Blood-etched placards against Hindu B'deshis

GUWAHATI, May 7: On April 23, 1980, firebrand student activist Dulal Sarma slashed open his chest with a blade and wrote in bold letters with his own blood on a street in front of Guwahati Refinery at Noonmati: “Tez dim, tel nidiu” (We will give blood, not oil). It was a defining moment of the historic anti-foreigners movement in the State, which inspired thousands of others to come out on the streets to support the agitation, led by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU).

Nearly four decades after the similar kind of moment seemed to have revisited Guwahati on Monday when two persons from Namrup displayed a placard written with their bloods in front of the Assam Administrative Staff College at Khanapara during the public hearing by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the issue of New Delhi’s move to grant citizenship to Hindu Bangladeshis. Madhab Baishya and Ziaur Rahman who wrote the placard with their bloods in Assamese conveyed their message in loud and clear terms that under no circumstance it will be accepted to grant citizenship on the basis of religion. 

Baishya and Rahman who participated in the Assam Agitation being active members of the then AASU unit in Namrup said the moment has come to make sacrifices and unique protests to defeat the BJP-led Government’s move to grant citizenship to Bangladeshis on the basis of religion. “We are ready to give blood if the Centre goes ahead with its move,” Rahman said.