নৈঃশব্দেরর অন্য পৃষ্ঠা

The Unending Conundrum: The Story of Citizens/Foreigners between Politics and the Law in Assam

Date: May 31, 2018 Author: PangSau 0 Comments Binayak Dutta Politics in Assam has for long been dominated by contestations over belongingness and citizenship. Seventy years since the transfer of power and well into the twenty first century, the tenor and the dominant theme of politics is no different when C.S. Mullan, the Census superintendent for Assam for the Census of 1931 raised an alarm over the “army corps of the invaders” (Census:1931:49) invading Assam from East Bengal. The raging debate that was ignited in the last century has continued unabated in north-east India ever since with mile-stones such as the Assam Movement and now the construction of the National register of Citizens for Assam along the way. A debate that was initiated in the official and administrative domains has today entered the common place and the current exercise over the NRC with more and more people affected by the process in diverse ways. If I could start with the personal ...

A ‘god-sent’ opportunity?

By : SUJIT CHAUDHURI IN the wake of the Partition Assam lost one of her districts to Pakistan. Mountbatten’s partition-plan announced on 3 June 1947, provided inter-alia for a referendum to be held in the Sylhet district of Assam to decide whether it should remain a part of the Indian province of Assam or go to East Pakistan. The Sylhet referendum was held on 6 July 1947 and the result went in favour of a merger with Pakistan. Assam thus lost a wealthy district causing serious loss of revenue. But the Assamese people in general greeted this loss and the Assam press projected it as a gain. This attitude, somewhat unusual in the context of the national aspiration of the period, has its origins in what can be called the long-cherished quest of the Assamese – carving out a homogenous province for themselves. The Assamese perceived the partition of 1947 as a god-sent opportunity to attain that goal. In fact, the Assamese Congress leaders were sowing the seeds for subsequent man...

The NRC is a Mess

"Creating an ‘indigenous’ category is only going to speed up the NRC verification process" On March 27 the Hindustan Times carried an article titled “In Assam, rape and murder of minor takes a ‘Bangladeshi’ turn”. The article pertained to the brutal rape of a minor, the accused had allegedly tried to burn the victim to death. The child died due to the burns. What became an issue was not just the brutality of the act, but also the fact that all the three accused were Muslims. This then has coloured the discourse on the crime. The general public appears to have already decided the citizenship of the three accused. Though the issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh has been a long-standing issue in Assam, the general view tends to be that all those who speak ‘Bengali’ fall within this category. If the person is a Muslim, the suspicion is only greater. The Anup Chetia led "Khilonjia Joutha Mancha" (Indigenous People’s Forum) had in February declaredthat a...

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