‘Where are we heading?’

With the demographic profile of Assam undergoing rapid changes over the past few decades, a very pertinent question has been raised by a former Judge of the Gauhati High Court. Justice Biplab Kumar Sarma, a former Judge, while speaking at a seminar on preparation of a correct National Register of Citizens (NRC) held in Guwahati on Sunday, reportedly remarked: If the rise in minority population in the State keeps rising at this pace, we can well gauge where we are heading for. Justice Sarma, known for certain landmark judgments related to illegal migration from Bangladesh, had in 2004 brought to light the fact that a Bangladeshi person called Md Kamaruddin, who had entered Assam with a Pakistani passport, had even contested an Assembly election in Assam. Justice Sarma, during his deliberations on Sunday clearly pointed out that the birth rate in Assam was not only rising but was above the national average, indicating that the sole reason behind this illegal migrants from Bangladesh. He has also rightfully pointed out that the number of Muslim-majority districts is rapidly increasing in Assam when the Census is conducted every ten years. In 2001, there were only six Muslim-majority districts in Assam – Dhubri (including present-day South Salmara), Barpeta, Goalpara, Nagaon, Karimganj and Hailakandi. This has increased to nine districts in the 2011 Census, these being – Dhubri (including present-day South Salmara), Bongaigaon, Barpeta, Darrang, Goalpara, Hailakandi, Karimganj, Morigaon and Nagaon. As Justice Sarma has pointed out, one must also look at the rapid pace at which the Muslim population is increasing. Just look at Bongaigaon district; the Muslim population there increased from 38.5 per cent in 2001 Census to 50.22 per cent in 2011. In Darrang district, it went up from 35.5 per cent in 2001 to 64.34 per cent in 2011. Taking off from where Justice Sarma has left, one must always keep in mind that there are certain elements who always want to communalize the issue of demographic changes in Assam. The ground reality is clear – that the increase in Muslim population in Assam is not because of the Assamese Muslim community has suddenly decided to increase its population. The ground reality, as has been pointed out by several judgments by Justice Sarma himself when he was a serving Judge, is that there has been infiltration from Bangladesh (and that the bulk of the infiltrators are Bangladeshi Muslims), and also that these people multiply like no other community does in India. This has been also clearly explained by former Assam Governor, General (Retired) SK Sinha in his famous and well-researched report to the President of India in 1998; he had even expressed apprehension that a day will come when these people, on attaining majority in the border districts, would demand merger of those districts with Bangladesh in order to fulfil the long-cherised dream of Md Ali Jinnah, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Mujibur Rahman of creating a larger Islamic country by merging Assam, Tripura and other parts of Northeast India with present-day Bangladesh or erstwhile East Pakistan. The Supreme Court of India had also clearly analysed this population increase in Assam and declared that the demographic change caused by influx from Bangladesh amounted to an ‘external invasion’ of India’s territory in the Northeast. While the Bangladeshi infiltrators and their offspring will obviously oppose anyone talking about this demographic invasion, there are also certain self-styled intellectuals in Assam who always stand on the side of the infiltrators by trying to assert that they aren’t Bangladeshi infiltrators at all. This last category of people had also played a dubious role during the AASU movement against influx (1979-85) by opposing the movement which was intended at protecting the identity of the indigenous people of Assam and protecting Assam and the Northeast from a silent invasion, with old-timers recalling that some of them had also taken the wrong side during the Chinese aggression of 1962.