Pakistan zindabad?

The issue of some supporters of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) party allegedly shouting "Pakistan zindabad" while welcoming Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, its president and Lok Sabha member from Dhubri, at the Silchar airport on Thursday is not a matter to be taken lightly. While a number of FIRs and complaints have been already lodged in different police stations of Assam against the incident, a video footage with the alleged slogan that has already gone viral in social media has already created quite a controversy. Leading those who have registered protests is Rajdeep Roy, BJP Lok Sabha member from Silchar, while the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has demanded immediate arrest of Ajmal and his supporters who were present when the slogan was allegedly raised in Silchar.

The AIUDF has point-blank denied that any of its members of supporters had actually raised a pro-Pakistan slogan and termed it as a ploy and "cheap tactics" of the BJP to whip up a campaign against Ajmal's party as the Assam Assembly election was drawing closer. But Assam minister and NEDA convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma has termed it as an act of 'fundamentalist' and anti-national forces. "Look at the brazenness of these fundamentalist anti-national people who are shouting PAKISTAN ZINDABAD while they welcome MP Badruddin Ajmal. This thoroughly exposed @INCIndia which is encouraging such forces by forging an alliance. We shall fight them tooth and nail," Sarma said in a tweet while reacting to the incident. Sarma has also asked the police to take actions against all those who raised slogans in favour of Pakistan. The Congress party, which is working towards forging an alliance with Ajmal's AIUDF party to take on the BJP-AGP combine in the next Assembly elections, is trying to protect the AIUDF. Debabrata Saikia, senior Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly, has said that the exact word used by the sloganeers could not be made out distinctly from the news reports due to background noise in the video footage.

Saikia has said that the government should immediately direct the police to question the assembled people, analyse all available video footages and utilize forensic technology to ascertain whether the word used before the word 'zindabad' was actually 'Pakistan' or something else. If the word 'Pakistan' was actually used, then those guilty of this nefarious act must be identified and brought to the book. While it is a matter of investigation by the police as to whether such a slogan was actually raised or not in Silchar on Thursday, the fact remains that there are numerous instances of raising pro-Pakistan slogans and even Pakistan flags in different parts of Assam, particularly in those districts which have undergone dangerous demographic changes because of the presence of large numbers of illegal migrants and their descendants from erstwhile East Bengal, erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh. While large-scale migration of people from the above-mentioned place to Assam has been taking place since the first decade of the previous century, there is clear evidence that a concerted effort was made during the Muslim League-led government of Maulavi Saiyid Muhammad Saadulla in Assam (in the late 1930s and early 1940s) to encourage migration of Bengali Muslims to Assam for political reasons.

Lord Wavell, who was Viceroy of India from 1943 to 1947, had written in his Viceroy's Journal, "The chief political problem is the desire of the Muslim ministers (of Saadulla's government) to increase this immigration into the uncultivated government lands (of Assam) under the slogan 'Grow more food', but what they are really after is 'Grow more Muslims.' " Moinul Haque Choudhury, who was a minister in several post-Independence Congress governments in Assam, and even at the Centre, has been quoted in then Assam Governor, Lt Gen (Retd) SK Sinha's famous report to the President of India on November 8, 1998, as having told Md Ali Jinnah that he would "present Assam to him on a silver platter." While former Pakistan President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is known to have written Pakistan had "very good claims" over Assam, Gen Sinha had also drawn attention of the President to the fact that illegal migrants were turning certain districts of Assam into Muslim-majority areas and that "it will then only be a matter of time when a demand for their merger with Bangladesh may be made." There are many intelligence as well as media reports about the Pakistan flag being raised in many places in Assam in the post-independence period, with the recent incident taking place in Udalguri district a few years ago. The matter of the alleged raising of a "Pakistan zindabad" slogan may appear to be a pre-election issue, but it is not one to be taken lightly, especially in the above-mentioned contexts.