The journey from “migration certificate” to “citizenship card”: Livelihood, demography and changing identities in post-1947 Assam
Résumés
La construction de la nation postcoloniale a vu l’affirmation de la domination de la communauté majoritaire et la persécution des minorités. L’une des méthodes permettant de construire des États-nations en tant que domaine exclusif de la majorité consistait à innover dans les dispositifs permettant de convertir les citoyens en « autres » et de les rendre moins apatrides. La mise à jour du registre national des citoyens (NRC) d’Assam est l’une de ces entreprises. Afin de construire son domaine exclusif, les Assamais ont essayé d’expulser le groupe de manière cohérente. La tentative actuelle tente d’exclure un groupe minoritaire linguistique/religieux en annulant leur citoyenneté existante. C’est inouï et sans précédent ailleurs dans le monde. Les citoyens de naissance sont soumis à un processus bureaucratique de vérification de documents pour annuler leur citoyenneté, de sorte qu’ils puissent devenir apatrides et que la communauté hôte acquière une hégémonie sans égale dans la région.
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- 1 AICC Papers, File n° G-5/1947-48, NMML.
1In history books we often find terms such as partition, migrant, refugee, illegal immigrant and stateless person, which however do not reflect how emotionally loaded these categories became in the context of the Partition of India in 1947. The Partition and the ensuing migratory movements devastated a nation. At the same time, it created three new nations within the next three decades: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Partition destroyed homes on the one hand and designed new political spaces on the other. Minorities suddenly felt stranded on the wrong side of the newly created international as the Partition displaced gigantic numbers of citizens on both sides of the border but also extended the living space (Lebensraum) for others. It created an unending caravan of people who fled from or to their “promised lands”, looking for shelter and refuge. In the eyes of some, the Partition of 1947 was part of a bigger and so-called better agenda, named “a process of nation-making”. 1 But in reality, this event as a whole cautioned people that the home you have today may no longer be your home tomorrow. It taught people that you might hate the neighbourhood you so fondly grew up with, as from one moment to the other you, could no longer trust your neighbours. Above all, it created a South Asia which had not existed before; all of this in the name of “nation-making”. More than seven decades after the Partition, the entire process comes across as a catalyst for two key issues: one, how to negotiate with the mistakes that occurred in the past while designing future agendas, and two, creating new possibilities to introduce new policy-making, a new system of governance and treatment of the refugees-turned-citizens people displaced during and after the Partition.
- 2 Partition Proceedings, Partition Council’s Decision, vol. I, New Delhi, Government of India Press, (...)
- 3 The tribal zones in Northeast India suffered immensely from the Partition. It separated the Garos (...)
- 4 W. W. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Assam, vol. 2, Guwahati/Delhi, Spectrum Publications, 1998, (...)
- 5 . David Vumlallian Zou and M. Satish Kumar, “Mapping a colonial borderland: Objectifying the geo-bo (...)
- 6 Arupjyoti Saikia, “Borders, Commodities and citizens across mud and river: Assam, 1947-50s”, Studi (...)
- 7 Some ethnic groups could retain such cultural distinctiveness for long. Migration often generated (...)
2The Partition was based on a calculation of majority and minority religious groups and their percentage among the population. The division had been implemented on the recommendation of the Radcliffe Award. Yet, contrary to popular perception, the actual divide and the subsequent flow of refugees was not confined to the two major partitioned provinces, Punjab and Bengal.2 It affected the entire eastern frontier including two north-eastern states: Assam and Tripura. The Lusai Hills in Mizoram (and the bordering Chittagong Hill Tracts), the Garo hills, the Khasi and Jaintia hills in Meghalaya became also involved in this man-made catastrophe.3 Among the divided territories, the geographical location of Assam was such that it was at the crossroads of traditional migration routes. From the time of the Ahom dynasty (1228-1826), Assam had become a natural refuge for migrants sheltering them, sharing its land with them, thus integrating different cultures.4 Migrations produced composite cultures and identities which later crystallized as Assamese culture. Simultaneously, however, Assam had long been a troubled territory, well before the colonial period because of its position as a frontier state. Colonial cartography turned traditional frontiers into colonial borderlands, which, in turn, forged national boundaries.5 Assam had long been dependent on the geography of East Bengal, primarily to sustain its trade and commerce. Partition destabilized this dependency and redefined the multifaceted economic, cultural and ecological commonalities that Bengal and Assam had shared for centuries.6 Assam, therefore, suffered most from the Partition of 1947 even while benefitting from the immigration of different ethnic groups.7
3Prior to Partition, different types and waves of migrants had come into Assam: labour migration had been part of the colonial culture in Assam. For decades, the region welcomed tea labourers from different parts of India and seasonal Bengali Muslim migrant labourers from neighbouring East Bengal. Already in colonial times, the latter felt threatened by the monopoly of the middle-class Bengali Hindu babu (clerks) and bhadralok (educated elites), chiefly working in the white-collar job sectors in Assam. The nature of the post-Partition migration was different from the earlier waves. In pre-Partition days, the zones and patterns of migration used to be controlled by the need of the rulers, whereas post-Partition migration was forced, and also determined by religious strife. The nature of the in-coming stream of refugees and the patterns of their relocation was also more permanent than prior to 1947. Conflicts arose from land claims, access to job markets, mainly between the two major linguistic communities, the Assamese and Bengalis, in which other more marginal communities, including the tribals, became victims of post-Partition policies, economy and society.
- 8 “The Centre” here means the Central Government of India, also called the Government of India or un (...)
- 9 Susanta Krishna Dass, “Immigration and demographic transformation of Assam, 1891-1981”, Economic a (...)
- 10 Antara Dutta, Refugees and the Borders in South Asia: The Great Exodus of 1971, New York, Routledg (...)
4Against this backdrop, this article will show how the pre-1947 migration patterns of both Bengali-educated Hindus and Muslim peasants differed from the post-Partition refugees and their integration into the Assamese state and society. It aims to look at the policies and politics of rehabilitation with regard to the Bengali refugees with a special focus on ethnic conflicts that emerged between the Assamese host communities and refugee groups. The article will assess why the Bengalis became easily absorbed in the Assamese society up until the 1950s and why this scenario changed dramatically from the 1960s. Then, a section of leading political parties, state administration and the “domiciles” became vocal about their identities and land rights and protested against the Centre’s initiative to protect the interest of refugees and other migrants by giving them citizenship up to the Liberation War of 1971.8 It will then move to the period between 1951 and 1971 which witnessed the highest-ever increase of population growth in Assam because of a rise in birth rates, the influx of Bengali saranarthis (shelter takers) from East Pakistan and Indian nationals from other states.9 From 1971, a clear shift marked policy-making, as the Centre distanced itself from the idea of the “citizen-refugee”. With the India-Mujib Pact of 1972, the Centre labelled all types of migrants as “foreigners”, no longer able to claim rights of residence in Assam, as “infiltrators” or “illegal infiltrators”.10
5The proclaimed necessity to upgrade the National Register of Citizens (NRC) of 1951 in 2005 was the last nail in the coffin in the debate regarding the legality and illegality of the Partition refugees. Both the Centre and the State Government were desperate to identify the “real citizens”, with legal documents, from non-citizens, “infiltrators”, “doubtful voters” (D-voters) and “foreigners”. By consulting governmental and non-governmental reports and surveys, other vernacular/primary/secondary/oral sources and memoirs, this article argues that immigration enhanced feelings of insecurity among the “original inhabitants” of both the Brahmaputra and Surma/Barak valleys of Assam. As the Bengal borderlands remained open until the 1980s, asylum seekers began to face fresh resistance from the Assamese community concerning the legality of their citizenship. Some of them were forced to flee from the land during the Bongal kheda movement. Therefore, the key focus of the article is to enquire into how the apparent harmonious relationship between different linguistic, ethnic and religious communities such as the Bengalis, Assamese, both Hindus and Muslims, and tribals, gradually soured into hostility from the mid-1960s and finally led to communal conflagration. In short, this article tries to argue that the myth of gradual minoritisation of the hosts and the capture of socio-political power by the migrants/refugees/illegal immigrants and foreigners not only aggravated the existing lingering conflicts but also led the refugees-turned-legal-citizens of India into a group of “stateless persons” threatening their livelihood and lives – seventy-three years after Partition.
Assam: The legacy of migration
- 11 File n° 5/1/4/1: 15 May 1900-25 June 1923, IOR.
- 12 File n° Z/E/4/32/R639: 1858, IOR.
- 13 B. C. Allen, Assam District Gazetteers, Nowgong, Secretariat Administration, Record and Library De (...)
- 14 Priyam Goswami, The History of Assam: From Yandabo to Partition, 1826-1947, New Delhi, Orient Blac (...)
- 15 “The new Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam left the Empire and the nation on a collision course (...)
