Divisive Narratives

A distressing fallout of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 is the wedge being driven between not just Brahmaputra and Barak valleys, but on a larger canvass, between the Assamese and Bengali speaking communities. An issue that should have been approached strictly on principles and dealt with sensitively is degenerating into hate-filled narratives. All sorts of past hurts are being raked up and future doomsday scenarios projected in utterly irresponsible manner. The State BJP has expelled one of its vocal Barak leaders and founder president of All Kachar Students' Association (AKSA) Pradip Dutta Roy for his intemperate outburst lately. After a section of students of Assam University in Silchar held a candle-light protest against the bill, Roy called them “enemies of Barak” and made a dire threat that if they indulge in such “politics” in future, “no student from Assamese or indigenous community will be allowed to take admission in Assam University”. Roy’s threat went viral, triggering widespread outrage in the State. In turn, All Assam Students' Union (AASU) demanded that the State government arrest Roy or “face the consequences”. No stranger to controversy, Roy had last year labelled as “Bangladeshis” ULFA leaders who had sought refuge in the neighbouring country; this had sparked a slanging match between Roy and pro-talk ULFA leaders that could have created much bad blood. This apart, the likes of Sushmita Deb and Ardhendu Dey of the Congress too have been heating up the rhetoric with narrow political agenda. Meanwhile, some quarters in Brahmaputra valley are drawing parallels with the “reality” in Tripura, where the vast tide of Hindu Bangladeshis has “long submerged the indigenous people”. Fears are being stoked that once Hindu Bangladeshi refugees in Assam acquire citizenship, they will align with Hindu Bengalis to stamp out the Assamese language and indigenous ways of life. The dark days of the Language Movements in the Sixties and the Seventies, and the replacement of Assamese by Bengali in the 19th century as court language and medium of instruction, are all being freely invoked. For mischief-makers, this presents yet another opportunity to engineer an Assamese vs Bengali clash. A section of so-called regionalists are content to blame the State government with the argument that if such a clash does come about, it would be a “conspiracy to discredit the movement” against the citizenship amendment bill. But mere finger-pointing does not absolve other stakeholders of their responsibilities in maintaining peace and harmony. At Itakhuli in Jorhat-Garamur recently, miscreants vandalised a statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. To the credit of the Bengali and Assamese residents, care was taken to ensure that no provocation was caused. Regrettably, influential minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has begun another pernicious narrative of a majority of constituencies and districts in the State coming under the sway of Bangladeshi Muslim settlers — unless indigenous people “join hands with” Bangladeshi Hindus to thwart their design! All right thinking people should reject such divisive narratives seeking to paint ‘Bengalis’ or ‘Mians’ or any people as ‘The Other’. Such bogeys have been raised umpteen times in the past, causing Assam much grief. Our Constitution enjoins us to be secular, to respect human rights and dignity. There are lakhs of foreigners in Assam, a humanitarian crisis that has grown more and more complicated over decades. They cannot be put to suffering and thrown out in violation of law and civilized norms, nor can indigenous people be left unsafeguarded and staring at oblivion. It is a crisis calling for statesmanship of the highest order. Divisive narratives and simplistic, short-sighted fixes should be treated with the disdain they deserve.