JPC hearing on Citizenship - Part II
The Assamese people, including intellectuals, are clearly in a dilemma over the issue of language versus religion as the indicator of their identity. The language was indeed the original indicator, but the gradually it tilted towards religion, especially in course of the Assam Movement from 1979 to 1985, which culminated in Assam Accord between the agitators and GoI. The Assam Movement was against Bangladeshi infiltration and the issue of a purported Muslim majority state came to fore. However, the Assam agitation leaders were too careful not to tarnish their secular image. They rubbed their shoulders with Vajpayee and company, shared the dais in public meetings held in Guwahati, but didn’t allow to be called communal or anti-Muslim.
Assamese people remained loyal to language based regionalism until the emergence of perfume baron Badaruddin’s AIUDF, which became the largest opposition party in 2011 and 9 out of 27 districts in Assam turned Muslim majority. Badaruddin’s meteoric rise in the political arena alarmed the Assamese speaking people, including the indigenous Assamese Muslims and the issue of religion gained momentum. The people who for a century considered the Bengalis as the prime threat, now began look at the Muslims as the fatal threat.
So, there exist two categories of Assamese nationalism- for one language is the criteria and religion for the other. However, the relationship of these two set of people with RSS-BJP is unpredictably occasional. For example, when it comes to power sharing, language-regionalism champion AGP joins hands with BJP, but opposes the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, or for that matter any move in favour of Hindu Bengalis.
It is to be noted that RSS and its sister organizations belonging to Sangh Parivar introduced the religion factor to the spectre of Assam regionalism. While Assamese and Bengalis have been hostile to each other, the RSS think tank came up with a new interpretation and according them, that the Muslims were exploiting the Assamese – Bengali hostility. While RSS propagated ‘Hindu’ unity between Assamese and Bengalis –Muslims wanted the Assamese to remain anti-Bengali so that the Muslim designs do not catch the Assamese eye. Such an interpretation had few takers initially in Assam, but the situation had undergone changes and a lot of language- regionalism champions, including the present Assam Chief Minister Sonowal, shifted allegiance to the religion oriented nationalism school.
The ongoing JPC hearing on the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill has been another occasion for the school of language oriented Assamese regionalism champions to come together and oppose citizenship to Hindu Bengalis.
