ASSAM IS UP in flames again. This time it is over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, which aims to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Students are hitting the streets, burning the prime minister, the home minister and the chief minister in effigies, and vandalising public property. They have vowed to kill themselves if the legislation is implemented.
An exemption clause in the bill has angered the Assamese even more. 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.
“How can [the legislation] be good for Assam, if it is not so for other northeastern states and tribal areas of Assam?” asks Samujjal Bhattacharya, adviser of the All Assam Students’ Union. AASU and NESO (the Northeast Students Union) are leading the protests.
Arunav Goswami, a Guwahati-based political analyst, said the legislation is unfair to the Assamese. “When our local boys and girls are facing unemployment and related problems, where is the space to accommodate unwanted illegal immigrants?” he said. According to him, the legislation also dilutes the 1985 Assam Accord, which had fixed the midnight of March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for eligibility to apply for citizenship.
The BJP, which is in power in the state, has been facing public anger. There have been demonstrations in front of the party’s state headquarters at Hengrabari in Guwahati. Men and women, young and old, have been hitting the streets to register their anger. “New Delhi has dropped a political bombshell on the people of Assam,” said Manju Gogoi, a local resident. “It has compelled the people to come out in protest. We are ashamed with the state BJP leadership, including Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, for bowing down before the Centre. Everyone has failed us. We will now take matters into our own hands and will only rest after overthrowing the BJP from power in 2021.”
The electoral angle of the legislation is not lost on the Assamese, even though Sonowal has been telling them not to worry. “If the Congress is dependent on the immigrant Muslim vote to win elections in Assam, [Union Home Minister] Amit Shah has decided to balance it out by bringing in the bill. The Bengali Hindu voters will then vote en bloc for the BJP and the party will not lose another election in the state,” said an AASU supporter.
There is great anger at the BJP’s “betrayal”. A community of artists in Assam, led by the singer Zubeen Garg, has announced that it would boycott the Filmfare Awards function to be held in the state next February. Some of the leaders and workers who had joined the BJP in its heyday have resigned from the party’s primary membership. They have urged the government to scrap the legislation in the greater interest of the Assamese people.
Watching the agitation from the sidelines is the United Liberation Front of Asom. “The government has now witnessed the unity of the Assamese people,” said Anup Chetia, leader of the pro-talks faction of ULFA. “But the momentum must continue. All groups need to join hands for the sake of our beloved motherland.”