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Clause 6 Assam Accord: CM Sarma hopes to find legal definition of Assamese

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The attempt to define who is Assamese continues more than three decades after the signing of the Assam Accord. 

Meanwhile, Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam, recently stated that his government is looking for a “legal definition” of the Assamese people.

Moreover, Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, which provides for the defence of the Assamese people, requires such a description.

Clause 6 establishes constitutional, legislative, and administrative safeguards to protect the Assamese people’s cultural, social, and linguistic identity and legacy.

Assam Accord

While the clause discussed the safety of the Assamese people, it did not define who they were legal, according to Sarma, who recently addressed at a state conference. 

He remarked, “We hope to find a definition of Assamese people.”

Sarma stated, “In the context of the Assam Accord, notably Clause-6, we want a legal definition of Assamese.”  

In addition, he said, “All those who have lived in Assam for a long time, say 2-3 generations, are Assamese people emotionally.” They can’t be called non-Assamese.”

Several attempts have been made to sketch out Assamese.

For the quick implementation of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, the Northeast division of the Union home ministry formed a high-level committee led by Justice Biplab Kumar Sarma, a former judge at the Gauhati High Court.

However, the panel used 1951 as the starting point for defining an Assamese.

It declared that all Indian citizens who are a part of the Assamese community, or any indigenous tribal or other community of the state, and who lived in the territory of Assam on or before January 1, 1951, and their descendants, could be regarded as ‘Assamese people.’

The committee’s findings were made public in 2020 by the All Assam Students Union (AASU), which was a member of the panel, 2020.

Earlier, former state assembly speaker Pranab Gogoi had also given an Assamese definition after meeting with 50 organisations representing various ethnic groups in 2015, however, the ruling Congress and the opposition All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) were against it.

Literary physique Asam Sahitya Sabha’s former president Dhrubajyoti Bora had earlier stated, “Asam Sahitya Sabha believes that all Indian citizens who live in Assam and speak Assamese as their mother tongue or either their second or third language, irrespective of their places of origin, ethnicity, caste, or religion, are inseparable parts of the greater Assamese society and thus, they are Assamese.”

Meanwhile, former president of Kamrup Mahanagar Zila Sahitya Sabha DN Chakravartty had also sent a definition of Assamese.

However, agreement on any of these criteria is still a long way off.

According to the Assam Accord, which was signed in 1985 following a six-year anti-foreigners movement led by the AASU, the deadline for discovering foreigners in Assam is March 24, 1971.

Clause 6 of Assam Accord

Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, a major component that has been contested for decades, was the subject of a government-appointed committee’s recommendations in February. 

Assam Accord

Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, which came at the end of a campaign against Bangladeshi immigration, states: “Constitutional, legislative, and administrative safeguards, as appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve, and promote the Assamese people’s cultural, social, and linguistic identity and heritage.”

The Accord sets March 24, 1971, as the cutoff date for citizenship recognition. Former Chief Minister Prafulla Mahanta, then-AASU president and one of the signatories to the 1985 Accord, stated that immigrants who arrived before the cutoff date would have full citizenship rights. Clause 6 was introduced, to protect the “indigenous people of Assam’s” socio-political rights and culture.

Over the years, several committees have been formed to give suggestions on how to execute Clause 6. However, none of them made progress on the provision’s problematic concerns until the most recent one, which was established by the Home Ministry in 2019.

Following large protests in December and January against the Citizenship Amendment Bill, now an Act, the government pushed Clause 6 through quickly to appease the Assamese population.

The demand during the Assam agitation was for the detection and deportation of migrants who had entered the state illegally after 1951. The Assam Accord, on the other hand, set the deadline for March 24, 1971. This cutoff was used to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Assam Accord

Clause 6 is intended to provide protections to Assamese people that would not have been available to migrants between 1951 and 1971. Those who moved between 1951 and 1971 would be Indian citizens under the Assam Accord and NRC if the advice is approved, but they would not be eligible for safeguards provided for “Assamese people.”

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