'Bangladeshis – Hindu or Muslim – Staying Illegally in Assam Post-1971 Will Have to Go'

Guwahati: The All Assam Students Union (AASU) is yet again at the forefront of an anti-foreigner agitation in the state. Though it doesn’t have the intensity of the Assam Movement recorded between 1979 and 1985, the ongoing agitation against the Narendra Modi government’s decision to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, certainly has the propensity to turn into a mass movement against yet another central government. The amendment is being sought by the BJP government to grant Indian citizenship to Hindu Bangladeshis among others coming from two other countries – Pakistan and Afghanistan. If amended, the Act would come in direct conflict with the Assam Accord of 1985, signed by AASU with the Central government to find a solution to the anti-foreigner movement.

The man leading the joint protests of AASU as a conglomeration of 28 indigenous and ethnic organisations of Assam is Samujjal Bhattacharya – former AASU president and at present the adviser to the powerful student body.

In an interview with The Wire, Bhattacharya delineated the issues around the agitation on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. Among other things, he made certain positions of his organisation clear – rejection of the 2016 Bill and the 2014 notification of the Modi government to allow Hindu Bangladeshis residing in the state without valid papers; demand for constitutional safeguards to people of Assam as per 1951 census; sealing of the India-Bangladesh border “on war footing” and an agreement with Bangladesh to streamline the process of deporting those immigrants from that country found staying in Assam “illegally” after the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state is complete this June 30.

Bhattacharya also pointed out that the Centre’s recent decision to form a committee to look into granting constitutional safeguards to the people of Assam “is nothing new”. Edited excerpts: