2While these are vital discussion points, this article departs from the extant literature, which primarily interrogates the CAA’s constitutionality and legality. Instead, it employs a social/collective memory perspective from a geo-cultural peripheral part of India. This article shows how the CAA’s reception in Assam was constitutive of intense anxiety over losing linguistic and cultural identity. These anxieties were voiced in regional and vernacular print media, often through references to the collective memory of Assam’s political history. These worries, the article further highlights, funneled Assamese ethno-nationalist grievances about neglect by the Indian state. In other words, the CAA acted like a “memory frame” for Assamese nationalism’s fraught political journey (Abrams 2021:95; Guha 1980; Basu and Das 2020). The CAA was an event that reiterated how “the relationship between subnationalism and pan-Indianism in Assam has been significantly more tense—sometimes hidden and sometimes open—than is suggested in the standard formulation” (Baruah 1999:70). Informed by Mukulika Banerjee’s (2022) understanding of the term “event,” the anti-CAA protests are analyzed as an event that brought out latent fissures and anxieties which had remained subdued in the wake of Hindutva politics.

3This article first locates the CAA within the citizenship regime in India and the citizenship quandary in Assam. This is followed by a brief exposition of the CAA in the scholarly literature from Assam. The third section provides a conceptual backdrop discussing the importance of political “events,” vernacular/regional press in Assam, and the role of collective memory in print narratives. A short historical genealogy of linguistic nationalism in Assam apropos Bengali is imperative, and this is taken up in the fourth section. In the final sections, the article discusses how fears of losing linguistic, cultural and political identity appeared in the print media, at times borrowing from collective memory, and how the print media evoked discussions of the history of central government indifference.

A NOTE ON THE SOURCES AND METHOD

CITIZENSHIP REGIME IN INDIA AND THE ASSAM EXCEPTION

6Citizenship in India has historically been fraught with challenges. Drafted under the shadow of the bloody Partition, India’s citizenship regime is sympathetic to Hindu and Sikh victims of religious persecution in Pakistan (Roy 2010; Jayal 2022). Administrative orders and legal instruments maintained subtle distinctions. In the period immediately following independence, Muslims who had initially fled from India to Pakistan but later returned to India were categorized as “migrants,” while displaced Hindus and Sikhs remained “refugees.” The Immigrant (Expulsion from Assam) Act 1950 exempted immigrants seeking asylum due to fear of “civil disturbances” in Pakistan, eventually rescuing Hindu refugees from deportation. This “soft Hindutva” position, advocating an “implicit right of return,” has co-existed alongside the secular-constitutionalist position (Baruah 2009:597). The Hindu refugee’s presence in India was thus “technically illegal but licit,” displaying how “social perceptions” differ from legal provisions (van Schendel 2005; Baruah 2020:58). This policy clashed with Assamese nationalism, which had its own “regional patriotic frame,” sensitive to local narratives of culture and history of being a settlement frontier. Unlike Punjabis or Bengalis, no substantial number of Assamese speakers found themselves in Pakistan (Baruah 2009:559; Baruah 2020). Nevertheless, the tempestuous political history of migration in Assam has impacted citizenship policy. Following a six-year-long anti-foreigners movement, the citizenship law was amended in 1986 by inserting Section 6A, which established the cut-off date for determining citizenship in Assam as midnight of March 24, 1971. However, anticipating harassment of ethno-religious minorities, the Congress government passed the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act in 1983, making Assam the only state exempt from the Foreigners Act of 1946. The IMDT Act placed the burden of proof on the accuser, unlike the Foreigners Act that put the onus on the accused. It was thus perceived as biased against indigenous communities and became hugely unpopular. Moreover, the Foreigners (Tribunal) Order of 1964 provided for opening Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) nationwide to decide citizenship disputes, but were only set up in Assam. With the apex court’s scrapping of the IMDT Act in 2005, FTs remained the sole quasi-judicial bodies deciding cases of suspected citizenship and attracted significant criticism. In an atmosphere of “socio-political prejudice,” the state, through the modus operandi of the FTs, is accused of making citizenship vulnerable for certain ethno-linguistic minorities, particularly Bengali speakers (Bhat 2024:4868–69). Moreover, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), first conducted alongside the census of 1951 in Assam, was updated under the apex court’s supervision in 2019 based on the aforementioned cut-off date. Viewed on this backdrop, the newly introduced CAA with its different cut-off date and religion-specific criterion transformed “from a piece of seemingly liberal legislation to an act of marginalization and exclusion” against Muslims in Assam (Berger and Garg 2024:4818). While these perspectives on the CAA’s impact in Assam remain crucial, the Act was perceived differently in the state, as discussed in the next section.

