The Bharatiya Janata Party appears to be walking a tightrope in Assam by pushing for the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, that seeks to legalise the stay of non-Muslim refugees who allegedly fled religious persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan till December 31, 2014.
Implementing the Bill was the BJP’s promise before the Assam Assembly election in 2016. Southern Assam’s Bengali-dominated Barak Valley greeted the passage of the Bill in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, but the Assamese-dominated Brahmaputra Valley erupted in protest, with Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal being seen as having betrayed his own people. The other northeastern States, fearing that the Bill will let migrants outnumber them, joined the protest.
Share of migrants
The northeast, specifically Assam, believes it has already taken a huge load of migrants from present-day Bangladesh since India’s Partition and cannot be made to take in more. Organisations and political parties catering to local sentiments say the Bill would make the 1985 Assam Accord as well as the National Register of Citizens being updated redundant since both have a cut-off date — March 24, 1971 — for weeding out and deporting illegal migrants.
But as the dust settled, people on both sides of the divide saw the “electoral calculation” behind the move. “The Bill will have no meaning if it does not become a law, and it depends on BJP returning to power four-five months from now. This appears to be a poll strategy, but more for West Bengal which has 42 Lok Sabha seats compared with 14 of Assam,” said Bidhayak Das Purkayastha, general secretary of the Citizens’ Rights Protection Forum that bats for Bengali Hindus in Assam.
‘Two lollipops’
Harekrishna Deka, former Assam DGP and leader of the Forum Against Citizenship Act Amendment Bill, said the BJP was emboldened by its performance in the rural poll in December to play a divisive game.
“The party has seemingly offered something tangible, but actually nothing for anyone. It then held out two lollipops to deflect the anger over the Bill,” he said. The lollipops referred to are the tabling of a draft Bill in Parliament for granting Scheduled Tribe status to six communities in Assam, and the formation of a panel to implement Clause 6 of the Assam Accord that seeks to ensure “constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards” for the indigenous people of the State.
“Welcoming Bangladeshis on the one hand and talking about giving constitutional safeguards for our people is a dubious game,” said Samujjal Bhattacharya, chief adviser of the All Assam Students’ Union.
Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the people, being misled by certain intellectuals aligned with ‘Jinnah’s ideals’, would realise one day that the Bill would save them from being minorities in their own land.
