T he Spectre Of “Hindu Bangladeshi” By Jyotirmoy Prodhani  The phrase ‘Hindu Bangladeshi’ is a curious term. Let us be honest that when we utter this word in Assam we actually mean the Hindu Bengalis. The term has turned out to be a very handy euphemism to target the classical adversary of the Assamese people. Though one cannot deny the historical factors leading to such a deep seated antagonism against the Bengalis, the continuation of the same sentiment, however, against an imagined prospect of doom is necessarily misplaced. One has a strong reason to believe that the recent belligerent outcry against the “Hindu Bangladeshi” is not only against the Bengalis but also a clever ploy to target several tribal and ethnic communities to strategically dislocate and dispossess them. This is quite well known that among the so called ‘Hindu Bangladeshis’ the second largest chunk of people, after the Bengali Hindus, are the people belonging to various tribal and indigenous co...

"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...

Thousands could be declared non-citizens when the National Register  of Citizens is finalised. Since their deportation is an almost  impossible option, the focus will be on the detention policy. Written by  Sanjib Baruah  |  Updated: January 19, 2018 12:06:00 am If there is no chance of India approaching the issue of deportation with Bangladesh, what is the likely fate of those not included in Assam’s NRC?  On the second day of January this year, hidden in the midst of the extensive coverage about the first draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) being made public, there was a small item in Assam newspapers. Hanif Khan, 40, was found hanging from a tree near his home in Kashipur in the district of Cachar. Khan committed suicide on finding that his name did not appear on the draft NRC. His wife Raksa said her husband was extremely anxious about the whole NRC business. He and his family, he feared, would be promptly arrest...

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 which has seemingly divided Assam, forces open old wounds of the Bengali speaking population of the Barak Valley. indianexpress.com visits the the southern tip of Assam to find a story of a people who are longing to belong. A memorial for one of the 11 martyrs who lost their lives in the May 19, 1961 firing in Silchar. Photo Courtesy: Saptarshi Bhattacharjee. “If you run around the city of Silchar, you’ll come back to where you started in forty minutes,” says Saptarshi Bhattacharjee, a Silchar-based student. Forty minutes — cars, auto rickshaws, cows, potholes and people, notwithstanding. Amidst the congested cacophony of the second most populous city of Assam, also the unofficial “gateway” into the Barak Valley (named after the river that flows through it), it is easy to miss the region’s decades old history of quiet struggle. But time and again, it comes up in fits and starts. It simmered earlier this month when a Joint Par...

On Assam citizenship, government must acknowledge that modern nations are made of many migrations By: Editorials | Updated: January 3, 2018 12:03:34 am assam, nrc draft, national register for citizens, assam nrc first draft, illegal migrants assam, supreme court, nrc 2018, indian expressOn Assam citizenship, government must acknowledge that modern nations are made of many migrations That 1.29 crore out of a total of 3.29 crore applicants did not find their names in the first draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam points to the enormity of the challenge the state is facing in identifying illegal migrants. A massive bureaucratic exercise has been on in Assam since the Supreme Court ordered that the NRC, which the state government had prepared along with the national census in 1951, be updated and set December 31, 2017 as the deadline. The NRC is meant to decide who is a bona fide Indian citizen and those who fail to enlist in the register will be ...

RAJIV KONWAR| Jun 23, 2018  Guwahati: The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has sought clarification from the Centre about the fate of individuals whose names will be excluded from the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC), on whether they will face detention or deportation. The Centre has so far not spelt out what will happen to those whose names will be excluded from the final NRC. The 1951 NRC is being updated in Assam to weed out migrants staying illegally in the state. The Supreme Court, which is monitoring the process, had set June 30 deadline for publication of the complete draft NRC. The final updated NRC will be published after resolving all claims and objections but its date of publication has not been fixed yet. In an eight-page letter to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on June 11, the UN agency mentioned allegations and concerns regarding the NRC update and sought clarifications from the Centre. ...

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 ...