THE CAA AS VIEWED FROM ASSAM

8According to Hiren Gohain (2017), a noted public intellectual, there was neither any prior consent sought from the indigenous people nor a strong demand for the CAA in Assam among the Bengali Hindu community. The goal rather was to create a loyal electorate for the BJP, that would drive a “siege mentality” among resident populations with growing pressure on land. The history of friction with Bengali Hindus over language, Gohain further noted, was older than tensions with Bengali Muslims, as the former were “justly proud of their rich native language” and less likely to return Assamese as their mother-tongue in the census (Gohain 2017). A historical analogy was often drawn with Tripura. The case of Tripura showed that migration is not only political but also economically motivated, as the land laws were modified, accelerating tribal land alienation (Fernandes 2020:3–4). Pradip Phanjoubam (2019) contrasted the number of Assamese speakers with Bengali speakers in the subcontinent, highlighting the formidable disparity and the fate of tribal languages designated as vulnerable by international organizations. Downplaying the legitimacy of such fears and labelling them as chauvinistic would strengthen the “majority with a minority complex.” He argued that humanitarian tragedies are often multi-dimensional and mean different things to different people and groups. For instance, the reported settlement of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in the Chittagong Hill Tracts negates the rights of indigenous Jumma communities in Bangladesh (Phanjoubam 2019).

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: EVENT, MEMORY, AND REGIONAL PRINT MEDIA IN ASSAM

9The metropolitan Indian media usually covers news of violence from Northeast India, strengthening stereotypes of the region as a violent space (Dutta 2012). On the other hand, media organizations located here operate in an environment of contestation over resources, culture, and identity (Moitra 2019; Raj 2016; Mochahari 2013; Roluahpuia 2017). News reports therefore may reflect “community passions” (Misra 2016:27). An authoritative study argues that the media in Northeast India evokes the “deep fragmentation of ethnic and political identity” of the region (Sen 2011:27). The mushrooming of print media in diverse dialects/languages has empowered public representation of numerous small ethnic communities, but also simultaneously raised fears of “parochial sentiments” (Sen 2011:28). The latter concern assumes critical relevance during times of socio-political tensions, when the media is normatively expected to balance the difficult task of ensuring objectivity and communal harmony (Fernandes and Borgohain 2017; Purkayastha 2016; Kaushik 2021; Iqbal 2018). The regional media is also better situated to cover important local issues that are missed by the national media such as industrial disasters, environmental degradation, and human rights violations. The press in India has acted as a proxy for public opinion (Kaul 2003 cited in Iqbal 2018). The regional print media has hence been credited with drawing a “more realistic picture” of the CAA (Devy 2020:11).

10There is a small but insightful body of work on the contemporary print media in Assam. Historically, the Assamese print media has advocated the interests of the Assamese middle class, who came to dominate postcolonial politics in Assam. It has shown two broad editorial positions: a mistrust of New Delhi’s statecraft and a suspicion of Bengali linguistic nationalism (Biswas 2015). One study argued that The Assam Tribune, Assam’s oldest running English daily, frames the state leadership, mainly ethnic-Assamese dominated, as a just and final arbiter in its news reports (Tonsing 2022). The role of regional media during the Assam Movement is a popular theme of study. The print media has been charged with hero-worshipping student leaders of the Assam Movement and contributing to inter-ethnic tensions via unverified reporting during that period (Hussain 1993). It has been accused of partisan conflict reporting by projecting the indigenous people as exclusive victims and ignoring the violence against immigrants (Kimura 2001). During the Assam Movement, it consolidated an image of a united Assamese community, strategically deployed photographs of victims of police brutality, berated the central government for targeting the Assamese, and projected the movement as Gandhian in nature (Kakoty 2024). Fears of demographic change and cultural erosion have outlasted the Assam Movement. Regional dailies, including the newspapers sampled in this study, continue to interpret events via a discourse of “securitization” where “border and immigration” overdetermine the news of the day (Glebova 2011; Iqbal 2018; Chakraborty, Borah, and Hazarika 2015). In this ethnocentric worldview, moments of political crisis become events of collective remembering, occurring prominently when existential danger is perceived (Tint 2010). Thus, the print media’s role during politically charged events like the anti-CAA protests is critical. The importance of studying such “events” is persuasively outlined by anthropologist Mukulika Banerjee in her ethnographic work on democracy in rural India

[Events] occurred periodically, lasted for a finite period of time … brought people together in unprecedented ways … created a realm of experience that stood out from the quotidian. Each of them [events] occurred in the present, containing past inheritances of thought and conduct, and held future possibilities … [there is a value in] studying a single event … to uncover dynamics of history and society normally hidden from view (Banerjee 2022:7)

