Dilly-dallying on Clause 6

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) informing the Rajya Sabha that the recommendations of the High-Level Committee on Clause 6 of the Assam Accord are under examination of the Assam government has only precipitated the doubt over the implementation of the recommendations. There is still no clarity as to why the Central government did not accept the report directly from the committee constituted by it and why the committee was asked to submit it to the state government. The MHA is the nodal ministry for implementation of the Assam Accord. Besides, the Constitutional safeguards under the clause that will require Constitutional amendments are outside the jurisdictional authority of the state government. The committee states in its report that to give full effect to its recommendations, "several constitutional and legislative amendments will be necessitated. The existing Article 371-B in the Constitution of India will need to be amended." The committee also prepared a draft text of such proposed amendments and annexed it to report. The recommendations came to the public domain five months after it was handed over to the state government when the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) made it public. The student body accused both the Central and the State governments of sitting on it. Going by the report made public by the AASU, one of the key recommendations of the committee is reservation of 80 per cent of the seats from the state in the parliament and in Assam Assembly for "Assamese People" as defined in it. The Committee has also recommended bringing Assam under the ambit of the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873 for introduction of the Inner Line Permit (ILP) system in the state. The State government can only express its views on these recommendations but cannot take a decision. This explains why assurances by the State government about its commitment to implement the Clause 6 and the recommendations of the committee have failed to convince the people. It is for the Central government to take a decision if the recommendations are acceptable or not. The Assam Accord is a national commitment and while constituting the committee, the Central government made a commitment on the floor of the parliament to implement the recommendations without further delay. The assurances on the floor of the parliament brightened the hopes Assamese and other indigenous communities for a permanent mechanism of providing constitutional, legislative, and administrative safeguards to shield them against existential threat to language, identity and cultures from influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh. More than the recommendation for reservation of the parliament and assembly seats for "Assamese people", it is the recommendation for introduction of the ILP in Assam which has made Delhi and Dispur vacillating on the report. Introduction of ILP in Assam will keep make the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 unimplementable in the state. It will then scuttle the political ambition of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments in the state and at the Centre of extending the cut-off date of determination of citizenship to December 31, 2014 making religion the basis for deciding the eligibility. The Central government hoped that the opposition to the CAA in Assam would evaporate after the constitution of the High-Level Committee on Clause 6. But it failed to anticipate that the committee would give any recommendation such as introduction of the ILP to thwart the move to tweak the cut-off date of the Assam Accord through implementation of the CAA. With barely six months to go for the electoral process for 2021 assembly polls to begin in the state, it is unlikely that the Central Government would take any decision on the key recommendations of the High-Level Committee soon. There are indications that silence of the Central government on the recommendation will provide a political ammunition to the new regional party Assam Jatiya Parishad formed under the aegis of the AASU and the Asom Jatiyabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad. The new regional party, the formation of which was germinated in the anti-CAA agitation in the state, cannot be expected to let go the opportunity to mobilise electoral support in its electoral debut in 2021 Assembly polls. The spin doctors in the ruling party cannot be expected to sit idle. A war of words between AASU, AJYCP and AJP on one side and the ruling BJP on the other is imminent and is likely to intensify during electioneering for the Assembly polls. Thirty-five years have already elapsed since the signing of the accord which has remained a mere political issue for garnering electoral support. Safeguards under Clause 6 will become irrelevant if the demography of the state and political equations changes in disadvantage to the Assamese and other indigenous communities. It is unfortunate that successive Central and the State governments continue to dilly-dally on implementation of the core clauses of the accord.