RESTLESS NATIVES
The BJP’s demographic engineering project unnerves its own state unit
AFTER MAY 16, these Bangladeshis better have their bags packed...,” then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s words at a rally in Serampore, West Bengal, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014, had a profound impact in neighbouring Assam. Battling the influx of illegal migrants for nearly half a century, the state rewarded the BJP with seven of its 14 Lok Sabha seats. Two years on, in 2016, the BJP’s call to protect mati, bheti aaru jaati (land, home and community) saw the party storm to power in the state for the first time.
But all that seems to be changing: the PM and his party are now facing massive public outrage across the Brahmaputra Valley for allegedly “conspiring to rehabilitate” the very Bangladeshi migrants they had promised to evict. Things have come to such a head that even Sarbananda Sonowal has threatened to quit. “If I cannot protect the people’s interests, there is no point in my staying on as Assam chief minister,” he said on May 12.
The crux of the trouble is the amended Citizenship Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha in July 2016. It seeks to supersede the 1955 Citizenship Act by granting Indian nationality to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Chris
tian migrants who fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014.
The past two years have witnessed widespread protests by the Assamesespeaking population. These are driven by apprehensions that the amended law would help illegal Hindu migrants from Bangladesh secure citizenship and permanent residence in Assam. Many Assamese fear this would result in a demographic shift, with Bengali speakers outnumbering them.
Sonowal’s threat to resign came on the heels of a public hearing on the bill in Guwahati by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) headed by BJP MP Rajendra Agarwal. Constituted in 2016 to consult with stakeholders in the wake of the massive protests, the JPC faced hostility in Meghalaya too, where the National People’s Party (NPP)led regime (which includes the BJP) has announced its opposition to the bill.
In Guwahati, the BJP’s ally Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) was the first to submit a memorandum against the amendment. Born out of a sixyear students’ agitation against immigrants, the AGP pointed out that the bill would effectively nullify the 1985 Assam Accord between the Centre and the leaders of the agitation.
THE RSS TOO HAS ADVOCATED CONCESSIONS TO ILLEGAL HINDU MIGRANTS
After the Supreme Court directive, Assam is to publish the updated National Register of Citizenship on June 30, which is an exercise to detect all those who illegally entered the state after March 25, 1971—the cut-off date agreed to in the accord. The new bill seeks to shift this cut-off to December 31, 2014, for migrants who are Hindu.
“After the current protests, I don’t think the Centre is going to push for the bill now. For one, it will certainly be challenged in court,” says a JPC member. Illegal migrants becoming eligible for citizenship on the basis of religion, he says, may also violate Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to equality.
Ex-Congress CM Tarun Gogoi also slammed the bill, though several of his partymen from the Barak Valley—where Hindu Bengalis are the dominant population—have openly expressed support.
BJP insiders say the central leadership had aggressively pushed the bill for fear that the updated NRC would exclude a large section of Hindu Bangladeshi immigrants—which could adversely impact the party’s prospects in West Bengal. The RSS, too, has strongly advocated concessions to Hindus.
But the outrage at the JPC hearing in Guwahati appears to have prompted a rethink. Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has long favoured the amendment, now suggests the state await the updated NRC. “The BJP will not do anything that goes against Assamese interests,” he says.