6Because of their strategic location, the north-eastern states had always been different in many ways from the rest of India. Bengal had been the first region to be conquered by the British.11 The British annexation of Assam in 1826 put this region under the sway of imperialism. The province was then ruled as a part of the Bengal Presidency. In 1836, Bengali was declared “the language of court and office”, pretending that Assamese was nothing but a dialect of Bengali12 (both languages are closely related but nonetheless quite distinct from each other13). In 1838, Bengali was introduced as the official language of Assam. Under British rule, some parts of Assam were declared “Assam proper”, which alienated some major linguistic groups and a number of tribes. British Assam became the eastern borderland of the British Empire. It included the Brahmaputra and Barak river valleys and the Surma-Kusiara river basin of Sylhet.14 It involved a process that made Assam an appendage of the colonial province of Bengal until 1874, followed by its first partition (1905) which reconstituted it as a new administrative unit.15
- 16 David Ludden, “Spatial inequality and national territory: Remapping 1905 in Bengal and Assam”, Mod (...)
- 17 George Nathaniel Curzon (1903-1905), File n° Mss Eur 111/247A, IOR.
- 18 Iftekhar Iqbal, “The space between nation and empire…”, art. cit., p. 74-75.
- 19 Subir Bhoumik, “India’s Northeast: Nobody’s people in no-man’s-land”, in Paula Banerjee, Sabyasach (...)
7The year 1905 is crucial in the spatial history of East Bengal and Northeast India. Indian nationalist opposition to the new Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam brought Indian national space into public politics for the first time.16 Curzon’s basic logic was that “the new province must develop local interest and trade”.17 In consequence, Curzon and his lesser officers started patronizing and using Bengali Muslims as an essential part of imperial machination. The redrawing of boundaries in 1906 and 1912, turning Assam and Eastern Bengal into one administrative unit added more trouble to the already bewildering complexity of Assam’s population.18 The Partition of 1905 opened a floodgate for different types of migrants, both Hindus and Muslims, which included moderately educated or uneducated people from diverse classes with a variety of expectations. The educated babus/bhadraloks and illiterate landless peasants from both communities naturally settled in the sparsely populated land of lahe-lahe (slow).19
- 20 Sanjib Baruah, “Partition and the politics of citizenship in Assam”, in Urvashi Butalia (ed.), Par (...)
- 21 It was a border district and, having a sizable Bengali population, was responsible for the distric (...)
- 22 Bengal and Assam, File n° X/ 9076: Unspecific, IOR.
- 23 “Replies submitted by Sjt. Nilmoni Phookan, Editor’BATORI’, to the questionnaire issued by the Lin (...)
- 24 Minutes of a Conference of Officials and Non-Officials held on 20th September 1928 to Discuss Colo (...)
- 25 Sujata Miri, Communalism in Assam: A Civilizational Approach, New Delhi, Har-Anand, 1993, p. 54.
- 26 Report of the Deputy Commissioner, Nowgong on the Immigrant Question of that District, in Report o (...)
- 27 The Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup reports, ‘the increase of 69% in the population of Barpeta is so (...)
- 28 Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani came into prominence in Assam Politics in 1937. His uncompromising and pa (...)
- 29 Amalendu Guha, ‘East Bengal Migrants and Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani in Assam Politics’, Indi (...)
8Before the first half of twentieth century, there was hardly any official mention of immigrants. Colonial policy encouraged the settlement of East Bengali Muslim peasants in Assam. The people of the deltaic region were well known for their hard-working nature and remarkable mobility; they moved frequently as rivers changed course and were able to create new settlements. Assam thus became a centre of an East Bengali emigration, when the British tried to attract settlers to make productive use of wastelands20. Mymensingh and Goalpara were the two important first camps in which these immigrants began to assimilate with the then-existing 69 per cent Bengali speaking inhabitants21. From there, the East Bengali immigrants moved upwards, along the course of the Brahmaputra22. Apart from some local accounts, “the Bengali immigrants censused for the first time on the char lands of Goalpara in 1911 were merely the advance guard or rather the scouts of a huge army following closely at their heels”.23 They settled with families; 85 per cent of them were Muslims. By 1916 migration had become such a central concern in Assam that, when realising its consequences, the British introduced the Line System in 1920 to restrict further immigration. This system segregated immigrants from indigenous people. Furthermore, it tried to implement rules prohibiting the exchange pattas of lands between domiciles and immigrants24. The British administration’s stance on immigration becomes evident in the census report of 1921 where C. S. Mullan, the Census Commissioner, observes: “The East Bengal settlers have increased more than four-fold in the decade to their present total of 258,000 in the Brahmaputra Valley25.” In the census of 1931, he mentions their movement as “invasion of a vast horde of land-hungry Bengali immigrants” and adds, “… the only thing I can compare it to is the mass movement of a large body of ants26.” From the British perspective the borderlines had to be fixed to stop immigrants from occupying lands near Assamese villages, as “there was not much room for further expansion”27. In this particular context, Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani28, a peasant leader of East Bengal and Assam, popularly known as Maulana Bhasani, started campaigning against the imposition of the Line System on the East Bengali migrants. He rather tried to popularize the idea of a “Unified Bangastan” as a permanent solution for land scarcity in East Bengal29.
Assam: Pre-Partition times
- 30 Damodar Jodhani, Assam All The Chief Ministers, Guwahati, Vicky & Shanky Jodhani Publication, 1993 (...)
- 31 Syed Mohammad Saadulla started his political career as a member of the first Assam Legislative Cou (...)
- 32 Dilip Kumar Chattopadhyay, History of the Assamese Movement since 1947, Calcutta, Minerva Associat (...)
- 33 Assam Legislative Assembly Debates, Official Report, Vol. 1, No. 1, Shillong, Assam Government Pre (...)
- 34 Saiful Islam, Assam o Mowlana Bhasani, Op. Cit., p. 26.
- 35 Subir Bhaumik, India’s Northeast: Nobody’s People in No-Man’s-Land, Op. Cit., p. 146.
- 36 A. C. Bhuyan and Sibopada De (eds.), Political History of Assam, Vol. II, Government of Assam, Fir (...)
- 37 Amiya Kumar Das, Assam’s Agony: A Socio-Economic and Political Analysis, New Delhi, Lancers Publis (...)
- 38 Anindita Dasgupta, Emergence of a Community: The Muslims of East Bengal Origin in Assam in Colonia (...)
9The 1940s became a crucial decade for migration to Assam. The Muslim immigrants from Bengal, settled as farmers in the rural areas, decided that their best interest lay in acculturation or assimilation. Hindu immigrants, mostly inhabiting the towns or cities of Assam, continued to follow their professions as lawyers, doctors, businessmen and professionals which required no permanent roots in the place in which they chose to reside. At this juncture, the then three major political parties, Hindu Mahasabha, Muslim League and Congress, were desperate to establish a foothold in Assam by mobilizing the two religious groups. However, the State Ministry under the Premiership of Sir Mahammad Saadullah adopted a strategy for the census of 1941 to classify migrants on the basis of community identities (both occupational and caste groups) rather than religion. The intention was to take the tribal population away from the fold of the larger Hindu society, classify them as tribals and thereby reduce the number of Hindus in the Province.30 With the “Grow More Food” campaign,31 Saadullah started “sponsored immigration”,32 which turned into a ‘Grow More Muslim’ campaign.33 It led to an increased immigration of Muslim immigrants into Assam.34 The population matrix changed rapidly in this process. Prior to the Partition, “Hindus and Muslims of Bengali descent accounted for more than 40 per cent of the population of Assam”35, which meant that three major migrant groups were prominent in the society, economy and politics of Assam: 1) Muslim cultivators from Mymensingh, which the Assamese called Mymensinghias;36 2) social elites, a bhadralok class and the semi-educated clerks, the babus, recruited by the British Administration from Sylhet, Dacca, Mymensing, Rangpur and various other districts of East Bengal in the white-collar job sector;37 and 3) char-chaporir manuh (char dwellers), popularly referred as the pamua cultivators, a unique Muslim diasporic community from East Bengal. The latter brought huge tracts of land under cultivation and some of them settled permanently in the sand banks of the Brahmaputra.38 All of them were collectively seen as immigrants and as non-indigenous people who were considered a source of competition for scarce resources in Assam.
- 39 Anindita Dasgupta, “Remembering Sylhet: A forgotten story of 1947 Partition”, Economic and Politic (...)
- 40 Amalendu Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj: Freedom Struggle and Electoral Politics in Assam, 1826-1947, (...)
- 41 File n° RRQ. 20 of 1947, ASA.
- 42 Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement: Class, Ideology and Identity, New Delhi, Manak and Har-Anand, (...)