11In this vein, the CAA was arguably an “event” in Assam with spontaneous mobilizations pulsating with anger, indignation, sadness, and disbelief. It stood out from mundane and everyday life. At the same time, it was also embedded in the historical context of citizenship and indigeneity contestations and thus provoked condensed narratives of history and collective memory in the print media. It is critical to note that like monuments or museums, the print media is not a “neutral carrier or container of memory,” participating in the politics of “commemorative memory” (Neiger 2020; O’Connor 2019:13; Erll 2011:113–16). For instance, when reporting critical political developments, some references to the past may seem essential. This past can however be “toxic, corrosive and ambiguous,” and may determine “the way we think” (Niven and Berger 2014:4–7). Differing from George Santayana’s famous dictum that an inability to remember the past results in the repetition of previous mistakes, Tint (2010:239) argues that in conflicts based over intangibles like culture and language, societies that “remember their past, live their past, and honor their past are continuously replaying the cycles of struggle and conflict that are their legacy.” Establishing a connection between a present crisis and a past event becomes common (Zelizer 1995). In this context, the media’s communicative role in disseminating collective memory and establishing/sustaining historical analogies is critical (Edy 1999). This brings one back to Maurice Halbwachs’ (1992) classic postulation on collective memory—history is constantly refashioned as per contemporary political contingencies.

Uneasy Histories: Assamese Nationalism and Bengali Linguistic Influence

12The stage was set for migration to become a political issue after Assam came under British rule in 1826 and became part of the Bengal Presidency. Two groups from Bengal—Bengali/Sylheti Hindus owing to their socio-economic advancement by the latter part of the 19^th century, and Bengali Muslim peasants due to their numerical preponderance by the early 20^th century—migrated to Assam. Given its potent connection to the language question, this section of the paper discusses the socio-political context of Bengali Hindus in Assam, even though the political milieu of Bengali Muslims had its own contestations, dramatically culminating in the communal situation of the 1940s. With 60 years under the colonial yoke, Bengali Hindus had acquired working knowledge of the English language, making them preferred candidates for new jobs in British Assam—as clerks in government departments and tea estates, or in professional services like law, medicine, and teaching. They eventually faced the scorn of the fledgling Assamese middle class, which had a robust rural base and could rally the Assamese peasants (Baruah 1991). The Assamese middle class sought educational and cultural inspiration from the Bengali gentry but became wary of Bengali linguistic hegemony. A relative disparity was acutely felt in terms of financial and cultural capital. The Assamese middle class did not grow into a capitalist trading class, looking eagerly towards the British government for employment opportunities, and thus came into direct competition with the Bengali Hindu middle class (Baruah 1991:41). This was coupled with a worry about losing linguistic and cultural identity, reflecting the “close intertwining of economic and cultural concerns” on migration (Misra 2019:11).

13The language question became central to Assamese nationalism—a “consensus” historically existed to accommodate migrants provided they embraced the “Assamese language and culture” (Misra 2019:11). Unlike the Bengali Muslim peasants, whose need for land trumped cultural prerogatives, Bengali Hindus viewed the Brahmaputra valley as “bilingual,” and had attained a stage of socio-cultural and educational development. This made them unlikely candidates to publicly renounce Bengali for Assamese as their mother tongue. For instance, the Assam Domiciled Peoples and Settler’s Association, a pressure group led by urban Bengali elites in the mid-1930s, advocated imparting education in the mother-tongue (Guha [1977] 2016:173–211). “Assamese nationalist consciousness” eventually inherited an “anti-Bengali dimension” that has persisted (Baruah 1991:29). The historian Sajal Nag (2018) argues that anxiety and antagonism with the Bengali language accompanied Assamese nationalism from the beginning. The earliest documented friction with immigration occurred when Bengali was made the language of education and administration in 1836 (Sharma 2012:290). The impact of this decision on the Assamese nationalist psyche became profound:

The earliest assertions of Assamese cultural pride—well before it could be termed nationalism—grew as a reaction to that decision … Thus the very first generation of modern Assamese public intellectuals had to make the case that they were a distinct people with a distinct language and culture … Assamese historical narratives of the nineteenth century typically refer to the period when Bengali was Assam’s official language as a “dark” period for Assamese language, literature, and culture. (Baruah 1999:71)

14This led to the genesis of a “Bengali conspiracy theory” or “clerk conspiracy theory” which continued well into the postcolonial era. According to this prevalent narrative, Bengali Hindus colluded with the British and convinced them of the inferiority of the Assamese language (Sharma 2012:291). This notion gathered steam in the late nineteenth century, even as Assamese was instated in 1873 and Assam separated from Bengal to be made a chief commissioner’s province (Sharma 2011; Biswas 2024). The merging of densely populated Sylhet, which was historically and geographically a part of Bengal, with Assam in 1874, ostensibly on fiscal grounds, kept the language pot boiling as Bengali became the “single largest linguistic community” in the state (Misra 2019:4–5). In fact, the repeated modifications of Assam’s territorial boundaries ensured that the subject of “linguistically based nationalism” remained relevant (Misra 2019:4–5). Immigration thus deeply shaped the Assamese nationalist’s anxiety of becoming a linguistic minority and threatened its hopes of achieving “national unity” through the Assamese language in a multi-lingual setting (Gohain [2003] 2019:235). Since its economic strength was not commensurate with its cultural requisites and ambitions—made worse by the race for jobs and lower social prestige than the Bengali counterpart—the Assamese middle class at times also showed “reactionary thinking” (Gohain [1973] 2019:174). In their tussle over the language question and political hegemony, both communities failed to appreciate they were “caught between the grinding stones of colonialism” (Gohain [2003] 2019:242).

