As portests citizenship (Amendment ) Act ACC spread across India last week, its defining feature was the charge that the law is unconstitutional, that it violates Articles 14, 21 and other provisions of the Constitution. The reading of the Act in rest of the country is about the exclusion of Muslims alone from the list of “persecuted minorities” of neighbouring countries. Here is where the protests in Assam and Northeast are different from the rest. In the Northeast, including Assam, the protests are not against the people of a particular religion but against the feared hegemony that would be imposed by a particular linguistic group — “Hindu Bangladeshis”.
Assam has a huge baggage of the anti-immigrants agitation (Assam Agitation) of early 1980s and the burden was slowly getting lighter as a result of reconciliation of the linguistic differences. An indicator was the unison of voices during a television reality contest, some 15 years ago, where literally the whole of Assam voted for a Bengali, Debojit Saha. The CAA has brought an abrupt end to that process of reconciliation as one is reminded of the Assamese anger rooted in linguistic and cultural insecurity due to demographic changes, among others. The amended Citizenship Act (CAA) seeks to grant Indian citizenship to “persecuted” Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. An immigrant, belonging to any of these religious groups, who came to India before December 31, 2014 and has spent at least six years in India, will be eligible for citizenship.
ACCORD and AFTER
To the Assamese and other indigenous communities, the issue is less about keeping the Muslims outside the purview of the CAA and more about the violation of the Assam Accord that was signed in 1985 between the then Rajiv Gandhi government at the Centre and the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) at the end of six-year-long bloody Assam Agitation. Clause 5 of the Accord says the immigrants who came after March 24, 1971, irrespective of their faith, are to be detected and deported. It was based on this cut-off date that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was updated, the final list of which saw 19.06 lakh people being left out. The CAA, once implemented in Assam, will render the NRC meaningless — this is the argument that has pitted the people against the government. The Assamese have been agitating for decades for the implementation of the Assam Accord, particularly its clauses 5 and 6. Clause 6 says: “Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.” Assam's indigenous people fear the CAA would open the floodgates for illegal influx of non-Assamese.
GROWING FEARS
Two-time former Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta of Asom Gana Parishad too believes the CAA’s December 31, 2014 cut-off date will not be able to prevent illegal migration of Bangladeshi non-Muslims. “Clause 6(b) of the CAA says people willing to register for citizenship won’t need to furnish any documents. So, the December 31, 2014 cut-off won’t be able to prevent illegal migration. People will keep coming from Bangladesh. The CAA is a blanket invitation,” he said. The locals at large have started believing that crores of “Bangladeshis” will come and the indigenous Assamese people will become a minority in their own state — a fear that has gripped not just Assam but almost all the N-E states. They are spontaneously coming out of their homes every day to save the Khilonjias (indigenous people) and their land, language and culture. They fear Assam will become another Tripura, where the locals have been reduced to a minority.
INNOVATIVE PROTESTS
An all-pervading panic seems to have set in among people. Every Assamese is hitting the streets with “repeal CAA” demand. The protesters are ventilating their ire on public walls and “gamusas”, a rectangular-shaped piece of cloth which is the pride of the Assamese, by writing anti-CAA slogans. They are also singing patriotic songs on the roads to send a message to the powers-that-be. People from all walks of life, including writers, intellectuals, artistes, have joined the movement. The protestors have said it time and again that their movement is not against the Bengalis but the Bangladeshis. Their opposition to the immigrants is faith-neutral. Assam is divided into cultural geographies, if one may term them as such: the largely Assamese-speaking Brahmaputra valley and the Bengalimajority Barak Valley. The Bengalis have sizeable populations also in most cities of the Brahmaputra Valley.
BENGALIS IN A FIX
The CAA has divided the Bengali Hindus in both valleys. People belonging to the community in Barak Valley endorsed the CAA but most of those in Brahmaputra Valley stand opposed to it. There has been an increasing assimilation of Bengali Hindus with the Assamese in Brahmaputra Valley. Not only are marriages between people belonging to the two communities common, they are also increasingly becoming one, socially and culturally. The Assamese have accepted the Bengalis, who migrated before March 24, 1971, and given them a name “Bongiya Asomiya”.
However, not many of them are coming out to condemn the CAA or taking part in the protests despite being miffed that the CAA is straining the relationship. The Assamese view the CAA as a grave threat to their language. According to the RSS, however, not a single Bengali medium school has come up in the Brahmaputra Valley over the past three-four decades. Most Bengalis in this valley, who cannot afford to send their children to English medium schools, get them enrolled into Assamese medium schools. Hindu and Sikh immigrants in the mainland are euphoric over the CAA.
