Assam Accord: Gorkhas in Assam seek protection under Clause 6

GUWAHATI: The Gorkhas of Assam have sought a gazette notification for their inclusion for constitutional safeguards as per clause 6 of the Assam Accord.

The Accord was signed in 1985 between the Centre and the All Assam Students’ Union at the end of the six-year-long bloody “Assam Agitation” or anti-immigrants’ agitation.

The Accord’s clause 6 says: “Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people”.

According to a centrally-formed high-level committee on clause 6, “Assamese people” are those who or whose forefathers have been citizens of India, residing in Assam, from on or before January 1, 1951.

“The Assam Accord clause 6 committee report did not mention anything about the constitutional, legislative, and administrative safeguards of the Gorkhas of Assam under clause 6 of the Assam Accord,” said the Bharatiya Gorkha Yuva Parisangh (BGYP), which is the youth wing of Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh.

The report suggests that 1951 is the cut-off year for defining Assamese people whereas the Gorkhas had fought for saving their motherland Assam from the Burmese invasion in 1826 that culminated in the signing of the Yandabo Treaty, the BGYP said.

It said the Gorkhas were permanently settled in Assam’s scheduled areas since the last part of the 18th century as graziers and cultivators obtaining grazing/khuti permits.

“The Gorkhas of Assam strongly objected to the conspiracy of inclusion of Assam in East Pakistan by the Muslim League during the pre-independent era of India. The Gorkhas were declared as a protected class by the British in 1947...” the BGYP said.

Stating that the Gorkhas played significant roles in the freedom movement and attained martyrdom, the organisation said the community also contributed immensely to the preservation of the Assamese language during the time of language movement.

Recently, Assam’s Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had purportedly agreed that the Gorkhas in Assam were “one of the ancient communities” and that they would be “treated at par with other indigenous communities”.

Welcoming Sarma’s statement, the BGYP requested the government to issue a gazette notification for the inclusion of the community within the purview of clause 6 of the Assam Accord. The Gorkhas have a population of around 25 lakh in Assam.