Fear and loathing in Assam: How 2019 panned out amid NRC and CAA

Anger and apprehension gathered over northeastern states after the Citizenship Amendment Act, which aims to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, passed the Parliament. For Assam, it was a double whammy, courtesy an exemption clause in the bill. As per this clause, the legislation will not be applicable to states that come under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. So Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have been fully exempted, along with seven districts in Assam. Manipur was also included in the list before the bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha.

Protests

As the bill made its way through the Parliament, Assam burned. Students hit the streets, burning effigies of the prime minister, the home minister and the chief minister in effigies, and vandalising public property. There were bandhs called by the All Moran Students' Union (AMSU) to protest against the bill, and seek Scheduled Tribe status for six communities, affecting normal life in several parts of the state. Hundreds of men, women and children poured into streets of Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sivasagar, Jorhat, Majuli, Morigaon, Bongaigaon, Udalguri, Kokrajhar and Baksa districts, burned discarded tyres and blocking highways. Police wielded batons in Dibrugarh and Guwahati to break up protests and some state-run long-distance buses plied under police protection.  

Foreign and domestic tourists at Kaziranga National Park were stranded. Most markets and financial institutions were closed in the initial stages, as Assam appeared cleaved over ethnic and linguistic identities, with people in Bengali-dominated Barak valley districts of Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi, as also the hill districts of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao, going about their lives normally. People in the Brahmaputra Valley alleged the Centre had isolated them by not exempting the region from the purview of the controversial Act, barring areas under the Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD) and the three Autonomous Hill Districts. Hindu Bengalis dominating the Barak Valley, however, have welcomed the amended Act that seeks to accord citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who fled religious persecution there.

Protesters took out 'funeral processions' of Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal for his alleged failure to oppose the Act, which people in northeastern states apprehend will take away their distinct identity, culture, and change the region's demography. There was also a widespread perception that it would nullify the provisions of the Assam accord of 1985, which fixed March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for deportation of illegal immigrants irrespective of religion. Those in the vanguard of these protests in Assam have been insisting that the state was already encumbered with the burden of lakhs of people who entered India, particularly from Bangladesh, during and after the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war.

The North East Students Organisation (NESO), the apex organisation of student bodies of the region, had called for bandhs. Parties and organisations such as the Congress, AIUDF, All Assam Students Union, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, All Arunachal Pradesh Students' Union, Khasi Students Union and the Naga Students Federation backed the NESO. 

Political fallout

Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), BJP's top ally in Assam and the northeast, turned against the amended Citizenship Act, and will approach the Supreme Court against it. The AGP had supported the bill in Parliament. The AGP announced its stand on Saturday after a party meeting. Top AGP leadership have also decided to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. 

The home ministry had held marathon talks with leaders of socio-cultural bodies, students' organisations and political parties from the northeastern states on the bills. Those invited for discussions included North East Students' Organisation, All Bodo Students' Union and students bodies from Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. Leaders of several political parties—both regional and state chiefs of national political parties—and heads of socio-cultural organisations also attended for the discussions. 

Regional parties in the northeast, which wield enormous influence, reacted differently. In Assam, the AIDUF led by Badruddin Ajmal, the Lok Sabha MP from Dhubri, is completely against implementation of the amended law. The party enjoys support of a large number of Muslims in Assam. In Meghalaya, NPP is a BJP ally, but has some reservations over the law. Its leader and chief minister Conrad Sangma had met BJP chief Amit Shah after the passage of the CAA.

Amit Shah has assured the party that the state's interests will not be harmed. In Sikkim, Sikkim Krantikari Morcha, a constituent of BJP-led Northeast Democratic alliance, the state's ruling party had voted against the CAA in Parliament. The party's stand is since Sikkim is covered under Article 371(F), where the state legislature's concurrence is necessary to implement a central Act, it will not pass a resolution to make CAA applicable to the state.

Tripura's IPFT, a BJP ally is opposed to the law. In Mizoram, Mizo National Front, the ruling party in the state is an NDA constituent. It supported the CAA. The state is exempted from the purview of the new law.

NRC another bone of contention

The state's ruling BJP had a tough time rallying its North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) partners behind it amid criticism of the updation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which the opposition claimed was a "botched-up" exercise. Out of 3.3 crore applicants, over 19 lakh people were excluded from the final NRC, a sizeable number of them Hindus.

The Supreme Court-monitored process saw tens of thousands of applicants standing in seemingly unending queues outside seva kendras (assistance booths) with documents to prove their identity. Countless families claimed some members made it to the register, aimed at weeding out illegal immigrants, while others could not.

Many of those deemed 'foreigner' and 'doubtful voter' were sent to detention centres, triggering condemnation. NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela was subsequently transferred out of the state amid allegations of "huge irregularities and anomalies" in conduct of the exercise, which entailed an expenditure of Rs 1,200 crore.

North-East Democratic Alliance convener and influential state minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was among those who said the final register, in its current form, was not acceptable and should be scrapped as it "failed to fulfil the aspirations of people". Union Home Minister Amit Shah later announced that NRC would be implemented across states and Assam would have to undergo the process again to rectify the errors.

It is not known if the process will be undertaken at all after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assertion that a pan-India NRC was never discussed by his government, a statement that was endorsed by Shah. "Since my government first came to power in 2014, I want to tell 130 crore countrymen, there has never been a discussion on NRC," Modi told a massive public meeting in New Delhi's Ramlila Maidan last week.

-Inputs from PTI, Seema Hussain