10In some ways, the Partition came as a relief to the Hindu Assamese leadership. They feared that Bengali Muslims would become too dominant a group. With the referendum on Sylhet on 6-7 July 1947, which was to decide whether the province would become part of Pakistan or India. 56.6 per cent of Sylhetis voted for joining Pakistan and 43.3 per cent preferred remaining in Assam.39 This prospect of the transfer of Sylhet to Pakistan came as a bright solution for the political representation for the Assamese Hindus. Amalendu Guha described the referendum as “a lifetime’s opportunity for the Assamese leadership … to carve out a more linguistically homogenous province”.40 The outcome was greeted with immense relief and hope, as it would take away large parts of the Bengali Muslim population to another country. The Assamese leaders thought this venture would permanently alter the demography in favour of the Assamese Hindus, in terms of landownership and permanent socio-political hegemony. Bengali Muslims were reduced to little political relevance,41 while Bengali Hindus also lost in importance. For the first time, the Assamese became the majority group in Assam. Partition thus made the Assamese population numerically and politically stronger in post-colonial Assam.42
Partition and Assam: The changing matrix
- 43 Debjani Sengupta, The Partition of Bengal: Fragile Borders and New Identities, New Delhi, Cambridg (...)
- 44 Nabanipa Bhattacharjee, ‘“We are with culture but without geography’: Locating Sylheti identity in (...)
- 45 Anindita Dasgupta, “Remembering Sylhet…”, art. cit., p. 19.
- 46 Sanjib Baruah, “Partition and the politics of citizenship in Assam”, in Urvashi Butalia (ed.), Par (...)
11The Partition gave birth to new communities of people called refugees which was itself a problematic term. It often means large clusters of diverse uprooted people, originating from one and the same country, struggling in a different environment, with which they are not familiar, for resettlement. The Bengali refugees became catalysts in the history of Assam. Partition’s shadow directly affected the region’s population patterns, economy and socio-political life in Assam.43 After Partition, the dominance of Assamese Hindus was short-lived, not the least through the immigration of Hindus from Sylhet and other territories from East Bengal44 which brought another majority of Bengalis in Assam.45 In consequence, the southern parts of Assam consisted of three Bengali-speaking districts: Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi which set the undercurrent of conflicts between “the Assamese and immigrants… against each other”.46 From the government’s perspective, Assam was already overburdened with the existing numbers of immigrants. While there had been a history of Assamese hostility towards the Bengali immigrants from the colonial period onwards which, however, had never produced violent conflicts, these lingering hostilities ushered into violent attacks on the Bengali refugees. In consequence, the state tried to stop refugees from settlement on surplus land or in tea gardens. The Centre, however, in opposition to the state’s interest, tried to assess the availability of grazing reserves, fallow cultivable lands and other viable options by organizing a committee headed by Dorab Gandhi. He reported that 18 million acres of such lands could be used for new refugees/settlers. This figure tallied with the Assam government’s own assessment in the Industrial Planning and Development of Assam (1948).
- 47 Moushumi Dutta Pathak, You Do not Belong Here: Partition Diaspora in the Brahmaputra Valley, Chenn (...)
- 48 “The Nehru-Liaquat Ali Khan agreement” dated April 1950. File n° P (PIV) 125 (62)/65, MEA-Pak-II, (...)
- 49 Jayanta Kumar Gogoi, “The migration problem in Assam: An analysis”, Alokesh Barua (ed.), India’s N (...)
1247The Nehru-Liaquat Ali Khan Agreement (Delhi Pact) was signed on 8 April 1950. The basic idea behind the Pact was to create conditions in both countries, India and Pakistan, where the minorities would not feel insecure and not think of migrating to the other country. It was hoped that those who had migrated to India or Pakistan after Partition would go back to their respective places of origin.48 So, after the Delhi Pact, large groups of Bengali Muslim immigrants who had migrated to East Pakistan began to return and claimed their old settlements in Assam. While Sylhet, as a former part of Assam was definitely gone, the Hindu Bengalis began to pour into Assam as refugees. Muslim Bengalis who had opted out of Assam after Partition and who had settled in the Sylhet Haor basin, where vast tracts of lands had been laid open for new colonization, also started coming back to Assam. With this wave of migrants, both Hindu migrants and Muslim returnees, the refugee situation went out of control.49 In addition, with regard to Sylhet, migrants poured into this region from other parts of the former British Assam including Mymensingh. Furthermore, migration across Sylhet into Cachar or across Rangpur into Goalpara became important and to be considered as a threat to national security.
- 50 File n° 20 (27)-R/50, Ministry of States, Rehabilitation Branch, NAI.
13In East Bengal, however, the migration and refugee situation was different. For example, there were several incidents like the story of Hariprasanna Bhattacharya and Debendra Bhattacharya, residents of Shibpur, Dacca. In a report of the Ministry of States, the officer in charge wrote that they “returned to their villages but to their utter surprise they found that their houses had been occupied by Muslim refugees from Assam. On being requested, the Muslims refused to vacate their houses and on the other hand threatened them. All efforts to get back their houses proved futile and the houses are still under the occupation of the Muslims. So, they left their village and came back as refugees again”.50
- 51 The West Bengal Weekly, vol. 1, Calcutta, Friday, 21 November 1950, n° 6.
14The Partition-displaced Bengali refugees suffered from complex decisions and contradictions between political ideas, plans and altering policies of both the governments of India and Pakistan. The authorities were forced to introduce provisions for the permanent rehabilitation and resettlement of minorities in the other country after the riot of 1950. Carrying a travel document was made compulsory and getting a “Migration Certificate” was the only proof that they were “genuine migrants” – a procedure which was thought to make migration procedures transparent and simple.51 At the same time, however, both governments encouraged the refugees to return to their places of origin under the provisions of the “Delhi Pact”.
- 52 Dhirendra Bhowmick, An Open Letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, Silchar, published by the author, 1964, p. (...)
- 53 Gunabhiram Barua (ed.), Asam Bandhu, 1885-86 (Nagen Saikia), Guwahati, Asom Prakashan Parishad, 19 (...)
- 54 Nandana Dutta, Questions of Identity in Assam: Location, Migration, Hybridity, New Delhi, Sage, 20 (...)
- 55 Interview with Samujjal Bhattacharyya, Chief Advisor of AASU in Guwahati on 20.12.12.
- 56 Abhijit Dasgupta, Displacement and Exile: The State-Refugee Relations in India, New Delhi, Oxford (...)
15The Centre used terms like “refugee”, “displaced persons”, “evacuees” or “migrants” according to their convenience, but such inconsistencies in the official definition made the relief and rehabilitation work more difficult. At the regional level, Bengali refugees were described as “others”, the “sons of the soil”; the domicile Assamese first referred to the post-Partition Bengali refugees as bhogonia (someone who was forced to flee from their place of origin)52, then simply as bongals or Bongali (who were not domiciles of Assam and not willing to adopt Assamese manners and habits).53 The term bhogonia soon changed to bohiragato meaning outsider54, later the connotation was more direct as the Assamese started terming the refugees just as bideshi (foreigners), meaning a group of illegal immigrants who hailed from Bongal Desh or Bangladesh. Miah became another popular term; prior to the Partition, it had been attributed to Muslim East Bengalis. These classifications highlight the complexity of the identity of the Bengali refugees in Assam; they were seen as uncivilized and impure, as not matching traditional Assamese society.55 The general attitude and mentality of the Assamese elite and educated middle-class changed significantly towards the Bengalis, both the pre-Partition and post-Partition migrants, when the total number of the Bengali refugees began to increase in post-1947 Assam. The people of Assam, including the political parties and other voluntary organizations like that of the students, termed them illegal aliens. But the refugees demanded time and again that the state drop these labels and accept them as “citizens”, as they were the victims of the “high politics” of Partition.56
Hostility towards the refugees
- 57 Dainik Assamiya, 1 July 1947.
- 58 Gopinath K. Borooah, Gopinath Bardoloi, Indian Constitution and Centre-Assam Relations, Guwahati, (...)
- 59 Udayan Misra, The Periphery Strikes Back: Challenges to Nation-State in Assam and Nagaland, Shimla (...)
- 60 Assam Legislative Assembly Debates, official report, vol. I-II, Shillong, Assam Government Press, (...)
- 61 K. M. L. Chhabra, Assam Challenge, New Delhi, Konark Publishers, 1992, p. 54.
