Guwahati: ‘Scepticism’, ‘mired in vagueness’, ‘bereft of clarity’, and ‘deliberately misleading’, are some of the ways in which Assam’s opposing political voices have characterised the state government’s decision to implement a majority of the recommendations made in the Justice Biplab Kumar Sharma committee report.
The committee was constituted by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2019 to implement Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, considered to be the ‘soul’ of Assamese identity and its definition.
The Assam government’s decision to implement 52 of the total 67 recommendations, by spring of 2025 or by the onset of the Assamese new year of Bohag Bihu, has unleashed a torrent of questions amongst political opponents in the state.
The Assam Accord — signed between former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and leaders of the All-Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) on August 15, 1985 — ended six years of violent agitation stemming from anti-foreigners’ sentiments and illegal immigration that rocked Assam between 1979 and 1985.
Clause 6 states:
“The 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”.
The delay in the implementation of Clause 6 has often been blamed on politics from both ends of the spectrum. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claims that the Congress party was wary about executing the clause citing its proclivity to vote bank-politics.
Now, the terms of reference for the Biplab Kumar Sharma committee say:
“To examine the effectiveness of actions taken since 1995 to implement Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, to hold discussions with various stakeholders, to assess the level of reservation of seats in state assembly and local bodies only for Assamese people, to suggest measures to protect the state’s indigenous languages, to recommend the appropriate level of reservations in employment under the state government for the Assamese people, and to suggest any other measures as may be necessary to protect, preserve and promote cultural, social, linguistic identity and language of the Assamese.”
The BJP’s stand
At a rally in Moran in upper Assam, during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, “The Congress is in the habit of ‘latkane bhatkane’ (dilly-dallying) for projects”.
On September 7, Sarma posted on X:
“We will be implementing 52 of the 67 recommendations of the Justice (Retd) Biplab Sarma Commission. On the rest 15, we will proactively engage with Govt of India to implement them at the earliest such as reservation of seats in Assembly and Parliament.”
On the same day, while addressing the media, the chief minister said:
“The first recommendation that we will not be made at our level is reservation of 80% seats for Assamese people in assembly, Lok Sabha and panchayat. There are two difficulties here, one is how people in Barak Valley and in Sixth Schedule areas view this issue. In the next few days, we will talk to them and with the government of India. I cannot promise the government of India, but the government of Assam takes very seriously, and with sincere desire, the remaining 15 recommendations with the government of India.”
He continued:
“The state government did not touch the report for a long time because we were considering the difficult parts. Our perspective is that while we are focusing on the tough aspects, why should we leave aside the 52-53 recommendations that we can implement. From that viewpoint we are presenting to you which 52 points we aim to implement. I will reiterate that the recommendations related to language will be implemented in the regions excluding the Sixth Schedule areas and Barak Valley, after consultation with the people there. Therefore, we will currently implement the language related recommendations excluding the Sixth Schedule areas and Barak Valley to ensure no misunderstanding rises among us.”
After a meeting with AASU leaders on Wednesday (September 25), Sarma informed the state’s apex students’ body organisation that Barak Valley will be exempted from implementation of the recommendations of the Justice Sharma Committee report.
“We told the AASU team that the recommendations would not be implemented in the Bengali-dominated Barak Valley,” the media quoted him as saying.
The Bengali-dominated Barak Valley comprises Cachar, Hailakandi, and Karimganj districts.
Considered as an ethnic and linguistic faultline between the Assamese ethnic community based in the Brahmaputra Valley and the Bengali-speaking dominant demography in Barak Valley, the region was witness to a language agitation movement deemed violent.
On May 19, 1961, 11 Bengali youths were shot dead by an Assam Police contingent when they opened fire at Bengali protestors who had gathered at Silchar Railway Station to protest against the then Assam government’s circular that sought to make Assamese the official language of the state.
In May 2023, to commemorate the 62nd anniversary of the language movement, chief minister Sarma in a post called the slain victims (the 11 youths) as martyrs.
This was for the first time that the state government recognised them as ‘shahids’.
“I consider them as fighters. Their ultimate sacrifice for their right to practise their mother language gave Barak Valley its unique and separate identity in Assam” Sarma had said on X. The post was written in Bengali.
What the opposition is saying
“The implementation of the committee’s recommendations can be divided into three parts –52 of which can be implemented directly by the state government, five jointly by the state and the central governments, while the rest comes within the purview of the Centre,” Sarma said at a press conference on September 7.
The Clause 6 implementation will be excluded for Barak Valley, and in 6th Schedule areas of Dima Hasao, Karbi Anglong, and Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR).
Most of the recommendations are about language protection and about land rights (constitutional guardrails) meant for the indigenous demography, according to Sarma.
On September 18, the state Congress pradesh committee addressed a press conference where they alleged that Sarma was deliberately misleading the people on implementation of Clause 6.
