese language and culture is the crux of the matter. When we already have a cut-off year of 1971 as specified in the Assam Accord, why do we have to bear the burden of illegal migrants after 1971? This Bill is for West Bengal elections just as demonetisation was for UP elections. Otherwise, why would a government go against its own citizens and favour foreigners?” asks Bobbeeta Sharma, general secretary and spokesperson, Assam Pradesh Congress Committee.

The CPI(M) says that since the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process in Assam resulted in a large number of Hindus from Bangladesh being excluded from the list, it became urgent for the Narendra Modi government to adopt the legislation before embarking on preparing an NRC for the whole country.

Palash Changmai, general secretary, Axom Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chatra Parishad (AJYCP), goes a step further. He says the CAB has made both the NRC and Assam Accord defunct. “Those calling NRC a total failure are just politically motivated. There may be minor mistakes here and there, but to call something which was done by almost 50,000 people over four to five years a big failure is absurd. Their agenda is to strengthen their Hindu vote bank and that’s why they are trying to cover it up by bringing in CAB.”

Sanjoy Hazarika, author and International Director of The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, explains, “Essentially what this Bill has scrapped is what is popularly known as the 1985 Assam Accord, but is officially called The Problem of Foreigners in Assam, Memorandum of Settlement between the Centre, the State Government, AASU and its key ally, the All Asom Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP). The agreement brought an end to a six-year agitation which had taken thousands of lives, disrupted the economy, and toppled several state governments.”

North-East crisis

While discrimination against Muslims and violation of Article 14 are the two major criticisms that the Modi government faces over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, many fear that the legislation will open new fault lines in the North-East, which has a complex demographic structure. The new draft leaves out areas mentioned in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution in Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura, along with areas requiring Inner Line Permit (ILP): Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. Hence, Assam, not covered under ILP, is the only state in the North-East where illegal Hindu migrants from Bangladesh can potentially be settled.

In Assam, the Bodoland Territorial Area districts, Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao have been exempted from the purview of the Bill. Little wonder then that the protest has got intensified in Assam and Tripura.

“This Bill is not just discriminating against Muslims but also trying to divide North-East, leaving only Assam and Tripura to bear the burden of settling illegal migrants, ” says Pradip Phanjoubam, a journalist and author from Imphal. However, one thing Phanjoubam is sure of is that the sentiment against the Bill is running high in all eight sister states of the North-East.

Though the BJP tried to hardsell the legislation as a tool to protect the Hindu identity of the Assamese, little did it realise that the biggest fear the Assamese face today is that if Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims join hands, Bangla speakers will easily outnumber Assamese-speaking people in the state. The linguistic data of Census 2011 has only added to this fear. According to the Census, the percentage of people speaking Assamese decreased from 58 per cent in 1991 to 48 per cent in 2011, while Bengali speakers in the state went up from 22 per cent to 30 per cent during the same period.

Rumours like one crore Bengali refugees are waiting to cross the border are just adding fuel to the already volatile situation.

Post script

Just after the Bill got passed in the Rajya Sabha on December 11 and violence erupted at various places, I received another WhatsApp alert. This time it was an appeal by National Award-winning filmmaker Jahnu Barua. It read, “Drunk with power, Delhi has stripped each of us khilonjia Assamese… This is the 18th attack on Assam by Delhi. I appeal to you all — keep on the fight, but in a peaceful manner. Like the Assamese had earlier overthrown the last 17 attacks, the 18th attack too, we must avert!”