15According to historian Rajen Saikia (2022:194), who had challenged the validity of a Bengali middle-class conspiracy, “no other issue had convulsed the Assamese society for so long a period.” At a time when the Assamese language had not been standardized, ordinary Bengalis were tempted to consider Assamese a dialect of Bengali. However, they did not possess the leverage to influence colonial cultural policy (Sengupta 2006). In contrast, Apurba Kumar Baruah (1991) argues against holding the British solely responsible. In addition to the fact that some of the elite Bengalis in Assam and Bengal shared the “dominant opinion of the time” that Assamese was a Bengali dialect, Baruah notes that the Calcutta press was unwilling to appreciate the Assamese language’s independent status even after its instatement in 1873 (Baruah 1991:71). At any rate, like the South Asian migrants in British Burma and the Vietnamese bureaucracy in French Indochina, the Bengali Hindu middle class unfortunately became the “local face of colonialism” in British-ruled Assam (Sadan 2018 cited in Baruah 2020:52). Willem van Schendel (2023:109) thus argues that the “colonial state appeared to be a British-Bengali coproduction” in Assam.

16The conflict on the language issue culminated in “language riots” with the Official Language Act of 1960 making Assamese the state language (Baruah 1999). While the indigenous tribals, particularly in the hill areas, also opposed this law, the most egregious violence occurred between Assamese and Bengali Hindus. The Bengali civil society from Cachar in southern Assam resisted the law, opposing the proposition that Assamese be the “public identity” of Assam. Thus, they also took the mantle for Bengali speakers in the Brahmaputra valley (Baruah 1999:104–06). A few years earlier, the number of Assamese speakers in the census rose from 31.4% in 1931 to 56.7% in 1951, fueling suspicions in Cachar about a strategy to make Assamese the dominant group in postcolonial Assam. This spike in the number of Assamese speakers had in fact occurred at the cost of Bengali speakers: the separation of Sylhet and the decision to regard Assamese as the mother tongue by a sizeable number of Bengali Muslim peasants (Baruah 1999:97). The demand to make Assamese the state language followed a convention on Indian federalism, which had recognized the linguistic nature of state provinces, bestowing a “public identity” to a language in the process. With recurring reconfiguration of territory, a rise in migration, and finally the influx of refugees, this “public identity” became “perpetually contested,” and made Assamese nationalists at times “ethnic exclusivists despite their intentions” (Baruah 1999:100).

17A steady stream of refugees began entering Assam due to the religious violence of 1947. This flow persisted throughout the 1950s and the 1960s, leading up to the War of Liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. Hence, the Partition meant a “fundamentally different set of memories” for Bengali speaking Hindus in Assam, particularly in Cachar and parts of the Brahmaputra valley (Baruah 2020:61–63). Compared to its western counterpart, the eastern sector lacked the conditions for systematic refugee rehabilitation. Dismal rates of registrations and undocumented land transactions allowed economically well-off refugees to settle initially. Later, many stayed on with relatives and acquaintances who had previously settled in Assam. Soon after independence, the refugee issue became a bone of contention between the government of Assam and the central government. Anti-refugee violence began to occur (Ghoshal 2021:120). Highlighting Assam’s share of landless indigenous people, the Congress state government declared its inability to settle the burgeoning refugees due to land scarcity. This position received little sympathy from the national Congress leaders like Nehru and Patel (Saikia 2016:82–84). The Assam government instead offered “allowances” and “resettlement loans” that fell woefully short of addressing the refugee’s sufferings. However, by the mid-1950s, the state government relented, and actively engaged in refugee rehabilitation (Saikia 2016:86–87). Regions bordering East Bengal/Pakistan, such as Assam, were thus sucked into “big Partition politics” and became “refugee absorbent states” (Ghoshal 2021:120).

18From the Assamese nationalist perspective, immigration and refugee settlement evoked a sense of geo-cultural encirclement, with West Bengal and Bangladesh abutting the state. The status of Bengali as the seventh largest spoken language globally, along with a federal “political structure where numbers could make or break a nationality” were critical talking points (Nag 2018:90; Sharma 2012). The insecurity also spilled over into cultural territory—the 1950s saw demands for Goalpara’s “return” to West Bengal being reciprocated with remonstrations to reintegrate Cooch Behar into Assam (Ghoshal 2021:212–213).

RECALLING AN EXISTENTIAL DREAD: NARRATIVES OF LINGUICIDE

19In Assamese vernacular print media, the CAA was most commonly perceived through the lens of language and linguistic demography. There was palpable anxiety about Assamese speakers becoming a linguistic minority and an obsession with comparing their number with Bengali speakers in the state. This anxiety fed existential doubts about the future of the Assamese language, comparing the CAA to colonial era cultural policies, as evoked in the newspaper article quoted below:

It is time for the Assamese jati [nation] to introspect, and not criticize others. The Assamese language is only running on emotion. It is facing two challenges: internal and external. Every day the planet is losing ten languages. When a word dies, it also means the death of a culture. From 1826 till today, the dangers faced by the Assamese language have not vanished (Amar Asom 2019a).

