Assam erupts over citizenship law change

Ministers from AGP, a BJP ally, protest at JPC meet; more hearings to be held later this week

If the turnout of people and organisations to submit their protest memoranda against the Citizenship ( Amendment) Bill 2016 is any indicator, the decision of the BJP government to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 making Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who left Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to escape religious persecution eligible for Indian citizenship may have serious political repercussion in Assam.

More than 125 organisations and hundreds of political leaders, stakeholders and individuals lined up outside the Administrative Staff College where the members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Monday held a hearing on the Citizenship ( Amendment) Bill 2016.

A delegation of AGP leaders, led by party chief Atul Bora and his two Cabinet colleagues, made the first representation to the JPC. “The AGP has submitted a memorandum before the JPC and we have made a strong case against the amendment. We have submitted legal records and Assam Accord copies, pointing out that the amendment would go against the spirit of the accord,” former two- time Assam chief minister and AGP legislator Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, a member of the AGP team, told reporters.

He said if religious minorities are given citizenship, Assam would have to bear the largest burden with 2- 3 lakh Bangladeshi Bengalis likely to settle in each Assembly constituency of the state.

“The indigenous people of the state will be reduced to a minority in terms of linguistic, political and cultural numbers,” said Mr Mahanta.

He, however, said the JPC, led by its chairman, BJP MP Rajendra Agarwal, gave a patient

hearing to the AGP team’s submissions. State Cabinet minister Atul Bora claimed that the amendment was against the spirit of the Preamble to the Constitution, which defines India as a secular state. He also pointed that the work of updating the National Register of Citizens ( NRC) in the state would be affected adversely. The AGP had earlier threatened to pull out of the government if the BJP- led NDA government at the Centre pushed the amendment bill. It has been demanding that the cutoff date for identification for illegal migrants to the state should be March 25, 1971, as per the Assam Accord, and not pushed ahead till December 2014 for certain religious groups as proposed in the amendment.

The Citizenship ( Amendment) Bill 2016 was introduced in the Lok Sabha in July 2016 to amend the Citizenship Act 1955, to make illegal migrants from six religious communities — Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis, Jains and Christians — from select neighbouring countries eligible for Indian citizenship.