16From the beginning, Assam’s government was not sympathetic to the refugee cause. They were rather against providing shelter to the great number of Bengali refugees and they were not in favour of the distribution of lands to them.57 Opposing the general attitude and policies of the Government of India, Assam’s government expressed its unwillingness to continue settling refugees without limits, as “not much more than two lakhs acres of wastelands were available, leaving aside the grazing reserves” in Assam.58 Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to Bordoloi in May 1949 that Assam was getting a bad name for its narrow approach to this problem. He threatened the Chief Minister saying “if Assam adopts an attitude of incapability to solve the refugee problem, then the claims of Assam for financial help (would) obviously suffer”.59 The rift between the Centre and state sharpened on unchecked illegal migration. The state government demanded solution measures from the Centre, including the introduction of the “Foreigners’ Permit System” for Assam. This attitude made the Centre more impervious to their stand. Sardar Patel also warned, “I am afraid, your letter betrays lack of a sense of urgency in settling the refugee problem”.60 He cautioned, “Everywhere, wherever we have to deal with refugee problem, we had to give priorities even against local sentiments”.61 Finally, the lands where some of the refugees received allotments were not suitable either for cultivation or for permanent settlement. Thus, the Centre formed a Committee of Enquiry under Sri Prakasa who also reported about the inhabitable condition of the lands. The refugees were relocated in such areas, where it was impossible to resettle.
- 62 A. P. Jain Papers, Subject File n° 1, report of Sri Prakash, Committee of Enquiry on the Rehabilit (...)
- 63 Mountarborn Vitit, The Status of Refugees in Asia, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 1.
- 64 “A non-Assamese should have the following qualifications in order to obtain a domicile certificate (...)
- 65 Abstract of the Resolution passed in the public meeting held on 19.9.47 in the Dibrugarh College H (...)
1762A number of Acts played crucial roles in the 1950s regarding the treatment of refugees on the Indian side of the Bengal borderlands: the Immigrants (Expulsion from) Assam Act and the Administration of Evacuee Property Act in 1950, the Evacuee Interest (Separation) Act in 1951 and the Influx from Pakistan Control Act in 1952.63 These Acts were used as instruments to restrict further immigration and permanent settlement in Assam. The Asom Jatiya Mahasabha requested the government to promulgate the Immigration Act and to issue Domicile Certificates no longer to outsiders so that they would not be able to apply for citizenship in the future.64 The state government was busy in designing methods to keep the explicit difference between indigenous and non-Assamese people, to regulate the acquisition of land by outsiders.65 The relief situation remained extremely poor in Assam. Most of the refugees in Surma Valley or Cachar were staying with their friends and relations who were old settlers of Assam. A large number resided in Railway colonies with Railway employees where they tried to earn their living. Often, the government was thus not aware of their demands or expectations. The consistent logic of the policymakers was that until the refugees produced their own food or developed their own resources, they would obviously remain a burden to the Province. The census of 1951 indicated clearly that because of the return of Muslim Bengalis, a decisive demographic shift had occurred, especially as they declared Assamese to be their mother tongue, thus legitimizing the possession of their lands and houses, which they had left behind when they had migrated to East Pakistan.
- 66 R. Gopalakrishnan, “Stress and response in a socio-economic crisis in the Brahmaputra Valley: A re (...)
- 67 Bipul Chaudhury, “The growth of Assamese identity in colonial Assam”, in Proceedings of North East (...)
- 68 Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement, op. cit., p. 197.
- 69 S. M. Saadulla Papers, Subject File n° 19, NMML.
- 70 Assam Legislative Assembly Debates, official report, vol. I-II, Shillong, Assam Government Press, (...)
- 71 S. M. Saadullah Papers, Subject File n° 18, NMML.
- 72 Census of India 1951, vol. III, Assam, Part I- A, p. 365, cited in Anil Roychoudhury, “National Re (...)
- 73 Sajal Nag, “The NRC: Ethnic cleansing through constitutional means”, Analytical Monthly Review, 16 (...)
- 74 K. M. L. Chhabra, Assam Challenge, op. cit., p. 58.
18In consequence, in the census report of 1951, a new strategy was developed to incorporate the majority of recent immigrants into Assamese nationality.66 The politics of “number game was one of the most vital ingredients in the discourse and it not only sustained but provided some nourishment as well”.67 The Muslims of Assam were not a single homogenous community; there were at least four distinct categories, such as Asamiya Muslims, Na-Asamiya Muslims, Muslims of the Barak Valley and North Indian Muslims.68 The number of indigenous Muslims was small; they could manage to assimilate themselves effortlessly with the Assamese Hindus. Hence, they never caused serious problem.69 But there had always been the Assamese Hindus’ fear that they would be swamped by Bengali Muslims. The growth of the latters’ communities, the percentage of the encroachment of lands scared the Assamese.70 In 1951, the Census Commissioner, R. B. Vaghaiwalla commented, “despite the present political, constitutional and psychological climate of Assam and despite the passport system and other difficulties, many Muslim immigrants will yet run the gauntlet of these legal and administrative barriers and attempt to settle down in Assam”.71 During the course of making the census of 1951, a National Register of Citizens (NRC) was prepared under the directive of Ministry of Home Affairs. This Register was a secret administrative document prepared on the basis of Census slips by the Census enumerators, who were “unqualified or ill-qualified persons”.72 The NRC ensured the names against the houses and holdings, and numbers of persons staying therein. Moreover, it was not open to inspection. It was a casual attempt at preparing a set of data without any proper planning, training or organization. The purpose was to register the census documents containing information about each and every person enumerated. The register of an entire nation of citizens was prepared in an impossible span of time, merely twenty days. It was a one-sided affair. No indication was given to the people of the terrible consequences which might overtake them at a future date if their names were not included in the NRC, 1951.73 Alteration of some clauses of the Citizenship Act of 1955 (stress on the “citizens by birth” instead of “citizenship by registration”) made the communities vulnerable.74
The cultural front: Language issues
- 75 File n° 5/1/4/1: 15 May 1900-25 June 1923, IOR; Archana Chakrabarty, History of Education in Assam (...)
- 76 A general apprehension concerning the Bengalis was that they were not actuated by any desire to le (...)
- 77 A. J. M. Mills, Report on the Province of Assam, Publication Board Assam, Guwahati, p. 26.
- 78 Anindita Dasgupta, “Partition migration in Assam: The case of Sylheti Bhadraloks”, in Imtiaz Ahmed (...)
- 79 Revenue Department, Revenue-A, November 1898, n° 128-138, Record and Library Department, Assam Sec (...)
- 80 Hiren Gohain, “Ethnic unrest in the North East”, Economic and Political Weekly, 32, 1997, n° 8, p. (...)
- 81 Myron Weiner, Sons of the Soil: Migration and Ethnic Conflict in India, Delhi, Oxford University P (...)
- 82 He was an eminent poet, pioneer of the protectionists’ movement and the General Secretary of the A (...)
- 83 Apurba Kumar Baruah, Social Tensions in Assam: Middle Class Politics, Guwahati, Purbanchal Prakash (...)
- 84 Chandranath Boruah, Assamese Response to Regionalism: A Study Based on Electoral Politics, New Del (...)
- 85 Kaustubh Kumar Deka, The Politics of Student Movements: Limits and Possibilities with Special Refe (...)
- 86 Sajal Nag, Roots of Ethnic Conflict: Nationality Question in North-East India, Assam, Manohar Publ (...)
- 87 Mita Deka, Students Movements in Assam, New Delhi, Vikas Publishing House, 1996, p. 132.
- 88 Shiela Bora, Student Revolution in Assam, 1917-1947 (A Historical Survey), New Delhi, Mittal Publi (...)
- 89 Indrani Barua, Pressure Groups in Assam, New Delhi, Omsons Publications, 1990, p. 132.
- 90 Manas Kumar Mahanta, Bibhajoner Itihas: Jatiyotabad Ityadi, Brand Value Communication, 2010, p. 60 (...)
- 91 Apurba Kumar Baruah (ed.), Student Power in North-East India: Understanding Student Movements, New (...)
- 92 File n° PLB 91/60, Daily Situation 1960, Language Riots.
