Barak Valley sees 'identity' victory in citizenship bill

GUWAHATI: The support for the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in the Barak Valley, which was sliced out of Sylhet in a referendum in 1947, is not just about displaced Bengali Hindus from Bangladesh and East Pakistan settled in the valley seeing a ray of hope to fulfil their citizenship aspirations. It is actually an attempt of these people to overcome the fractured identity after Partition they are yet to come to terms with.
Comprising the three districts of Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj, the valley continues to deal with the question of identity vis-a-vis the Brahmaputra Valley that is vehemently opposing the bill again for the same reason - identity.

According to history researcher and writer Sanjib Deb Laskar, the memories of displacement of a large number of Hindus from Sylhet in the erstwhile East Pakistan following Partition and later in 1971 after the Bangladesh Liberation War finds expression in the Barak Valley which is trying hard to protect its 'distinctive identity' as being once part of the linguistically undivided landscape of Sylhet. "Support for the bill has very much to do with those memories of Partition and displacement. It is another issue how much the bill will serve its purpose in overcoming that fractured identity," said Deb.

Bhasha Shahid Station Shahid Smaran Samiti general secretary Rajib Kar said victims of Partition who have taken shelter in India cannot be made stateless. "We support the bill just not on the basis of religion. Those who have taken shelter in India after facing persecution also have their rights and we cannot make them stateless people," he added.

BJP, in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and 2016 assembly election, renewed citizenship hopes of the people of Barak Valley to win the support of Bengali Hindus. Moreover, people of this belt are jittery now as names of approximately 40% of them did not figure in the first draft of National Register of Citizens published on December 31 last year. So, it's no surpise that the bill is receiving overwhelming support in this belt with the saffron party at the helm of affairs.

Laskar pointed out that unlike the Brahmaputra Valley, where economic factors propelled migration from different parts of erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) before and after Partition, in the Barak Valley the migration was overwhelmingly from Sylhet which was an integral part of Assam from 1874 to 1947. "Cultural factor was the primary cause of migration to the Barak Valley," he said.

Sylhet was added to Assam when it became a province in 1874. Many in the Barak Valley still question the transparency of the referendums on July 6 and 7 in 1947. In the referendum, 56.6% votes were cast in favour of Muslim-majority Sylhet's merger with Pakistan and 43.4% supported the region to be part of Assam.

"In the Barak valley, Bengali Hindus with their distinctive Sylheti dialect migrated predominantly from Sylhet. But in the pre-Partition era, Muslims from different parts of the then Bengal province were settled by the British for agricultural growth in the Brahmaputra Valley. Between 1947 and 1971, those who fled East Pakistan and entered the Brahmaputra Valley were also not from a particular region across the border," argued Laskar.

To many historians, the genesis of the conflict between Brahmaputra and Barak valleys on linguistic identities is in the inclusion of Sylhet under Assam province. With Sylhet in Assam, Brahmaputra Valley's concern over 'Bengali domination' became preponderant almost in every sphere of life, giving rise to the need of preserving Assamese language.

Between 1947 and 1971, there were many waves of migration from across the border to the Barak valley, further accentuating the identity question on language, as in the opposition to Assamese as the official language in the language movement of 1960s. The Barak Valley witnessed one of the largest migrations in 1965 during Ayub Khan's regime in Pakistan. Refugees from Bangladesh kept migrating to the valley even after March 24, 1971- the cutoff date mentioned in the Assam Accord to detect and deport illegal migrants.

In view of this historical background, it was quite natural for the Brahmaputra Valley to oppose the bill when the Joint Parliamentary Committee visited the state recently to conduct a public hearing. For a state that went through different waves of migration from erstwhile East Pakistan and Bangladesh thereafter, granting citizenship to religious minorities from that country, as sought by the bill, is being seen by a large section of civil society groups as a grave threat to the cultural identity of Assamese people.