The Chief Minister about the Bill

It is gratifying to see that Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has broken his silence and made certain observations about the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. Recently, he made his observations on the Bill in his speeches delivered at three different places. He spoke at Nagaon, Mangaldoi and Jagiroad. And of late, he has talking freely and aggressively about ‘misconceptions’ over the Bill and its benefits despite the widespread and vehement protests against the Bill, thus providing most members of the BJP what he probably thinks is some clarity about the Bill in the hope of being able mobilize support for it with some degree of conviction. Unfortunately he is probably unaware of the potential that ill-digested beliefs have of eventually undoing any cause or credo. And that is precisely why it becomes necessary to counter the arguments that he has advanced to support a black law.

One of his arguments is that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was placed in Parliament for the entire nation and not just for Assam, as is being made out by a section. [The Chief Minister did not specify as to whether he was speaking of a section of the people or a section of the media. But it is significant that almost the entire State of Assam is opposed to the Bill. The Bill has been opposed by 70 different organizations of the State.] No one has sought to pretend that the Bill is exclusively for the State of Assam, but we all know what happens to certain laws enacted for the entire country but ones that get either misapplied in the case of Assam or acquire more sinister ramifications in their enforcement in the case of Assam. Let us take the law relating to the large-scale immigration of people from other countries (especially Bangladesh and Pakistan) to Assam. There was a time when the Foreigners Act of 1946 was equally applied to the entire country. Thereafter, a separate law [namely the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act] was legislated in 1983 for Assam alone. This piece of black legislation remained in force for 22 years until it was withdrawn in 2005. What the Foreigners Act was unable to do was to prevent large-scale illegal immigration from former East Pakistan and present Bangladesh to Assam. So, even though the Constitution of India stipulates July 19, 1948 as the cut-off date for migrants to India from Pakistan under Article 6, there was the need to have March 24, 1985 as the cut-off date for migrants from Pakistan in the case of Assam under the IM(DT) Act of 1985. This is a clear indication of the fact that since our rulers had cut corners with the law in the Assam, July 19, 1948 was no longer considered a viable cut-off date in the case of Assam, and our rulers had to have a separate cut-off date and a separate law for illegal migrants for Assam alone. In fact, we seem to have been burdened with yet another cut-off date relating mainly to migrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh—31 December 2014. So even if there is one law for the entire country, the application and the implications of the law could be different for Assam, largely because, over the decades, our mandarins have miserably failed to protect the State from large-scale illegal immigration from Bangladesh. Our rulers are not unaware of the equations involved, considering that they have long turned a blind eye on the large-scale illegal migration from Bangladesh to Assam in order to reap the benefits of the names of such illegal migrants being included in the electoral roll of the State without any delay. It is a clear case of the more the merrier for politicians of Assam, for whom their political party takes precedence over the security and integrity of their country.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has also dismissed what he calls “propaganda by a section” about the proposed Bill being particularly harmful for Assam in view of the State becoming the breeding ground of illegal migrants. What the Chief Minister has done is to articulate a very legitimate apprehension of the Assamese people of becoming a minority in the own State. It is unfortunate that his own government does not have any reliable data about the number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh who are in Assam. Even the people who are protesting the government’s apathy and inaction over a very major issue for Assam can only be making intelligent guesses about the numbers involved. What has been clearly overlooked over the decades is that the Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh have remained polygamous and have, as a consequence, bred large numbers of their progeny so as to increase the rate of population growth among the illegal migrants to a level far in excess of the indigenous population of the State. As a consequence, the day is not far off when even without any additional influx of illegal migrants, the Assamese would become a minority in their State thanks to the apathy and neglect of their mandarins over the years. With Indian citizenship granted to certain immigrant religious groups facilitated by our own government, the task of making the Assamese a minority in their own home State will become a much easier task. Is this what the NDA government is planning to achieve with the ramming of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 down our unwilling throats?

In an attempt to assuage the fears of the Assamese, the Chief Minister has also said that the mere initiative of passing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 will not warrant citizenship rights. This begs the question as to why the government is so keen on having a new legislation on citizenship rights when we have managed reasonably well for 73 years without the benefit of such a law, if the Bill is unable to provide Indian citizenship to bona fide beneficiaries expeditiously.