19Migration had always troubled Assam and had had strong repercussions for the country’s society, economy and politics. Language, in particular, became an important issue in the conflicts coming with migration.75 A conspiracy theory, which popularly stated that it was the Bengali cultural expansionists who were behind the persecution of the Assamese language, continued to circulate for decades.76 This was the first grievance against the Bengali migrants from the domicile Assamese front.77 It was actually added by the competition for employment in the colonial offices where the English employers preferred Bengalis.78 So, from colonial times onwards, Assamese felt deprived and marginalized in their own land.79 Even after Partition, the Bengali babus dominated much of the job sector. Many Assamese feared that the Bengalis were about to tilt the demographic structure in their favour80 and that this would increase the Bengalis’ cultural hegemony and finally transfer political power to Bengalis in Assam. Assamese elites became resentful with regard to a supposed Bengali predominance of the Bengalis in every field. Myron Weiner mentioned, “The Assamese found the Bengali in a superior and himself in a subordinate position. The teacher is a Bengali, the pupil Assamese. The doctor is a Bengali, the patient Assamese. The pleader is Bengali, the client Assamese. The shopkeeper is Bengali, the customer Assamese. The Government official is Bengali, the petitioner Assamese”.81 Such nationalist thinking had a long tradition in Assam. Eminent Assamese nationalist thinkers, such as Ambikagiri Ray Choudhury,82 kept on urging the Assamese people to take right measures for the protection of their linguistic identity, for the “adoption of Assamese language as a criterion for Assamese nationality”.83 The Bengali factor made members of the educated young Assamese middle-class insecure about getting white-collar jobs and other opportunities.84 They expressed the need for the preservation of sufficient employment opportunities in the service sector. This strife led the Assamese middle-class to organize socio-political movements for an adequate share of employments, as much as the restoration of their ethnic culture and identity. A process of linguistic/literary regeneration finally took shape and produced strong notions of cultural nationalism.85 Assamese elites found the Bengalis to be an obstacle in the path of their overall development and intellectual growth. Disputes over languages ushered into a crisis of linguistic identities which became a major theme of regional politicization. In this particular context, the Assam Sahitya Sabha began their systematic campaign, from the 1950s onwards, for the recognition of Assamese as the official language of Assam.86 Initially started as an elite movement, the Sabha gradually broadened their scope to attract other social strata. In addition, the student community turned into another major social and political agent in organizing a staunch political movement to establish and consolidate a separate and distinct Assamese identity.87 Its organizational abilities in transforming society was a unique phenomenon.88 Students of diverse background formed an organization: the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) emerged with the idea of “organizing the students on non-party lines”.89 Despite the existence of numerous oppositional political parties like CPI, RCPI, Forward Block and student’s wings in Congress, the AASU took the lead in the struggle launched for the protection of the linguistic and cultural identity of the Assamese people.90 It also reflected the anxiety of the peasantry and Assamese middle-classes and their fear of “loss of identity”.91 The Assamese intelligentsia and the press became instrumental in creating a feeling of distrust and antagonism between the Assamese, Bengalis and tribals.92
- 93 Amitava Chaudhury, Mukher Bhasa Buker Rudhir, Calcutta, Gronthoprakash, 1961, p. 16.
20In 1960, the Assam Official Language Bill became law. According to it, “Assamese shall be used for all or any of the official purposes of the state of Assam”.93 Furthermore, the Act pointed out that the English language, as long as its use was permissible, and thereafter Hindi in place of English, should also be used as an official language in the state’s administration.
- 94 . The Assam Official Language Act, 1960, Clause 3, “Official Language for Official Purposes of the (...)
- 95 R. Gopalakrishnan, K. K. Jhunjhunwala, Manasi Shailaja, “Population displacement and development d (...)
- 96 Narayan Choudhury, Assamer Bhasa Danga, Calcutta, Moni Prakashoni, 1973, p. 12-14.
2194Still, in 1961, nearly a million out of the seven million people living in the Brahmaputra valley were Bengalis. It created further fear among the Assamese people, predicted rightly by David Scott, that migrants would outnumber the domiciles someday.95 Since it touched upon issues of employment and culture, the language issue became the focal point of controversy. Finally, to resolve the crisis, a central team led by Lal Bahadur Sashtri rushed to Assam where a formula was found. The Shastri Formula tried safeguarding interests of minorities though it bypassed the language issue. The Bengalis of Barak/Barak valley and hill tribals were not at all satisfied with the special section in the amendment for Cachar, which stated that they would continue their education in English until it was replaced by Hindi. But the fear of the linguistic minorities had not been allayed by the solutions given in the Shastri Formula. The Bengalis demanded that Bengali along with Assamese should be the official language of Assam. Some of the refugees were participants in the Language Movement of 1952 in East Bengal.96 So, for them, it was a “second blow” to their culture and linguistic identity.
Subsequent conflicts: Linguistic identity
- 97 Assam Legislative Assembly Debates, official report, vol. 1, n° VI, Shillong, Assam Government Pre (...)
- 98 Bhupen Sharma, “Immigration and politics of Assam: Questions related to human rights”, in Sanjoy K (...)
- 99 Uditi Sen, Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition, Cambridge, Cambridge Univer (...)
22The boundary-making procedure between India and Pakistan started from 1965 onwards. The influx of refugees increased, especially in Assam. The Liberation War of 1971 aggravated the immigration situation further, when another large wave of refugees, named the saranarthis, started pouring into Assam. The Assam-East Pakistan border remained open “to a large body of suffering humanity to ensure security of their life, honour and property”.97 The stand of the Centre in treating the 1971 refugees explains the sets of reasons why the ‘foreigners’ were despised and marginalized in Assam. The state governments of the period were struggling to bear the burden of the refugee crisis while the Centre was more concerned with maintaining its reputation in the international arena by espousing the rhetoric of humanitarianism to the outside world. The Indira-Mujib Pact of 1972 fixed a cut-off-date for 25 March 1971 for all refugees who would be eligible to get citizenship under the Citizenship Act of 1955.98 It was the first time that the Central government officially withdrew from accepting the migrants as “citizen-refugees”.99
- 100 R. Gopalakrishnan, K. K. Jhunjhunwala, Manasi Shailaja, “Population displacement…”, art. cit., p. (...)
- 101 Myron Weiner, “Rejected people and unwanted migrants in South Asia”, Economic and Political Weekly(...)
- 102 Making Assamese a compulsory language from class VIII onwards led to massive agitation in the Bara (...)
- 103 Heramba Kanta Barpujari, North- East India: Problems, Policies and Prospects, Guwahati, Spectrum P (...)
- 104 Sajal Nag, “National Register of Citizens: Old divides and new fissures”, Economic and Political W (...)
23The language politics coming out of Assamese linguistic nationalism made the participation of refugees in the job market rather difficult. It became decisive when the non-Assamese-speaking population pronounced its desire to adopt Assamese as their mother tongue.100 The Medium of Instruction Movement of 1972,101 a movement of initially academic nature, the Bengali-Assamese rivalry escalated and ushered in violence between the Assamese and Bengalis. Anti-Bengali riots spread everywhere. The Centre realized the necessity to defuse tension. In November 1972, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi urged an AASU deputation to call off their actions. The AASU agreed on condition that the state government would, besides accepting recommendations for the state’s universities, introduce Assamese as a compulsory subject in non-Assamese secondary schools.102 The Bengalis in Cachar considered this “cultural genocide” and complained that the Assamese “have developed an irrational craze for cultural conquest”.103 The detection of a massive increase in Muslim voters during a by-election in 1979 in Mangaldoi sparked off the anti-Foreign National Movement which ended in 1985 with the Assam Accord, which agreed to confer the citizenship of India to all immigrants who had come to India prior to 1971. This included the caveat that those who had entered India between 1961-71 would have to complete a term of ten years before they would be granted citizenship. There was no mention of NRC in the Assam Accord.104 From 1979 to 1985, Assamese sub-nationalism finally came out on to the streets protesting against illegal immigration and a de facto policy of enfranchisement of non-citizens.
- 105 Sajal Nag, “The NRC: Ethnic cleansing through constitutional means…”, art. cit., p. 59-61.
- 106 Binayak Datta, “The unending conundrum: The story of citizens/foreigners between politics and the (...)
24The foreign national issue resurfaced in 2005 at a tripartite meeting of AASU with the government in which it agreed to upgrade the National Register of Citizens of 1951. While debating the issue of citizenship, the Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, in the subsequent meetings held in 2011 and 2013, wanted the case of Bengali Hindus to be (re-)considered on humanitarian grounds. However, the process of updating the NRC had to be halted due to violent protests from the Muslims of Dhubri and Goalpara. In the meantime, riots had broken out between the Muslims and Bodo tribals in the Bodoland areas in 2012 and 2014. A new movement led by the Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha, an umbrella organization of various indigenous and tribal communities, and massive demonstrations were organized at Guwahati to re-launch the anti-foreigners agitation. The Mahasangha adopted a legal way by filing a petition in the Supreme Court of India to examine the constitutional position of the laws of citizenship in India and to upgrade the NRC prepared in 1951 for Assam.105 Though a proposal for initiating the national registration of citizens as a means to direct the foreigners issuing citizenship was first suggested in the PIP Scheme of 1965.106 Yet in the judgment of the petition of Mahasangha, delivered in December 2014, allowed to up-date the 1951 NRC and to settle the conflicts between citizenship and illegal immigration in Assam. Though according to a Government report, many Pakistani infiltrators had been detected and deported accordingly in between 1965.
- 107 . White Paper on Foreigners Issue, Home and Political Department, Government of Assam, October 20, (...)