Whether it is written into the Constitution or not, the only way to keep Assamese as a state-language is to ensure that Assamese speakers remain in the majority (Amar Asom 2019d).

21Citing the example of the neighboring state of Tripura, an editorial in Amar Asom argued that “constitutional safeguards” did not stop indigenous communities there from becoming a linguistic minority (Amar Asom 2019e).

22One important reason for this heightened preoccupation with the prospect of losing cultural and linguistic identity was the trepidation that the CAA would facilitate the entry into the country of nearly two crore Hindus of Bangladeshi nationality, forming a permanent vote-bank for the ruling party. Comments reportedly made by certain leaders of Bangladesh-based Hindu organizations were mentioned, at times in exaggerated tones, to underline the possibility of the entire Hindu Bangladeshi population coming to Assam and Northeast India. An open letter by an essayist and columnist who also runs an active social media page (and happens to be an Assamese Brahmin), interestingly, was directly addressed to such incomers with a warning:

[T]here would not be any difference between you and the serf of a zamindar. You will have to dance to the tunes of the government. In Assamese, there is a saying sthan erile maan jai [dishonor follows when you leave your rightful place/land] (Amar Asom 2019f).

23This open letter reflected the desperation and sense of hopelessness with the situation as the CAA had already become a law. Under such trying circumstances, perhaps an appeal to its intended beneficiaries could somehow work? This insecurity ultimately fed into fears of cultural subordination and linguistic domination, which became a recurring theme in anti-CAA writings. Immediately after the CAA was passed, Assamese newspapers carried the translation of the famous French short story “The Last Lesson” by Alphonse Daudet. Set in the historical aftermath of France’s defeat by Prussia in 1871, it tells the story of how the French language was replaced with German in the territories annexed by Prussia. This reproduction of the story served to imply a parallel with the historical memory of “Bengali imposition” in nineteenth-century Assam. A retired bureaucrat who had formerly served as governor in the neighboring state of Arunachal Pradesh wrote an article warning against ignoring the “lesson of history” when Assamese was sidestepped in favor of Bengali from 1836 to 1873 (Amar Asom 2019g). An article by a widely renowned educationist, scholar, and scientist gauged that this decision had inflicted more damage than invasions and colonialism:

In the 19^th century, under the Burmese atrocities, the Assamese had barely survived. The British came soon enough, and the Assamese lost their freedom with the Yandaboo treaty … However an even greater danger was yet to arrive—a threat to self-respect: Now in 1836, there was a threat to language (Axomiya Protidin 2019a).

24This memory of “linguistic imposition” was also coupled with a feeling of relative deprivation and inferiority primarily vis-à-vis Bengali (and also other regionalisms like Tamil, Oriya, and Marathi). For instance, an article by a scientist and university professor argued:

While the so-called Scottish enlightenment turned out to be a golden revolution of Bengali society in the field of socio-culture, education and literature, the Assamese language was going through ignominies. Even today, despite Assamese being a highly established Indian language having won two Jnanpith Awards, the Assamese speaking people look at the Bengali intelligentsia with suspicion (The Assam Tribune 2019a).

25In an article entitled “Two Restless and Mutually Suspicious jati (nation),” it was argued that the “richer cultural capital and numerical superiority” of the Bengali language, coupled with the fact that Bengal was the first province to come under the British Raj, had made the Bengalis “more confident” as a nationality than the Assamese (Amar Asom 2019h). This fact made it less likely for Hindu Bengalis who would gain citizenship through the CAA to accept the Assamese language (Amar Asom 2019h). A senior journalist from the Sixth Scheduled hill district of Karbi Anglong argued in his article about Bengali cultural pride as shown below:

Like the Assamese, the Bengalis are also conscious of their linguistic culture. Wherever they settle in some numbers, they strive to establish a Rabindra vidyapith and Kalibari, and keep their linguistic cultural discourse alive … Bengali is a global language … Two states in India viz. Tripura and West Bengal are Bengali majority … Only one state in India has Assamese majority (Amar Asom 2019i).

26Reflecting the academically discredited but emotively useful trope of a “Bengali conspiracy,” these narratives underlined how print media fell back on collective memory in their effort to comprehend the CAA. These print media narratives outlined the CAA as an event that transplanted the collective memory of the nineteenth-century imposition of Bengali into the political present, authoritatively flattening the nuances in that history (O’Connor 2019).

