GUWAHATI: Help in the form of paddy is pouring in for the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) fighting a case against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in the Supreme Court.
The help has been extended by farmers from 85 villages in Upper Assam’s Dibrugarh district.
They offered over 320 quintals of paddy, which they had grown in their fields, to the AASU at a programme organised at Sasoni in the district on Friday. The amount received from the sales will go to the students’ body, spearheading the anti-CAA agitation, to fight the case in the apex court.
“We received 645 sacks, each containing 50 kg paddy. So, the villagers offered us 32,250 kg or 322.5 quintals of paddy,” AASU’s Dibrugarh district unit vice president Anjan Neog told this newspaper.
According to locals, each quintal of paddy fetches them around Rs 1,200. That way, the AASU will get around Rs 3.87 lakh from the paddy sales. The villagers have constituted a committee to sell the paddy.
“We received the paddy from 85 villages, including 72 revenue villages. If, on average, 50 families live in a village, some 4,250 families are helping us to fight the case in the court. This is unprecedented. I wonder if this ever happened in Assam during a movement. I don’t know if this happened during the Assam agitation (of the early 1980s),” AASU general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi said.
He said all along the road leading to Sasoni, people had put up “gamusas” outside their houses with anti-CAA messages written on them. Some villagers had also hoisted black flags to register their protest against it, he said.
“We are overwhelmed. All that the villagers did and are doing are a reflection of their love for the jati (community). They have already rejected CAA, for it is a threat to the land, language and culture of the Assamese,” Gogoi added.