25107Up-dating the NRC was an arduous process in itself. It involved an expenditure of 1,700 crores and the work of about 50,000 employees, mostly Assamese, who had not been properly trained. While the task would have been to simply ascertain whether the person had been a citizen of Assam before March 1971, all kinds of documents were sought for in the name of legacy data. It included whether the person’s or his forefathers’ name had already been in the 1952 voters list, it looked at marriage and birth certificates which had not been common documents in the 1950s and 1960s. Poor people were asked to move from places as far as 500 km to verify their legacy data and subsequently submit their documents. There were accusations of bribe-taking in the process. Women became the worst sufferers again. Most of the documents, whether land or personal data, are in the name of men. Often women were married before their voting age. Women found it difficult to prove their credentials. People were harassed to such an extent that a report was prepared and submitted to the National Human Rights Commission. The United Nations Human Rights and Amnesty International, Asian Legal Resource Centre, Hong Kong had to take cognizance of the violations of basic human rights. Harsh Mandar, an activist, prepared a report and submitted it to the Home Ministry and the NHRC. There was a climate of fear and insecurity that people who were not listed in the NRC would be deported to Bangladesh, detained in camps and tortured, and perhaps declared stateless citizens. There were campaigns which highlighted that the Hindus had nothing to fear and that Muslims would be deported.
- 108 Sajal Nag, “National Register of Citizens: Old divides and new fissures”, art. cit., p. 15
- 109 Panel plea to UN on those left out of NRC’ in The Telegraph, Guwahati, 31 August 2018, p. 1.
26Alternately, it was held that Muslim countries supported the Muslims in Assam whereas the Hindus had no friends.108 It was reported that the final draft was full of problems ranging from personal tragedies like a single member of a family or even a whole community being left out. Those excluded included persons such as family members of a former president, veterans of Indian security forces, policemen, kith and kin of legislators to the poor who had no papers to show. There are many cases in which direct descendants of those figuring in NRC 1951 were left out of the final draft. The primary reasons behind these problems were errors coming from misspelt names or mismatched relationships; other problems occurred with poor people living in areas regularly affected by floods who had lost their documents.109 It was not just the Bengali Muslims and Hindus of whom some did not find mention in the draft. While the ULFA members who had been in exile for the last four decades and fighting a war against the Indian state found their names in the list, names of members of the tribal communities like Garo, Hajong, Chakma who had migrated to Assam as refugees due to persecution in East Pakistan and even Assamese Hindus and Muslims without documents were unlisted, which signified the multifarious trajectories of incorrectness and impossibility of preparing an error-free NRC.
- 110 Heramba Kanta Barpujari, “Illegal migrants: Perils in North-East”, Grassroot Options (North-East I (...)
27H. K. Barpujari, a prominent historian, was part to the propaganda against “illegal immigrants”. He wrote: “needless to say if the influx of immigrants remains unabated even as at present, it is only a question of time when the indigenous Assamese ethnic groups will be alien in their Homeland. With their multiplication at no distant future, they will form the majority in Assembly and the next step will be demand for a referendum on merger with Bangladesh”.110 A Marxist intellectual, Hiren Gohain, remained a staunch supporter of the NRC. For that matter, except for Sanjay Hazarika, who was once a vociferous advocate of the theory of massive presence of illegal migrants in Assam, now the Director of Commonwealth Human Rights Organization, and young minds like Suraj Gogoi and Parag Saikia, there were and are no Assamese intellectuals in Assam opposing or criticizing the new NRC. This is a direct consequence of the idea of exclusion of so-called illegal immigrants in Assam. The real fear, however, was that if the Muslim legislators would unite with the tribal, ex-tea garden, Nepali and Bengali Hindu MLAs, they could easily threaten the political hegemony of the caste Hindu Assamese, which had to be prevented. In fact, the Commissioner of Linguistic Minorities reported that Assamese speakers constituted only 48.81% in Assam. The measure described above can be considered as legal means to rid the country of immigrants.
Conclusion
28One pertinent question that is often asked nowadays in India is: which role does the NRC in Assam play and who are its real targets? The answer to the question is to be found in the history of migration in Assam. Assam has the longest history of an anti-immigrant and anti-Bengali movement which started in the colonial period and continued in the post-1947 and post-1971 periods. While India’s entire northeast experienced violent anti-outsider movement, Assam has been the leader in anti-outsider movements from where it spread to other parts of the larger region. This is the reason why, after the NRC had been updated in Assam, other north-eastern states have also asked for their own updates. In comparison to other north-eastern states, the anti-outsider movement in Assam took a more organized form, as the domicile Assamese were eager to get rid of a substantial number of Bengalis. The chosen method was the update of the National Register of Citizens. Following the NRC’s update, a draft report noted that more than 40 lakh people had been detected for deportation. The final result reduced the number to about 20 lakhs of people who were to be ousted from the state. It is obvious whom the leaders of the movement wanted to evict and expel in the name of the so-called foreigners from their state.
- 111 Sajal Nag, “The NRC: Ethnic cleansing through constitutional means…”, art. cit., p. 53-62.
- 112 Yasmine Saikia, Outlook India, 13 August 2012, http://www.ooutlookindia.com/printarticles, aspx? 2 (...)
29111Who does Assam actually want to evict from the state? Are they Bengalis? Muslims? Nepalis? Tribals? The leaders of the movement would simply make a point that these illegal immigrants are from Bangladesh. But Bangladesh was born only in 1971 and the Assam Accord says those who came to Assam after 1971 are illegal immigrants. Then why was there this outcry against illegal immigrants right from the Partition of 1947? Even before that, there were sustained movements both inside and outside the legislature against immigrants into Assam. Therefore, does it mean the “undesirable immigrants” have actually been branded as “illegal immigrants” after 1947? The leaders of the movement would not agree to such conclusions. But the history of Assam shows that efforts to expel large parts of Assam’s non-Assamese population was there right from the early twentieth century – and more often than not directed against Bengali speakers. “Assamese violence against Bengali speakers was part of the political landscape of Assam until the late 1970s”, as Assamese historian Yasmine Saikia writes.112 Assamese intellectual, Suraj Gogoi, remembers and adds:
- 113 Suraj Gogoi, “Psychology behind NRC mirrors narrow, dominating side of Assamese language, and its (...)
“We were born and brought up in Assam and were told to hate the ‘Bangladeshi’ everyday of our life. Our introduction to the Bangladeshi is one filled with suspicion, an outsider, a migrant and a land grabber, among others. The intellectuals and academicians in Assam also echo such a sentiment when they almost bureaucratically tell us to fear and hate the ‘outsider’. With the publication of NRC, we even saw grave offences of human rights violations, numerous suicides and daylight injustice. The Assam Movement and the Assam Accord demonstrated a rhetorical and confessional politics of self-preservation of a singular identity that directed its anger against the outsider and instils this notion of scarcity in people’s psyche. The ‘Bangladeshi’ became an everyday soft target, followed by a chauvinistic rejection of their claims of recognition sustains the project of Assamese nationalism. The Assam Movement that largely mobilized the common people on the common grounds of understanding for the removal of the ‘illegal migrants’ ended up with a vicious cycle of violence between the self and the other. The psychology of NRC, and the intent of NRC, ought not to be read without considering such a psychology and history… NRC is nothing but a mutation of the Assamese psychology of hate towards the outsider”.113
Notes
1 AICC Papers, File n° G-5/1947-48, NMML.
2 Partition Proceedings, Partition Council’s Decision, vol. I, New Delhi, Government of India Press, 1949, p. 182-184.
3 The tribal zones in Northeast India suffered immensely from the Partition. It separated the Garos by dividing the Garo Hills. The Khasis and Jaintias also became divided; the Jaintias lost their capital Jaintapur to Sylhet. Janitiapur used to serve as an entrepột between the people of the plains and hills, where cotton, iron, ore, wax, ivory, betel leaf and clothes were traded. The tribes exchanged these articles for salt, tobacco, rice and goats. The opening of the road between Shillong and Dawki connecting Sylhet facilitated the trade further. Khasis used to sell lime quarries in the plains of Sylhet. The Partition not only stopped their trade; some of the quarries had fallen on the other side of the border. Some Khasi chiefs wanted to opt for Pakistan for this reason. The Partition also created an acute economic blockade for the Mizos, it snatched the major riverine trade route to sea through the Chittagong Hill Tracts down Karnaphuli. The Lushai hills were at the very extremity of an uncertain and adequate line of communications on which they depended for all essential supplies. Sajal Nag, “Region: Minefield of conflict”, The Killing Fields: Mapping Conflict and Violence in North East India, report prepared for the Violence Mitigation and Amelioration Programme of Oxfam, New Delhi, 2002, p. 21-24.
4 W. W. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Assam, vol. 2, Guwahati/Delhi, Spectrum Publications, 1998, p. 34-37.
5 . David Vumlallian Zou and M. Satish Kumar, “Mapping a colonial borderland: Objectifying the geo-body of India’s Northeast”, The Journal of Asian Studies, 70, 2011, n° 1, p. 141-170.
6 Arupjyoti Saikia, “Borders, Commodities and citizens across mud and river: Assam, 1947-50s”, Studies in History, 32, 2016, n° 172-196, p. 73.