27These memories were also partly fueled by fears of political alignment between Bengali Muslims and Bengali Hindus based on their mutual fidelity to the Bengali mother tongue. The journalist MS Prabhakara (2012:37) had once insightfully remarked that the decision by Bengali Muslims to list Assamese as their first language in the census was not a “reassurance” for the Assamese nationalist, but rather a “reminder” about the Bengali Muslim community’s “crucial bargaining power.” This decision remained a fraught one, caught between being a natural outcome of cultural integration/assimilation and political expediency. The growing specter of demographic change—now bolstered by the BJP’s campaigns evoking a Bangladeshi Muslim takeover of Assam’s society and polity—remains a politically sensitive issue. However, while the BJP’s emphasis has been on the religious character of this alleged demographic offensive, the reaction to the CAA brought the contradiction of language to the fore in the regional/vernacular media. The postcolonial journeys of Hindu and Muslim Bengalis in Assam have included moments of both unity and fragmentation. Both Assamese nationalist thinkers and progressive intellectuals sought to assimilate or integrate the latter over time. A significant section of Bengali Muslims started to list their mother tongue as Assamese in the census and educate their children in Assamese-language schools. However, the violence against linguistic minorities, particularly Bengali speakers, during the Assam Agitation in the 1980s paved the way for the formation of the United Minorities Front (UMF), as Hindu and Muslim Bengalis united to secure their political and socio-cultural rights in Assam. The creation of a new party was perceived as detrimental by Assamese nationalists who saw it as a convergence in favor of the common language i.e., Bengali, sidelining differences over religion. It was also seen as an obstacle to the gradual assimilation of Muslim Bengalis who had already declared fealty to Assamese culture and its language. These fears were echoed in regional print media during the anti-CAA agitation. What if such a political alliance were to be repeated? It was impossible to rule out that—over the inevitable and unpredictable course of time—Muslim Bengalis would extend political support to Hindu CAA beneficiaries (Amar Asom 2019g). As noted in an article by the senior journalist that was mentioned earlier:

We must not forget that … UMF was formed due to linguistic sentiments. Today the Hindus and Muslims amongst Bengali speakers are divided. Yet, it is impossible that they will not come together in the interests of politics and language. Then either Ajmal or Shiladitya will become the Chief Minister! The emotional bond of Bengalis with their language is many times more than the emotional bond of Assamese speakers with the Assamese language. East Pakistan became independent because of this sentiment (Amar Asom 2019i).

28This excerpt betrays a sense of self-deprecation and self-doubt concerning the vitality and appreciation of the Assamese language among its speakers. As the article further notes, since the apparent love for the mother tongue led to the creation of Bangladesh, one cannot deny the possibility of language trumping religious identity. It also refers to Badruddin Ajmal and Shiladitya Dev. The former is a businessman-cum-politician who founded the AIUDF, a party commonly seen to represent and hold sway over Bengali Muslims. The latter is a BJP politician regarded as a strongminded Hindutva ideologue and voice for Bengali Hindus. Their “becoming” Chief Minister is used metaphorically, alluding to a time when, because of the growing strength of immigrants, the Assamese would lose political power in Assam. The entry into the country of Hindus from Bangladesh, wrote a retired bureaucrat and social worker who had also served as a BJP spokesperson, was an ominous “prelude” to losing political power in the future (The Assam Tribune 2019b).

29As expounded in an article by a veteran Muslim academic and political commentator of Assam, the reigning anxiety was the question: what would the people who suddenly became citizens of the country do? Would they remain Bengalis or assimilate with the Assamese? How would the Assamese react to future census reports? Would there be demands to make Bengali the state language after three decades or demands to change Assam’s name? (Amar Asom 2019j). Without summarily dismissing the relevance of these fears, it can be argued that the writings at this stage also border on the hysterical. There was also cynical speculation that the cut-off date of the CAA would be amended in the future. In some writings, the authors, such as the one written by a columnist and human resource expert, were misinformed that the CAA was only meant for Assam and no other states of India (Amar Asom 2019k). Some articles, for instance an editorial in Axomiya Protidin entitled “Is This an Attempt to Make Guinea Pigs Out of the Jati?,” believed that the CAA beneficiaries even if accommodated in other states of India, would find their way into Assam (Axomiya Protidin 2019b). An editorial in The Sentinel titled “Will Assam Burn Again?” expressed grief that despite the fact that Assam agreed to accept “pre-1971 immigrants” in accordance with the Assam Accord, the “rest of India had never come forward to share Assam’s burden” (The Sentinel 2019a). The relative absence of discussion around the NRC in the same light as the CAA in the newspaper articles during this period was reflective of how, unlike the Indian mainland, the NRC was not considered a conjoined twin with the CAA. For the Assamese press, the NRC, in sharp contrast to the CAA, was a legal exercise that was in keeping with the steps necessary to protect Assam from illegal immigration. An article by a university professor, commentator, and literary critic passionately stressed that the Assamese people’s “religion” is their language, a fact that apparently “other Indians could not understand” (Axomiya Protidin 2019c). An editorial in Axomiya Protidin further argued that:

The CAB’s main essence is nothing but a signal of the ruling regime’s hidden agenda of Hindutva … The main aim is to weaken the strong linguistic-cultural nationalisms and micro sub-nationalisms in different parts of India (Axomiya Protidin 2019d).

