CM Himanta Biswa
Sharma using the occasion to divide opposition
By Ashis Biswas
Political parties and leaders in Assam who had launched a violent anti-Centre agitation in December 2019 that led to the death of five youths must acknowledge their guilt and assume full responsibility. Assam Chief Minister Mr. Himanta Biswas Sarma has challenged prominent state leaders like Lurinjyoti Gogoi, and Mr Akhil Gogoi to explain their motives in organizing an inflammatory, destructive campaign against the Centre-sponsored Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
Alleging that opposition leaders had only sought to whip up latent Assamiya fears of turning into a minority for their own narrow political ends, Mr Sarma reiterated the familiar Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) stand on the CAA. The legislation was meant not to deprive any one of citizenship, but only to ensure normal civic rights and privileges to deserving, deprived people who had been facing various difficulties in recent years.
Yet, alleged Mr Sarma, major opposition parties in the Northeast region had deliberately misinterpreted the Centre's clear stand and instigated common people to destroy valuable public property , causing major disruptions through their entirely false propaganda, for days on end !
The unrest was not engineered in Assam alone. The law and order situation was tense in Christian-dominated states like Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya. Non tribal citizens were harassed and threatened. West Bengal saw the biggest outbreak of mob violence that led to the destruction of Rs 60 crore worth of Railway station property, signalling equipment and tracks, wagons and other rolling stock, owing to apparently well planned arson carried out by organized armed youths.
Bengal police, run by the Trinamool Congress Government it may be noted, did not intervene at all. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee bitterly attacked the BJP at the time. She supported the agitation, and the Assam unit of her party actively joined the anti CAA agitations.
Mr Sarma's challenge seems has got some support as not even ten persons in Assam have reportedly applied for fresh official registration to confirm their citizenship. The CAA had been enacted in Parliament by simple majority by the ruling BJP. However, its effective implementation has only just begun after a delay of nearly five years.
The present situation in Assam is a far cry indeed from the dreaded scenario dreamed up by Assam opposition forces in 2019. They had claimed that' truckloads of Bangladeshi Hindus would cross borders to reach Assam to seek Indian citizenship rights!' To drive home such fears deep among Assamiyas, it had been said that lakhs of Bengali Hindus would turn up in Assam!
No wonder Mr Sarma, never one to make things easy for the weak and divided Assam agitators, has gleefully exploited the near total disconnect between their obsessions and present ground realities. As of now, fewer than ten — some reports even suggest that only one person! — have applied seeking protection from the CAA in Assam. The Chief Minister, addressing a series of election rallies in different parts of Assam is relentlessly pressing M, Lurinjyoti Gogoi and Mr. Akhil Gogoi to assume full political accountability for the death of five innocent persons. Neither has responded to Sarma's challenge yet.
It needs stressing that the controversy around the CAA was not restricted to West Bengal or the NE states only. In recent times, no piece of legislation passed in the Indian Parliament had generated more tension and concern as the CAA, in Bangladesh. Remarkably, while the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) opposed it openly as being anti-Muslim, the ruling Awami League, being friendly to India as well as the ruling BJP, could not speak out openly. However, it was common knowledge that while the Awami league leaders approached the subject with caution, in informal conversations, they were every bit as worried as their BNP counterparts.
Even Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was embarrassed by the fact that between 1947 to the present day, the Hindu population in East Pakistan and later Bangladesh, had declined from around 30 % to only around 9/10%, had expressed her concerns. The steady exodus among Bangladeshi Hindus mostly to India, made a mockery of the ruling Awami League's claims of being a secular party which upheld minority interests.
Post CAA, senior League leaders felt, would only accelerate the ongoing Hindu migration, which would effectively weaken their party's minority vote bank. While it was a fact for most Hindus in Bangladesh that their plight remained basically similar no matter whether the BNP or the AL came to power, they still had no option other than turning to the AL in the ultimate analysis.
In private conversations with Indian BJP leaders, they had sounded their fears. On its part, the BJP had strongly assured Bangladesh and the ruling AL that it would not take any step that would weaken the secular forces in its immediate neighbourhood or the Awami league. It had further assured Dhaka that regardless of official actions taken by successive administrations in Assam or NE India against people identified as illegal Bangladeshi aliens, there was no question of any arbitrary Indian pushback of such people. Always, there would be official talks between the two countries before a bilaterally agreed decision would be hammered out.
Bangladesh Government is monitoring the implementation of CAA in India and its impact in the Lok Sabha polls. After its victory in January national elections, the ruling Awami League is confident of its administration and its comfortable relationship with the minority Hindus. The leadership, especially Sheikh Hasina do not want any strain in relationship with the Indian government over the implementation of CAA.
(IPA Service)
