NE in the Bangla map   

The obsession of certain forces in the subcontinent with India’s Northeastern region is nothing new. Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal in 1905 and clubbed Assam and the Northeast with the then newly created Eastern Bengal. In 1906, the Muslim League was born in Dhaka; one among several objectives was to ‘occupy’ Assam. When seen in the historical perspective, one will find that there has always been a dream of Islamising the Northeast and then beyond to Myanmar and Thailand. This dream was crushed in 1671 by the great Assamese General Lachit Barphukan in the Battle of Saraighat. Since then, the conspiracy has been on. The first round was during the brief five-year period (1905-1910) when Assam remained clubbed with Eastern Bengal, when lakhs of poor ‘land-hungry’ Muslim peasants were sent out to occupy vacant land in Assam. The immigrant Muslims one sees in the Brahmaputra Valley came in as many as four waves. The first was when Assam was clubbed with Eastern Bengal (1905-1910). The second was during the Bengal famine (1940s). The third was during the Partition; government reports say that thousands of Muslims, instead of staying in the newly created East Pakistan in 1947, sneaked into Assam. Gopinath Bardoloi and his two subsequent successors, Bishnuram Medhi and Bimala Prasad Chaliha, were dead against letting these infiltrators in, the reason being they will reduce the indigenous communities into a minority and then help fulfil Jinnah’s dream. Jawaharlal Nehru and his Congress government at the Centre were strongly opposed to Bardoloi, Medhi and Chaliha’s stand. Nehru is on record threatening Assam with reducing central fund flow if the campaign against the infiltrators was not stopped. It is pertinent to note that the Parliament had in 1950 enacted the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, with the objective of identifying and expelling the immigrants who came after the 1947 Partition of India. It is pertinent to note that the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the said Act has very unequivocally said, “During the last few months a serious situation had arisen from the immigration of a very large number of East Bengal residents into Assam. Such large migration is disturbing the economy of the province, besides giving rise to a serious law and order problem.” Seventy-five years have passed, but the dream of “taking over” Assam and the Northeast continues in the minds of many people in the two neighbouring countries. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is on record in his autobiography stating that Assam has to be included in Pakistan one day or the other. This time around, it is Prof. Md Yunus, who recently gifted a map of “Greater Bangladesh” to a top Pakistani military general, which had incorporated India’s Northeastern region too. This issue must be discussed at all levels in the country, and merely issuing statements condemning Prof. Yunus is not enough. The government and all patriotic organizations and parties should work with such programmes so that this dream of Prof. Yunus is turned into a nightmare.