30This anxiety was not only limited to the BJP’s ideological goals but also to the national political parties in opposition, particularly the Indian National Congress. It was suspected that, to display their secular credentials, they would remove the religion-specific criteria in the CAA and open up citizenship to all undocumented immigrants (Amar Asom 2019b). To add forces to such an opposition would be self-defeating since such a “secularized” CAA, argued a noted novelist and retired public-sector undertaking general manager in his article, could mean the creation of a “Tripushmir” in Assam, indicating the inflow of both Hindus and Muslims from Bangladesh, cleverly invoking the minoritization of indigenous tribes in Tripura and the exodus of Hindus from Kashmir (Amar Asom 2019l).

31The print media had, moreover, carried public statements issued by various Bengali organizations in the Brahmaputra valley. These statements condemned the CAA for being unconstitutional and alleged that it drove the narrative of Bengalis being virtual refugees. Organizations like the Bangali Joutho Xommonoi Xomiti (United Bengali Association for Harmony) unequivocally stated that the Assamese language in Assam was safe, and that the Bengalis who had settled in the Brahmaputra valley had integrated into Assamese culture, adopting Assamese for everyday use, and in some instances, as the medium of education. In Guwahati, groups such as the Axomiya Bengali Samaj (Assamese Bengali Society) sat in demonstrations. These news reports were significant in bolstering the image of a united front, with long-settled Bengalis who were now natives of Assam resolutely opposing the CAA.

32The question of land coming under increased pressure due to accelerated demographic change was also evoked in some writings. For instance, one article argued that land was already in short supply due to migrant settlements, tea-growing capitalists, and the natural vagary of soil erosion. The grave nature of this situation was expressed in terms of the length and breadth of Assam: “Travelling by bus or train, from Sadiya to Dhubri, one cannot find vacant land where one could think of settling down” (Amar Asom 2019m). Consider the following excerpt from an opinion piece by a cultural studies scholar that described the general despondence in what has been apparently happening in the villages:

The parents have sold their land to buy the son a motor-bike, and arranged a space for adda [hangout] in the courtyard. The bamboo grove that lay in the backyard had been cut and sold to a paper-mill, under the ruse that it was making the homestead damp ….The children do not recognize omora, jolfai etc. [hog plum and olive]. Digholoti, makhiyoti, torapat [types of leaves that are used in cultural festivals of the Assamese] have but all disappeared (Amar Asom 2019n).

33The writing above captures the melancholic mood triggered by the CAA. The loss of land was equated with the loss of cultural knowledge traditions and cultural identity. Under the increasing pressures of consumerism, commercialization and modern life, essential elements of Assamese life were being abandoned, sold off, or degraded. This sense of hopelessness accompanied the sense of shock and disbelief caused by the CAA.

AN INDIFFERENT CENTRE: OLD RESENTMENTS AND AGITATIONS

34The anti-CAA writings openly decried the Centre’s refusal to heed the cries from Assam. The sense of dread was captured in emotive headlines printed a day after the CAA was passed in the Lok Sabha—for instance, Dilliye jaari korile Axomiyar mrityu porowana! (Delhi has prepared the death-warrant for the Assamese nation!). The CAA was redefined as another dark chapter in the history of the jati (nation), which had to wage one struggle after another throughout its modern history. Illustrating this sentiment, an article by a postgraduate student of politics claimed: “Looking at the current situation, it will not be wrong to say that the history of Assam has been a history of survival within the Indian state” (The Assam Tribune 2019c).The bitterness at the failure to keep Assam away from the CAA was expressed through language noting that Assam is a postcolonial colony. The CAA was yet another instance of Assam’s political fate being dictated from New Delhi. For instance, an editorial in Axomiya Protidin argued that:

Having waged one gono andolan [mass agitation] after another, every Assamese has realized by now that in this part of India, colonial rule and domination still continue. Except for one or two state governments, every state government has ruled Assam in its capacity as New Delhi’s broker (Axomiya Protidin 2019e).

