A video clip that has gone viral in the past few days shows a person called Sharjeel Imam, said to be a student of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, making a highly inflammatory and anti-national speech and calling for “permanently or temporarily” cutting of Assam and the North-eastern region from the rest of India. This person, in the vedio-clip, was heard saying that Assam should be cut off from the rest of India and taught a lesson, because Bengalis - both Hindus and Muslims - are being killed or put into detention centres in the state. He has reportedly said that if he can organize five lakh people, it would become possible to “permanently cut off Assam from the rest of India” and also that “if not permanently, then at least for a couple of months.” While this person is out and out and anti-national and should have been immediately arrested and put behind bars, it is a matter of surprise that the government has not done so as yet.
It is, however, not a matter of surprise for a person reportedly studying in an institution like JNU, because most students of this world-famous university are anyway not much aware of the issues related to the Northeast, not to speak of the ground realities arising out of large-scale infiltration from erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh. More importantly, this person’s inflammatory speech calling for cutting Assam and Northeast off from the rest of India was in fact predicted more than two decades ago by none other than the then Assam Governor Lt Gen (Retd) SK Sinha, who was also a former Vice-Chief of the Indian Army. Gen Sinha had, in his report to the President of India in November 1998 said in the paragraphs 22 to 24 of his well-researched report that the day is not far when the illegal migrants will demand merger of Assam with Bangladesh. This is what exactly Gen Sinha had written in those three paragraphs – “Para 22: The dangerous consequences of large scale illegal migration from Bangladesh, both for the people of Assam and more for the Nation as a whole, need to be emphatically stressed. No misconceived and mistaken notions of secularism should be allowed to come in the way of doing so. Para 23: As a result of population movement from Bangladesh, the spectre looms large of the indigenous people of Assam being reduced to a minority in their home State.
Their cultural survival will be in jeopardy, their political control will be weakened and their employment opportunities will be undermined. Para 24: This silent and invidious demographic invasion of Assam may result in the loss of the geostrategically vital districts of Lower Assam. The influx of these illegal migrants is turning these districts into a Muslim majority region. It will then only be a matter of time when a demand for their merger with Bangladesh may be made. The rapid growth of international Islamic fundamentalism may provide the driving force for this demand. In this context, it is pertinent that Bangladesh has long discarded secularism and has chosen to become an Islamic State.
Loss of Lower Assam will sever the entire land mass of the North East, from the rest of India and the rich natural resources of that region will be lost to the Nation.” It is heartening to see that the Delhi Police has registered a case against Sharjeel Imam under IPC Section 124 A (an offence by words, either spoken or written causes disaffection against Government established by law), Section 153 A (promoting enmity between different religious groups with an intent to create disharmony) and Section 505 (statements conducing to public mischief). The Assam Police, Manipur Police and Arunachal Pradesh Police have also filed an FIR under the anti-terror law UAPA against Imam for his speech. But then, this is only the beginning of a new game that the pro-Pakistani and pro-Bangladeshi forces want to convert Assam into a Muslim-majority state and eventually merge it with a greater Islamic Bangladesh. Fortunately, the Indian Army has already apprehended such a dangerous mischief and had in February 2018 organized a detailed discussion on securing the Siliguri Corridor.