Guwahati: A minority student leader in Assam stirred a hornet’s nest with remarks that Bengal-origin Muslims would list Bengali, and not Assamese, as their mother tongue in public documents.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who played his part in securing the classical language status for the Assamese, said language cannot become a tool for “blackmail.”
“Assamese language is permanent in Assam, as state and official language,” he said.
“Nobody is affected by the threats ahead of every census about listing this or that language. They (some elements) were made to believe if more people do not speak Assamese, the language will become extinct. But the Assamese language will remain where it is,” the chief minister said.
He added that if some people seek to replace Assamese with Bengali in the electoral rolls, it will give an idea about the number of “foreigners” in Assam.
Mainuddin Ali, leader of All BTC Minority Students’ Union, had made the controversial remarks.
During a protest on Wednesday against ongoing eviction drives in parts of lower Assam, he stated if the Bengal-origin Muslims do not list Assamese as their mother tongue in the census exercise, it will no longer be the language of the majority in Assam.
“We, the Bengal-origin Muslims, clearly state that we will not write Assamese as our mother tongue this census. We will remove the Assamese language. The Assamese language as well as the Assamese community will become a minority,” Ali stated.
Assam’s highest literary body Assam Sahitya Sabha and All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) slammed him for the remarks.
“As long as the Assam Sahitya Sabha exists, the Assamese people will not become a minority in Assam. They know how they can protect themselves. We reject the threat,” Assam Sahitya Sabha president Basanta Kumar Goswami said.
AASU president Utpal Sarma said the Assamese people had for long faced the blackmail that if Assamese is not written as the mother tongue in census papers, it will become a minority.
“Some people view it as a favour that they write Assamese as their mother tongue. They want the Assamese people to stoop to them. The Assamese people have to get rid of this blackmail,” Sarma said.
“Whether somebody writes Assamese as mother tongue or not, but the fact is the indigenous people of Assam are going to become a minority in Assam, maybe in the next one, two or three decades,” he warned.
In the wake of the protests, All BTC Minority Students’ Union suspended Ali with immediate effect.