It is still a question of Jaati, Maati, Bheti

The BJP-led alliance had won the 2016 Assam Legislative Assembly election with the slogan of protecting 'jaati, maati and bheti' of the indigenous people of the state in the backdrop of the large-scale infiltration of East Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals. There is no denying the fact that influx from erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh is a part of the larger design of converting Assam and the Northeastern region of India into a new Pakistan. The dream of Pakistan founder Md Ali Jinnah and his successors including Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and the founder of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to occupy Assam and the Northeast in a greater Islamic nation has remained unfulfilled. Volumes have been written about this since the Muslim League had hatched the conspiracy of carving out East Pakistan, and the Supreme Court and Gauhati High Court have also passed a number of historic judgments giving details of how infiltrators from the neighbouring country – irrespective of whether one calls it East Pakistan or Bangladesh – have been systematically occupying government land as well as private land in Assam. Members of a particular party, during question hour in the Assam Legislative Assembly sessions have been particularly extracting vital information about government land, PGR, VGR, forest land and other categories of land in different districts since 1985. This exercise has been definitely carried out to identify such land which can be encroached upon by the East Pakistani and Bangladeshi infiltrators and their progeny, for whose protection a particular political party called AIUDF was formed immediately after the Supreme Court had struck down the notorious IM(DT) Act in July 2005. Volumes have been also written about how a dangerous demographic change has been taking place district after district, and how the clout of the infiltrators has been increasing day by day. It was in this backdrop that the indigenous people of Assam had largely voted in favour of the BJP-led alliance in 2016. Not much however is known about how much the BJP-led alliance has done to fulfill its promise of protecting the 'jaati, maati and bheti' of the indigenous communities of Assam in the past five years. There is a general feeling that the efforts to fulfil this promise has been half-hearted, with only a few instances of eviction of encroachers from government land like Kaziranga and xatra land like that belonging to the Bardowa Thaan and Barpeta Xatra at hand. It is common knowledge that large tracts of forest land, PGRs, VGRs, land belonging to the different tribal communities like the Bodos, Rabhas, Tiwas, Dimsas, Karbis and Misings, land belonging to xatras and temples, as also land belonging to different educational institutions, private persons and river-beds have been under encroachment by suspected infiltrators. But unfortunately, even as the election process has begun, the BJP has not uttered a word on this issue. It should come out with a report card on how much it has done in the last five years towards protecting 'jaati, maati and bheti' of the indigenous people. On the other side, one should not expect the Congress to talk about indigenous communities. The reason is simple – the Congress has allied with the AIUDF which was formed in 2005 to protect the interests of those people (read infiltrators and people of East Pakistan and Bangladesh origin) who are likely to be affected because of the scrapping of the IM(DT) Act. The Congress party does not appear to have any moral right to talk about protection of the indigenous communities because of its alliance with the AIUDF which is indirectly opposed to the protection of indigenous communities. It will also be meaningless to expect the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) to speak about protecting the indigenous communities; the reason is that it had done practically nothing in this regard despite being in power for two full terms in the state. One also should not expect much from Lurinjyoti Gogoi's party because it is yet to spell out its ideology and stand vis-à-vis protecting the indigenous communities from the dangerous demographic invasion of Assam. About Akhil Gogoi's party, the less said the better because Gogoi had openly sided with the infiltrators when the BJP-led government had launched a drive to evict encroachers from Kaziranga National Park.