By Wahidul Islam
Amidst all the debates of Citizenship Amendment Bill and the clutter of logics and illogic in support and against the bill, the ruling BJP’s underpinning is mostly based on the fear factor that Assam is being inhabited by all illegal Bangladeshi Muslims, therefore influx of large number of Hindus from the neighbouring country is required to maintain the Hindu majority of the state.
Although constitution doesn’t talk about a Hindu majority country but many ministers and politicians from the right wing BJP are very vocal about maintaining a Hindu majority. Himanta Bishwa Sarma, the Minister for P.W.D, Health and Finance, Assam had famously asked in 2016 asked the people of the state to choose their enemy — “the 1-1.5 lakh people or the 55 lakh people?”
The agenda is to brand all the Muslims living in the state as Bangladeshi and create an artificial fear among the majority that Muslims would snatch away all their resources and rights in near future. As per the hate propaganda the state of Assam is full of illegal Bangladeshi Muslims roaming everywhere, in the streets, pavements, villages and towns.
The nationalists and patriots sometimes caught a few of them, beat them and then hand them over to police (whom I will call defunct since millions of Bangladeshis infiltrated under their nose and roaming freely if we believe the Chauvisnist propaganda).
If we agree in principle that there were no Muslims in Assam during partition and most the Muslims of Assam are illegal Bangladeshis (according to some ministers and politicians the figure is 4 million) a few questions would arise in this context.
1. Wasn’t there any Muslims in Assam during the time of partition?
2. Who were Fakher Uddin Ali Ahmed and Sir Syed Muhammad Sadullah or Moulavi Muhammad Amiruddin? (Ask google if there are no answers)
3. Why the number of Muslim MLAs was 34 during the partition era (as per the list in http://assamassembly.gov.in/mla-1946-52), who were they?
4. As per the propaganda districts like Barpeta, Goalpara and Dhubri are occupied by Bangladeshis who migrated and settled down there by uprooting the majority post independence era, to be precise after 1971 if we think that Assam accord is constitutionally valid and legal. Then how come the MLAs of those districts were mostly Muslims during the first and second decades of Independence?
5. If the process of NRC is not efficient at all and Bangladeshis made their way to it, are the Government denying that thousands of civil and non civil officers who have dedicated their time and energy for the process are not loyal and have been sold to Bangladeshis?
6. Since a huge spectrum of the political debate in Assam is centred on either bashing AIUDF and it’s leader Badruddin Ajmal, doesn’t he have the right to fight election?
7. If Badruddin Ajmal and his alikes are Bangladeshis why doesn’t the Government of Assam take action and bar them from politics? And if they are genuine citizens of this country why is there a problem of being them in politics.
8. Most importantly how come millions of Bangladeshis infiltrated through the border when we have one of the world’s most disciplined and dedicated armed force protecting the Indo-Bangladesh border?
The real issue is about having 34% Muslims in Assam and as many as 14 Muslim MLAs in the assembly and having a respectable number of political representation. Although those politicians mostly keep themselves away from raising their voice for the interests of the community but the headache for the BJP and their Chauvisnist alikes is that there are some political representations of Muslim at least for the namesake. In short the issue is not about protecting Assam from illegal migrants or Bangladeshis, or loving the country, or having sympathy for the ‘persecuted’ minority in the neighbourhood, but about setting foot in West Bengal through sympathy and to get maximum benefit in national election by misleading the general public.
Wahidul Islam is based in Assam and can be reached at [email protected]