Chief Minister on Citizenship Bill

Chief Minister on Citizenship Bill

At long last Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has broken his long silence on serious issues concerning the State. Speaking at the Shilpi Divas programme at Mangaldai on Thursday, the Chief Minister asserted that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was not going to create any threat to the language, culture and the indigenous people of the State. This cannot be anything more than his personal view or the view of advisers well aware of what would appeal to the Chief Minister. As far as the people of the State are concerned, they are more or less unanimous in condemning the Bill as something that will spell disaster for the north-eastern States and wipe out the very identity of Assam and the Assamese people. There is every indication that the Chief Minister has done little beyond toeing the line of New Delhi in such a vital matter for Assam. This should be evident from the unduly long time that the Chief Minister of the State took in reacting to a very major issue for the State and his own stand on the issue. Having neglected to respond to a vital issue concerning Assam, he has at last come out with a statement that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 presents no threat of any kind to Assam and its people at a time when everyone in the State is alarmed about the consequences of the Bill being implemented in the State. This is hardly surprising for the Assam government that has never really given any indication of being aware of the problems arising from large-scale illegal migration of people from Bangladesh to Assam. During the last four or five decades, the people of Assam have had to suffer the outcome of the government’s total failure to deal with the problem of large-scale illegal migration from Bangladesh. Several governments have come and gone in the State without evincing the slightest concern about the problem. It is only now that the State government has shown some very belated concern about the unchecked illegal migration from Bangladesh. At the same time, we also have the revelation that there has been no study by any government agency on the possible impact of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 on Assam.

As we have said on earlier occasions, the ruling party’s stand on the Bill is mindless acceptance of what New Delhi thinks is the right recipe for Assam: Assam has had far too many non-Hindu illegal migrants from Bangladesh, and so the proper course of action according to New Delhi is that the doors should be opened for a sizeable number of Hindu migrants from Bangladesh, so that the religion-wise demography of Assam can be balanced once again. What the Centre seems to overlook is that the State has already had to bear the burden of over three million Bangladeshi migrants who cannot be evicted now and that it is totally unfair to expect Assam to bear the burden of three or four million additional Hindu migrants who routinely make a beeline for Assam since it is one of the closest Indian States to Bangladesh and also because the Bengali-speaking migrants from that country would be much more at home in Assam rather than in Punjab, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh or Karnataka.

India cannot go on pretending that it has the responsibility to be the protectors of Hindus all over the world despite its commitment to remain a secular country. We have the responsibility of amending our Constitution if we decide to adopt a stand that identifies us a Hindu country. And the issue of religion apart, an overpopulated India cannot go on adding to its population by assuming that Hindus all over the world are a persecuted lot and would be safe only in India. In fact, it makes sense to ask ourselves how safe Indian Hindus are in India.

However, there are a few things that India can do without adding to our population. The first is to request Bangladesh to ensure the security of all Hindus in that country. Such a request from India is bound to be honoured by Bangladesh and would do away with the need to shelter three or four million Hindus of Bangladesh (born in that country) who might be planning to migrate to India because they have ceased to feel secure in the country of their birth. A high-level request from India can make all the difference to the status of the Hindus in Bangladesh. India must help them to identify with the country of their birth with dignity and a sense of belonging. A similar request might have been made to Pakistan as well, but it is well known how Pakistan is likely to react to it. The Hindu population of both Pakistan and Bangladesh has got drastically reduced over the last three or four decades. In Bangladesh, the Hindu population is down to about nine per cent while in Pakistan it is down to about 1.3 per cent. It is the attitude of theocratic states masquerading as democracies that generally create difficulties for minority populations.

What needs to be firmly resisted by the people of Assam is the tendency to permit schools of other linguistic groups to be started in the State on one pretext or the other, and for the language of such groups to be given the same status in Assam as Assamese. It is useful to keep a tab on what other countries do in such cases. Most other countries insist on the language of the country being used as the medium of instruction. This leads to the language of the land having to be learned by all residents of the country studying in different institutions of that country. Such an approach is a must if the identity, language and culture of Assam is to be protected in accordance with the provisions of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord.

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