7 Some ethnic groups could retain such cultural distinctiveness for long. Migration often generated tensions, increased racial, linguistic and religious conflicts. Robert G. Gosselink, “Minority rights and ethnic conflict in Assam, India”, Boston College Third World Law Journal, 14, 1994, n° 1, p. 85-86.
8 “The Centre” here means the Central Government of India, also called the Government of India or union government, so the legislative, executive and judicial authority of the union of twenty eight states and eight union territories of the constitutionally democratic republic of India.
9 Susanta Krishna Dass, “Immigration and demographic transformation of Assam, 1891-1981”, Economic and Political Weekly, 15, 1980, n° 19, p. 852.
10 Antara Dutta, Refugees and the Borders in South Asia: The Great Exodus of 1971, New York, Routledge, 2013, Introduction.
11 File n° 5/1/4/1: 15 May 1900-25 June 1923, IOR.
12 File n° Z/E/4/32/R639: 1858, IOR.
13 B. C. Allen, Assam District Gazetteers, Nowgong, Secretariat Administration, Record and Library Department, Assam Secretariat, p. 277.
14 Priyam Goswami, The History of Assam: From Yandabo to Partition, 1826-1947, New Delhi, Orient BlackSwan, 2012, p. 226.
15 “The new Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam left the Empire and the nation on a collision course, which was marked by two different kinds of spatial imagination. The imperial vision of an eastward policy was thwarted. Iftekhar Iqbal, “The space between nation and empire: The making and unmaking of Eastern Bengal and Assam province, 1905-1911”, The Journal of Asian Studies, 74, 2015, n° 1, p. 80.
16 David Ludden, “Spatial inequality and national territory: Remapping 1905 in Bengal and Assam”, Modern Asian Studies, Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 6.
17 George Nathaniel Curzon (1903-1905), File n° Mss Eur 111/247A, IOR.
18 Iftekhar Iqbal, “The space between nation and empire…”, art. cit., p. 74-75.
19 Subir Bhoumik, “India’s Northeast: Nobody’s people in no-man’s-land”, in Paula Banerjee, Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury (eds.), Internal Displacement in South Asia: The Relevance of the UN’s Guiding Principles, New Delhi, Sage, 2005, p. 146.
20 Sanjib Baruah, “Partition and the politics of citizenship in Assam”, in Urvashi Butalia (ed.), Partition: The Long Shadow, New Delhi, Zubaan-Penguin/Viking, 2015, p. 82.
21 It was a border district and, having a sizable Bengali population, was responsible for the district being selected and settled as the first camp. Lalit P. Pathak, A Seminar Paper on “East Bengal immigrants in Assam valley: An analysis of census data’, NEICSSR, Shillong, 1984, p. 2.
22 Bengal and Assam, File n° X/ 9076: Unspecific, IOR.
23 “Replies submitted by Sjt. Nilmoni Phookan, Editor’BATORI’, to the questionnaire issued by the Line System Committee”, APCC Papers, Packet n° 66, File n° 17, NMML.
24 Minutes of a Conference of Officials and Non-Officials held on 20th September 1928 to Discuss Colonisation and Kindred Matters, in Copy of the Census Report, 1931, Part. I, vol. III, p. 11.
25 Sujata Miri, Communalism in Assam: A Civilizational Approach, New Delhi, Har-Anand, 1993, p. 54.
26 Report of the Deputy Commissioner, Nowgong on the Immigrant Question of that District, in Report of the Line System Committee, 1937, p. 21.
27 The Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup reports, ‘the increase of 69% in the population of Barpeta is solely due to eastern Bengal immigrants’, Replies Submitted by Sjt. Nilmoni Phookan, Op. Cit.
28 Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani came into prominence in Assam Politics in 1937. His uncompromising and passionate defence of the cause of the peasants in general and immigrant Muslims in particular, made him one of the greatest leaders of Assam in pre-independence phase. After Partition, Bhasani was an important peasant leader of East Pakistan and later in Bangladesh.
29 Amalendu Guha, ‘East Bengal Migrants and Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani in Assam Politics’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 13, 1976, p. 418-415.
30 Damodar Jodhani, Assam All The Chief Ministers, Guwahati, Vicky & Shanky Jodhani Publication, 1993, p. 57.
31 Syed Mohammad Saadulla started his political career as a member of the first Assam Legislative Council during 1913-20. He soon held office as Executive Councilor and Minister. Later he joined the Bar in Calcutta until his return to Provincial politics in 1937. Saadulla was knighted in 1926 but he renounced it in 1946, when the League launched a direct action for the achievement of Pakistan.
32 Dilip Kumar Chattopadhyay, History of the Assamese Movement since 1947, Calcutta, Minerva Associates, 1990, p. 23.
33 Assam Legislative Assembly Debates, Official Report, Vol. 1, No. 1, Shillong, Assam Government Press, 1947, p. 266.
34 Saiful Islam, Assam o Mowlana Bhasani, Op. Cit., p. 26.
35 Subir Bhaumik, India’s Northeast: Nobody’s People in No-Man’s-Land, Op. Cit., p. 146.
36 A. C. Bhuyan and Sibopada De (eds.), Political History of Assam, Vol. II, Government of Assam, First Edition, 1978, p. 308.
37 Amiya Kumar Das, Assam’s Agony: A Socio-Economic and Political Analysis, New Delhi, Lancers Publishers, 1982, p. 25.
38 Anindita Dasgupta, Emergence of a Community: The Muslims of East Bengal Origin in Assam in Colonial and Post-Colonial Period, unpublished PhD thesis, Department of History, Guwahati University, 2000.
39 Anindita Dasgupta, “Remembering Sylhet: A forgotten story of 1947 Partition”, Economic and Political Weekly, 43, 2008, n° 31, p. 19.
40 Amalendu Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj: Freedom Struggle and Electoral Politics in Assam, 1826-1947, New Delhi, People’s Publishing House, 1977, p. 319.
41 File n° RRQ. 20 of 1947, ASA.
42 Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement: Class, Ideology and Identity, New Delhi, Manak and Har-Anand, 1993, p. 52-60.
43 Debjani Sengupta, The Partition of Bengal: Fragile Borders and New Identities, New Delhi, Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 188.
44 Nabanipa Bhattacharjee, ‘“We are with culture but without geography’: Locating Sylheti identity in contemporary India”, South Asian History and Culture, 3, 2012, n° 2, p. 218-219.
45 Anindita Dasgupta, “Remembering Sylhet…”, art. cit., p. 19.
46 Sanjib Baruah, “Partition and the politics of citizenship in Assam”, in Urvashi Butalia (ed.), Partition…, op. cit., p. 84.
47 Moushumi Dutta Pathak, You Do not Belong Here: Partition Diaspora in the Brahmaputra Valley, Chennai, Notion Press, 2017, p. 111.
48 “The Nehru-Liaquat Ali Khan agreement” dated April 1950. File n° P (PIV) 125 (62)/65, MEA-Pak-II, P IV, NAI.
49 Jayanta Kumar Gogoi, “The migration problem in Assam: An analysis”, Alokesh Barua (ed.), India’s North-East: Development Issues in a Historical Perspective, New Delhi, Manohar, 2005, p. 358-360.
50 File n° 20 (27)-R/50, Ministry of States, Rehabilitation Branch, NAI.
51 The West Bengal Weekly, vol. 1, Calcutta, Friday, 21 November 1950, n° 6.
52 Dhirendra Bhowmick, An Open Letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, Silchar, published by the author, 1964, p. 1 (Introduction).
53 Gunabhiram Barua (ed.), Asam Bandhu, 1885-86 (Nagen Saikia), Guwahati, Asom Prakashan Parishad, 1984, mentioned in a piece.
54 Nandana Dutta, Questions of Identity in Assam: Location, Migration, Hybridity, New Delhi, Sage, 2012, p. 219.
55 Interview with Samujjal Bhattacharyya, Chief Advisor of AASU in Guwahati on 20.12.12.
56 Abhijit Dasgupta, Displacement and Exile: The State-Refugee Relations in India, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 20-21.
57 Dainik Assamiya, 1 July 1947.
58 Gopinath K. Borooah, Gopinath Bardoloi, Indian Constitution and Centre-Assam Relations, Guwahati, Publication Board Assam, 1990, p. 31.
59 Udayan Misra, The Periphery Strikes Back: Challenges to Nation-State in Assam and Nagaland, Shimla, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, 2000, p. 112.
60 Assam Legislative Assembly Debates, official report, vol. I-II, Shillong, Assam Government Press, 1949, p. 867.
61 K. M. L. Chhabra, Assam Challenge, New Delhi, Konark Publishers, 1992, p. 54.
62 A. P. Jain Papers, Subject File n° 1, report of Sri Prakash, Committee of Enquiry on the Rehabilitation of Refugees, 14 August 1951, p. 9, NMML.
