Unity is the Key

Unity is the Key

Bishaldeep Kakati

(Bishaldeep Kakati can be reached at deep.kakati99@gmail.com)

It has already been three years since 2016, but it still seems that the deplorable scenarios of Assam have not changed for good. A Bill known as the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 is making each and every nook and corner of Assam burn in despair and frustration. And probably this is the purgatory worst-ever in Assam after the six years of Assam Agitation. The conspicuous scenes that have flowed in front of our eyes have forced us to believe the fact that the indigenous people of Assam have left no stone unturned to ensure that not even a single illegal immigrant gets the chance to threaten their language, culture, existence and identity. However, the current happenings are not helping the cause for the bevy because there are a lot of enemies in the State itself, which the Assamese people earlier trusted the most, with a hope that these masked hypocrites would help them out in their continuous fight and endeavour to filter out the illegal immigrants and safeguard the motherland. But unfortunately this remains the execrable faith of the indigenous people of Assam, as almost every time they get betrayed by those individuals whom they love and adore the most.

In fact, it won’t be wrong to say that the ears of those self proclaimed kings have all gone deaf, as the cries, hollers and shouts of the common people are heard by none. If the leader of the nation during his election campaign said that within no time all the illegal immigrants would be thrown out of Assam, then the so called ‘Jati Mati Bheti’ leader of Assam went a step ahead to say that he would do nothing that puts the identity of Assam under crisis. But like every time, instead of doing anything substantial for the common burgess, the leader of the state only remained as a puppet dancing in the tunes of the not so secular national leader. However, the pivotal question is: whether in the longer run the identity and the existence of the indigenous people would remain protected or not? And taking into consideration the current scenario of Assam, the answer to the question sadly would be a big no.

Moreover, this is not the first time that the Assamese identity is under crisis. If we flip over the pages of history, we would find all those inspiring tales of valour and courage displayed by the people of Assam, be it in the Battle of Saraighat of 1671 or in the Indo-China war of 1962. But if we carefully analyse, we would notice that in all those legendary battles, the key factor was the presence of an able leader who had the vision and mission or a plan to win the battles and bring the happiness back to the people’s face. And hence a thing that we need to ponder here is that whether or not in the current scenario we have that same skilled leader to guide the community and win the battle again.

Coming back to contemporary Assam, the one thing which is noticeable is that every now and then a new association or unit comes up in no time, and hence it literally remains really difficult for a person to have the exact count of such associations. If even for a second it is considered that new organizations are necessary because of varying ideologies, but when the talk comes about protecting the motherland, then all those different ideologies must be kept aside and the perspectives of all must merge as one with the sole motive of protecting the native land. And if that happens then the strength and power would increase to such an extent then none would have the capacities to break it by any means. Added to this, the thoughts of choosing one leader to lead instead of many can also turn out to be the game changer.

In fact, already a lot has been deliberated about the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, but the sad fact is that most of the simple and common citizens of Assam still have no idea about the main facets of the Bill. Some of the self-proclaimed rulers of the Government in their own logic have tried to present their views regarding the so-called positive aspects of the Bill in order to distract a section of the society, so that they don’t indulge themselves in any sort of protests or agitations. And somewhere down the line, the protests that have been done till date, don’t seem to be that effective as the government is still rigid in its decision of passing the Bill.

Not only this but also the students of different colleges and universities have come out in protest against the Bill, there has been numerous hunger strikes, bandhs been declared, as well as many Students’ Union of educational institutions deciding to boycott their classes till the Bill is completely rejected by the government. In fact, people have also shown their dissatisfaction towards the Bill by burning the replica of it in the recently concluded Bhogali Bihu. So this indeed shows that people have taken all the steps possible to force the government to discard the Bill. However, nothing so far has worked wonders except for the decision of passing the Bill being momentarily reconsidered in the Rajya Sabha after the Bill was comprehensively passed in the Lok Sabha.

Thus, although there has been a significant number of protests against the Bill, yet if we logically think we can clearly understand that somewhere down the line the protests have not been a unified one, moving in the right direction. And the core reason of it is that there are so many associations and leaders that the people more often than not remain confused regarding the fact that where they would go and whom they would follow. So, in this crucial juncture of time, all that Assam needs is ‘Unity in Diversity’, with may be one unified association having one apt leader to lead.

Hence it remains an earnest request to all the people of Assam as well as all the associations to leave all their differences and unite as one to launch an all-out protest against the Bill as well as the government to safeguard the state. And if in any case, the opposite happens, then the tales of Assam shall only remain scripted as allegories in the history books.

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