Creating Confusion over ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Assamese’

Even as the High-level Committee on Clause 6 of the Assam Accord has been collecting suggestions and recommendations from different groups, organizations and individuals on the matter of providing legal, constitutional and administrative protection to the ‘Assamese’ people as provided in the particular clause, a section has been trying to create confusion over who should exactly get such protection. The two previous AGP-led governments headed by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta and the two Congress governments headed by late Hiteswar Saikia and Tarun Gogoi have together wasted more than 30 valuable years without implementing this vital clause of the Assam Accord.

While the two AGP-led governments simply failed to grab the opportunity to resolve several issues pertaining to the various provisions of the Accord, the Congress governments can be held responsible for also creating a lot of confusion over finding a definition for ‘Assamese people’ as mentioned in Clause 6. Former Assam Assembly Speaker Pranab Gogoi was one who had by and large found a broad consensus over the term. But then his personal differences with then chief minister Tarun Gogoi stood in the way of passing it in the Assembly. The BJP-led government of Sarbananda Sonowal, which had come to power in 2016 with the promise of protecting ‘jaati, maati and bheti’ of the indigenous people of Assam, has at least made an effort to take Clause 6 to an implementable stage. But then certain quarters are out to do the mischief again by raking up a fresh controversy over who an ‘Assamese’ and an ‘Indigenous’ was in the context of the Assam Accord.

It is common knowledge that the Assam Accord does not intend to protect illegal migrants. It is also common knowledge that the Accord does not intend to protect the identity of the descendants of migrants who have their roots in erstwhile East Bengal, erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh. It is true that the Constitution of India does not have a specific definition of what the term ‘Indigenous’ stands for. The United Nations too does not have a specific definition of the term. It has however stated that the situation of indigenous peoples varies from region to region and from country to country, and that the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical and cultural backgrounds should be taken into consideration. But then, the UN has variously referred to those people as indigenous who, among other issues, have been dispossessed of their lands.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Communities on the other hand had clearly put forward a definition which calls those as ‘Indigenous communities, peoples and nations’ which have a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories. Any individual, or any organisation having good intent can easily identify from the above explanation which are the communities in Assam which can be called indigenous. Going back to the Assam Accord too, it is simple common sense that the term ‘Assamese people’ used in it definitely meant all indigenous people and communities of the State whose existence and identities have come under threat due to the arrival of hordes of migrants from across the international boundary. Even a child can identify the indigenous communities of Assam which are facing threat from the migrants having their origin in erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh. Only political parties and political leaders with vested interest cannot do so. And, if at all such political parties, political leaders and individuals want to enlighten themselves, then they should just go to one particular song of Bhupen Hazarika, in which he clearly says that ‘all those who have come from various parts of India and have made the banks of the Brahmaputra their home’ are the ‘Assamese’ of present times. Full stop.