They rejoiced after the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill got the President’s nod and became a law. The non-Muslim immigrants in Assam, however, are scared to celebrate. This is due to their fear of being identified. They are among the beneficiaries but the moment they apply for citizenship under the new legislation, they fear they will be identified as “illegal Bangladeshis” and targeted. This is because unlike in the rest of India, Assam has a cut-off date to determine who is an Indian and who is an illegal immigrant. As the situation worsens, the fate of tens of thousands of mostly Bengali Hindus hangs in dangerous imbalance
For them, the situation before the CAA was less dangerous. They feel they were better off as lives were not in danger. The “Bongiya Asomiyas” are angry that for a handful of fresh entrants, a new law has been enacted that endangers their safety. There have been sporadic incidents of arson targeted at a particular community in Tinsukia district.
POLITICOS AT RECEIVING END
Politicians, especially those from ruling BJP and its ally AGP are at the receiving end of people’s anger. Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had once earned the title of “Jatiya Nayak” (national hero) after the Supreme Court, based on his PIL, had struck down the Illegal Migrants’ Determination Tribunal Act that was heavily tilted in favour of the illegal immigrants. He has now turned a villain with people calling him “Badan” (traitor). The Ahoms, who were instrumental in building the greater Assamese society, ruled Assam for 600years. In 1817, the now despised Badan Barphukan had invited the Burmese army to help him become the king.
The Ahom empire fell and was taken over by the British. The AGP leaders — as also those from the BJP — have virtually gone into hiding in the wake of the widespread protests. The AGP was born out of the Assam Agitation and has been always vocal against illegal immigration but voted in favour of the new law. The action of the party, which has three ministers, is attributed to its alleged lust for power. Rest of the Northeast, a melting pot of 238 tribes, is equally worried about the CAA.
Though the Centre somewhat managed to douse the flames of anger thereby keeping the states protected by Inner Line Permit (ILP) and the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution outside the CAA’s purview, there is still confusion over the issue. Tribal groups wonder as to how the government will check the influx of people to the Sixth Schedule areas. Unlike in the ILP-enforced states, the entry of outsiders is not restricted in the Sixth Schedule areas.
The government says the immigrants living in the Sixth Schedule areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura will have to register themselves elsewhere for citizenship but there is no clarity if they can continue to live where they are living or own immovable property. The tribals in the Northeast have always been suspicious of opening up their land to “outsiders”, no matter whether they are fellow tribals or coreligionists. The regional political parties are divided. Some had voted against the Citizenship Bill despite being BJP allies.
Some others voted in favour despite the opposition in their states. What is, however, common is that almost all states in the region have stood by Assam. “When people suffered during the Bengal famine, it was we, the tribals of Tripura, who sheltered them. We sheltered them every time they faced a problem. And today, we have been reduced to a minority. We are one-third of the state’s population,” said Pradyot Kishore Debbarma of Tripura royal family, who resigned as state Congress chief a few months ago.
THE CLAUSE 6 BALM
The Sonowal government is trying hard to convince all and sundry that the CAA seeks to protect only a “small number” of the immigrants who are have been settled in Assam for decades. It says no immigrant who migrated after December 31, 2014, can be a beneficiary of the amended law. The government also says that the land, language and culture of the Assamese and indigenous people will be protected through the implementation of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. It has asked the Centre-constituted high powered Clause 6 committee to submit its report early so that the provisions could be implemented early. Among others, the committee is likely to seek the reservation of seats in Assembly as well as Parliament and jobs in government and private sectors for the Assamese and other indigenous communities.
The BJP is on the back foot due to the protests and as such, one should not be surprised if a lot is given to the locals through the implementation of Clause 6. The BJP views the non-Muslim immigrants as “victims of Partition”. It has always insisted that it is the bounden duty of India to take care of them. The BJP’s critics, however, say the Modi government amended the Citizenship Act to reap dividends in West Bengal. The BJP leadership was given to understand by Assam leaders that the CAA would in no way affect the party’s prospects in the state. The Congress, faced with depleting popularity, is likely to gain a lot from the events that are unfolding but then elections are a different ball game altogether. “The people protesting against the CAA will themselves vote for the BJP in the 2021 Assam polls,” said a girl, a Congress supporter.