KOLKATA/GUWAHATI:: As farmers exercise their constitutional right to protest in New Delhi, the locality of Kalgachia in the minoritydominated district of Barpeta in lower Assam will also engage with the Constitution, albeit in a different way. This Republic Day, Kalgachia, 120km from Guwahati, will get Assam’s fourth Samvidhaan Seva Kendra (SSK) or Constitution centre.
A year and a half since the NRC exercise and months before the assembly election, a grassroots movement in the state is making the Constitution accessible to those that need it most — the poor and marginalised Muslims of Bengali-origin (Miyas), caught in Assam’s citizenship tangle. Since December 2020, community members, local groups, and lawyers have established SSKs in three districts.
The first came up in Barpeta’s TND Bazaar last year; the next two in Sontoli (Kamrup) and Jorhat in January. Working out of unassuming buildings, the SSKs give pride of place to Assamese translations of the Preamble. The name is reminiscent of the Aadhaar seva kendra, but there the similarity ends. The SSKs double up as legal aid centres and community spaces for people marked “doubtful (D)” voters, “suspected foreigners”, or “declared foreigners” in detention centres.
“Our job is to facilitate legal aid for people asked to prove their citizenship. We want to familiarise the community with the Constitution and the rights it guarantees,” Aman Wadud, a human rights lawyer who started the initiative, said. Jorhat in upper Assam — the hub of the anti-CAA protests — also has an SSK, inaugurated on January 20. “During my social work, I have seen the most poor get marked ‘D’ voters. If the authorities visit them, they flee as they are unaware of the rights provided by the Constitution. The SSK will act like a hospital emergency ward they can approach,” Toufiqul Hussain, 58, an indigenous Muslim resident of Jorhat, said of the SSK that runs out of a 149-year-old mosque.