63 Mountarborn Vitit, The Status of Refugees in Asia, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 1.
64 “A non-Assamese should have the following qualifications in order to obtain a domicile certificate, (I) a homestead in the district where he must live continuously for ten years, (II) desire to live there till his death, (III) the non-possession of any landed property in his native district, (IV) the absence of frequent visits to his native place or district, (V) the absence of any interest or connection whatsoever with his native people”, Assam Legislative Assembly Debates, official report, vol. I and II, n° II, 1949, Shillong, Assam Government Press, p. 377.
65 Abstract of the Resolution passed in the public meeting held on 19.9.47 in the Dibrugarh College Hall, under the auspicious of the Asom Jatiya Mahasabha with Sjt. Lokeswar Phukan in the Chair, in File n° RT-27/49, ASA.
66 R. Gopalakrishnan, “Stress and response in a socio-economic crisis in the Brahmaputra Valley: A response perception of the Assam Gana Sangram Parishad”, in Proceedings of North East India History Association (NEIHA), Eighth Session, Kohima, 1987, p. 358; Bhawani Singh, Politics of Alienation in Assam, Calcutta, Ajanta Publications, 1984, p. 74-75.
67 Bipul Chaudhury, “The growth of Assamese identity in colonial Assam”, in Proceedings of North East India History Association (NEIHA), Twenty-Eighth Session, Goalpara, 2007, p. 284.
68 Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement, op. cit., p. 197.
69 S. M. Saadulla Papers, Subject File n° 19, NMML.
70 Assam Legislative Assembly Debates, official report, vol. I-II, Shillong, Assam Government Press, 1950, p. 163.
71 S. M. Saadullah Papers, Subject File n° 18, NMML.
72 Census of India 1951, vol. III, Assam, Part I- A, p. 365, cited in Anil Roychoudhury, “National Register of Citizens, 1951”, Economic and Political Weekly, 16, 1981, n° 8, p. 267-268.
73 Sajal Nag, “The NRC: Ethnic cleansing through constitutional means”, Analytical Monthly Review, 16, 2018, p. 58-60.
74 K. M. L. Chhabra, Assam Challenge, op. cit., p. 58.
75 File n° 5/1/4/1: 15 May 1900-25 June 1923, IOR; Archana Chakrabarty, History of Education in Assam (1826-1910), New Delhi, Mittal Publications, 1989, p. 19.
76 A general apprehension concerning the Bengalis was that they were not actuated by any desire to learn local dialects or languages. Sujata Miri, Communalism in Assam…, op. cit. p. 69.
77 A. J. M. Mills, Report on the Province of Assam, Publication Board Assam, Guwahati, p. 26.
78 Anindita Dasgupta, “Partition migration in Assam: The case of Sylheti Bhadraloks”, in Imtiaz Ahmed, Abhijit Dasgupta, Kathinka Sinha Kerkhoff (eds.), State, Society and Displaced People in South Asia, Dhaka, The University Press Limited, 2004, p. 117.
79 Revenue Department, Revenue-A, November 1898, n° 128-138, Record and Library Department, Assam Secretariat.
80 Hiren Gohain, “Ethnic unrest in the North East”, Economic and Political Weekly, 32, 1997, n° 8, p. 389.
81 Myron Weiner, Sons of the Soil: Migration and Ethnic Conflict in India, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 115-116.
82 He was an eminent poet, pioneer of the protectionists’ movement and the General Secretary of the Assam Jatiya Mahasabha. Bimal J. Dev, Dilip K. Lahiri, Assam Muslims: Politics and Cohesion, Delhi, Mittal Publications, 1985, p. 160.
83 Apurba Kumar Baruah, Social Tensions in Assam: Middle Class Politics, Guwahati, Purbanchal Prakash, 1991, p. 62.
84 Chandranath Boruah, Assamese Response to Regionalism: A Study Based on Electoral Politics, New Delhi, Mittal Publications, 2009, Introduction, p. XI.
85 Kaustubh Kumar Deka, The Politics of Student Movements: Limits and Possibilities with Special Reference to Assam, 1985-2010, unpublished PhD dissertation, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2013, p. 36-37.
86 Sajal Nag, Roots of Ethnic Conflict: Nationality Question in North-East India, Assam, Manohar Publications, 1990, p. 139.
87 Mita Deka, Students Movements in Assam, New Delhi, Vikas Publishing House, 1996, p. 132.
88 Shiela Bora, Student Revolution in Assam, 1917-1947 (A Historical Survey), New Delhi, Mittal Publications, 1992, p. 1.
89 Indrani Barua, Pressure Groups in Assam, New Delhi, Omsons Publications, 1990, p. 132.
90 Manas Kumar Mahanta, Bibhajoner Itihas: Jatiyotabad Ityadi, Brand Value Communication, 2010, p. 60-61.
91 Apurba Kumar Baruah (ed.), Student Power in North-East India: Understanding Student Movements, New Delhi, Regency Books, 2002, p. 191.
92 File n° PLB 91/60, Daily Situation 1960, Language Riots.
93 Amitava Chaudhury, Mukher Bhasa Buker Rudhir, Calcutta, Gronthoprakash, 1961, p. 16.
94 . The Assam Official Language Act, 1960, Clause 3, “Official Language for Official Purposes of the State of Assam”; V. R. Trivedi (ed.), Documents on Assam, New Delhi, Omsons Publications, 1995, p. 193.
95 R. Gopalakrishnan, K. K. Jhunjhunwala, Manasi Shailaja, “Population displacement and development dilemmas: A reflections on linguistic politics in the North-East”, in C. Joshua (ed.), Dimensions of Displaced People in North-East India, New Delhi, Regency Publications, 2002, p. 54.
96 Narayan Choudhury, Assamer Bhasa Danga, Calcutta, Moni Prakashoni, 1973, p. 12-14.
97 Assam Legislative Assembly Debates, official report, vol. 1, n° VI, Shillong, Assam Government Press, 1972, p. 20-21.
98 Bhupen Sharma, “Immigration and politics of Assam: Questions related to human rights”, in Sanjoy K. Roy (ed.), Refugees and Human Rights: Social and Political Dynamics in Eastern and North-Eastern India, New Delhi, Rawat Publication, 2001, p. 369.
99 Uditi Sen, Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018, p. 3.
100 R. Gopalakrishnan, K. K. Jhunjhunwala, Manasi Shailaja, “Population displacement…”, art. cit., p. 58.
101 Myron Weiner, “Rejected people and unwanted migrants in South Asia”, Economic and Political Weekly, 28, 1993, n° 34, p. 1742.
102 Making Assamese a compulsory language from class VIII onwards led to massive agitation in the Barak valley, reminiscent of the agitation launched earlier over the issue of medium of instruction. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 28 December 1972.
103 Heramba Kanta Barpujari, North- East India: Problems, Policies and Prospects, Guwahati, Spectrum Publication, 1998, p. 45.
104 Sajal Nag, “National Register of Citizens: Old divides and new fissures”, Economic and Political Weekly, 53, 2018, n° 46, p. 16.
105 Sajal Nag, “The NRC: Ethnic cleansing through constitutional means…”, art. cit., p. 59-61.
106 Binayak Datta, “The unending conundrum: The story of citizens/foreigners between politics and the law in Assam”; http//pangsau.com, 31 May 2018
107 . White Paper on Foreigners Issue, Home and Political Department, Government of Assam, October 20, 2012, p. 40-41
108 Sajal Nag, “National Register of Citizens: Old divides and new fissures”, art. cit., p. 15
109 Panel plea to UN on those left out of NRC’ in The Telegraph, Guwahati, 31 August 2018, p. 1.
110 Heramba Kanta Barpujari, “Illegal migrants: Perils in North-East”, Grassroot Options (North-East India), Autumn, 2000.
111 Sajal Nag, “The NRC: Ethnic cleansing through constitutional means…”, art. cit., p. 53-62.
112 Yasmine Saikia, Outlook India, 13 August 2012, http://www.ooutlookindia.com/printarticles, aspx? 282846.
113 Suraj Gogoi, “Psychology behind NRC mirrors narrow, dominating side of Assamese language, and its fragile nationalism, cultural identity”, 20 October 2019 ; https://www.firstpost.com/india/psychology-behind-nrc-mirrors-narrow-dominating-side-of-assamese-language-and-its-fragile-nationalism-cultural-identity-7526031.html.
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Anindita Ghoshal, « The journey from “migration certificate” to “citizenship card”: Livelihood, demography and changing identities in post-1947 Assam », Diasporas, 36 | 2020, 73-90.
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Anindita Ghoshal, « The journey from “migration certificate” to “citizenship card”: Livelihood, demography and changing identities in post-1947 Assam », Diasporas [En ligne], 36 | 2020, mis en ligne le 25 mars 2022, consulté le 06 février 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/diasporas/5609 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/diasporas.5609
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