35The CAA came to be seen as accelerating the post-colonial centralization of the Indian state, and an attempt to politically dominate a multicultural India (Axomiya Protidin 2019f). For instance, it was argued in another editorial of Axomiya Protidin: “In third-world nations like India, democratic governments should never be given majority in the Parliament …. Coalition governments are the best for this country. At least, in some issues, decisions could remain under control”(Axomiya Protidin 2019g). In his short essay, a political essayist, social critic and thinker invoked the political consciousness of the Assamese during the 1990s, a time of intense counter insurgency operations, extrajudicial executions, custodial deaths, and sexual violence against civilians. The anti-CAA protests came close, remarked the author, to reviving Assamese nationalism’s ability to challenge the state’s coercive excesses and the hegemonic projects of the Indian state (Axomiya Protidin 2019h). Interestingly, some writings expressed a feeling of sharing the same fate as the Kashmiris, who had lost the provisions offered by Article 370 and Article 35A three months earlier. Like the abrogation of Article 370, old wounds, the writings claimed, were reopened with the CAA in Assam. An unfortunate consequence of such a policy, as noted by a legal scholar in an op-ed article, meant “India had moved decades back” on these sensitive matters (The Assam Tribune 2019d). These small instances articulating solidarity with a shared destiny pointed towards a broader universalism: “First in Kashmir on the 5^th of August [2019] and now at an interval of 130 days in Assam and Northeast India … the history of the two rajyas [was different]—Assam did so till 200 years ago and Kashmir till some 70 years ago” (Axomiya Protidin 2019i). An editorial in The Sentinel added the CAA 2019 to a list of unpopular and controversial laws that were thrust on Assam, like the AFSPA and IM(D)T Act (The Sentinel 2019b).

36The traumatic memory of the Assam Movement was extensively mentioned in these writings, with the fear of prolonged civil unrest and ethnic conflict looming large. These writings argued passionately against repeating the “mistakes of the past,” most particularly those committed during the Assam Movement. It was feared that such mistakes could derail the anti-CAA protests (Deka 2025). As demonstrated by the author elsewhere, many writings also expressed profound cynicism over the trustworthiness of any new regional political party arising from the anti-CAA agitation (Deka 2023). The exercise of reason and logic, presence of rational supporters, inclusivity of participation, and restraint from targeting any community were all regarded as essential (The Assam Tribune 2019e; Axomiya Protidin 2019j; Amar Asom 2019o). Lasting for nearly six years, the Assam Movement left an enduring impact on the multi-ethnic life of Assam. This period witnessed an unprecedented state-society break, with picketing, voluntary arrests, blockades, the killing of protesters by the state, and the targeting of political dissidents, primarily those from the Left. Some of the worst pogroms in independent India, such as the Nellie massacre in 1983, occurred at the height of the Assam Movement. It formally ended with the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985. The Assam Accord’s central provisions such as cultural protection of the “Assamese people” (Clause 6) and the detection-cum-deportation of undocumented foreigners (Clause 5) were never fully realized, paving the way for further contestation in the future, like the updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2013–2019. Closure thus remained elusive. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), the political party that came to power riding on the Assam Movement’s legacy, failed to satisfy the primary demands of the agitation and instead got entangled in corruption and maladministration.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

37Four years after it was passed, the CAA was finally implemented in March 2024, even as it awaited a final verdict in the Supreme Court of India. Its enforcement did not revive the agitation and failed to capture popular attention. Moreover, the Home Ministry issued a notification in September 2025, which did not technically amend the CAA, but exempted undocumented foreigners from the same religious communities and countries as covered by the CAA from prosecution and deportation if they had entered India by December 31, 2024. The fact was not lost upon Assamese regionalist political parties, like the Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) which grew out of the anti-CAA stir, that this new reprieve could further pave the way for citizenship under the CAA by extending the cut-off date by another ten years. The AJP put the spotlight on the apparent danger posed by the CAA to the Assamese language in a scathing condemnation of the notification:

The BJP leaders know very well that the number of Assamese speakers is shrinking year by year. In every decade, the proportion of Assamese-speaking people has dropped by around 5%. According to the 2011 census, only 48% of Assam’s population spoke Assamese … [this will] accelerate the erosion of Assamese identity … This is a grave injustice (The Hindu 2025).

38This statement echoes the narratives in the vernacular/regional print media at the height of the anti-CAA protests. The vernacular/regional print media, an offshoot of the historically evolved middle-class Assamese linguistic nationalism, also resorted to collective memory. One significant example was drawing parallels between the CAA and the 19^th century imposition of Bengali as the language of instruction and administration by the colonial state. Another instance in collective recollection was Assam’s tumultuous history of instances of agitation—the ones waged over economic rights over its resources, cultural and linguistic rights, and undocumented and unregulated immigration—and their durable impact on its society and economy. These collective memories cast a long shadow over the anti-CAA writings.

39While it is not unusual for the vernacular press to contextualize fresh political developments in light of the past, it was not so much about historicizing the CAA as the desperation to comprehend the ominous possibilities that the new law evoked in the minds of the people. Far from the debates and slogans in the national parliament, this showed how the common Assamese people grappled with the event of the CAA’s passing. It reflected the role of the print media as a public historian providing a site for the expression of collective memory (Kitch 2002; Neiger 2020). However, most of these recollections did not adequately mention the violence experienced by ethno-linguistic minorities, particularly during the Assam Agitation, reflecting the continuing dominance of ethnocentric concerns in the print media, but were at the same time concerned about preserving inter-ethnic and communal peace. The documentation and observations regarding the anti-CAA protests of December 2019 and their reflections in the regional print media shed a compelling light on a brief but stormy event in postcolonial Assam.