The Congress questioned how the Assam Accord can be implemented as long as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is there. The party claimed that the Union government didn’t officially accept the report and that Sarma is playing with the sentiments of the people.
“Sarma should provide us with data as to what kind of work is being done for the implementation of the Assam Accord. He has no guts to talk about it and should forget about implementing it. Why doesn’t Sarma initiate the process to finally settle the definition of Khilonjiya (indigenous). This is a must for the implementation of the accord,”Debabrata Saikia, leader of the opposition in the state legislative assembly said.
He added:
“ I ask him to take this report and hand it over to the BJP national president so that he can deliver it to Modi. Sarma’s government has removed the provision of Assamese language, which was once mandatory, from the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) Exam. Sarma once said in the state assembly that he doesn’t want the definition of Khilonjiya. He was replying to a question by someone in the assembly about the definition of it. His statements are vague and lack clarity and are only intended to mislead the innocent people of Assam.”
The Justice Biplab Sharma committee comprised 14 members, mostly senior representatives from the AASU, a senior journalist, authors, professors, retired IAS officers and senior bureaucrats including the advocate generals from Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, and the joint secretary of North-east (MHA).
Similarly, Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, Rajya Sabha MP and former senior journalist, who was among the many stakeholders invited for consultation to the committee, described Sarma’s stand on implementing the recommendations as ‘meaningless’ and ‘bereft of reasoning’.
Speaking to The Wire Bhuyan said:
“It is quite good to hear about it but at the same time there are questions that Sarma must answer. The first condition of giving constitutional protection to the Assamese people is to decide upon the definition of who is an Assamese. Firstly, he should specify for whom the recommendations will be implemented, and whose protection is he talking about. Sarma worked against the Assamese people and our sentiments when CAB was ushered in. He is playing a dangerous game and is playing with our sentiments.”
“He should give us the definition. He wants to give land of the indigenous people to the outsiders. That the report itself was kept aside for four years is an insult to our sentiments. If the constitutional protection to indigenous people can be given by the state government, then why on earth did the Union government form the Sharma committee. I take his statements on implementing [the] recommendations with utter scepticism,” he added.
The 141-page committee report is divided into nine chapters followed by various annexures. Chapter four of the report talks about analysis of response and suggestions from various stakeholders. It states that:
“The Assam Accord, however, does not provide any such definition. The absence of definition of the Assamese People, its criteria and characteristics, has sparked much debate, shaping and challenging the identity discourse of the region, yet failing to provide any consensus on the definition over the decades.” (sic)
Rasel Hussain, the general secretary of Raijor Dal, a member-party of the United Opposition Forum (UOFA), a joint forum of 18 opposition parties in Assam said:
“Firstly, 57 recommendations are within the reach of the state while the rest are up to the central government. Amit Shah said in the parliament that it would implement Clause 6 word-by-word. Since March 25, 2020, the committee’s report has been lying at an office in Guwahati. It was only to placate the simmering rage of Assamese people back then in 2019 that the report was submitted to Sonowal. I ask why it wasn’t sent to the central government. There is too much vagueness surrounding Sarma’s statement on implementing the recommendations.”
Page 50 of the report states:
“The Committee, therefore, recommends reservation of seats for the Assamese people in the Assam Legislative Assembly and local bodies to the extent of 80 % which will be including the already existing reservations. The Committee is also of the view that such reservations should be appropriately affected in the constituencies of the districts which have undergone demographic changes.” (sic)
The Wire reached out to Jagdish Bhuyan, the general secretary of Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), a party-member of the UOFA. He said:
“Sarma’s ploy is to deviate from the core issue. The nodal ministry is the Ministry of Home Affairs, and it can only implement the recommendations. In Assam the report was put aside at a corner. Sarma cannot fool everyone. The core issues of reservation of jobs, land rights, political reservations are all the subjects of the Centre. The state cannot do [much there]. This is a very comprehensive report. Sarma is only misleading, and creat[ing] confusion among the people of Assam. The report was ushered in to quell the rage that peaked during the anti-CAB protests.”
The report was prepared by February 10, 2020, and then submitted to the then chief minister of Assam, Sarbananda Sonowal, on February 25, 2020. Experts said that the report was tabled to placate the simmering rage during the volatile anti-CAB (Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019) protests that engulfed the state. The violence led to the death of five people – Sam Stafford, Dipanjal Das, Ishwar Nayak, Abdul Alim and Dwijendra Panging — who lost their lives on account of alleged police firing when the protests were at its peak.
There was an internet black out for some days at that time of the protests, The state experienced a full shutdown amidst the violent demonstrations, which for many, echoed the unrest of the Assam Agitation in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Senior advocate and former AASU member Nekibur Zaman underlined that the state government should “end the confusion” and protect indigenous people.
Zaman, said, “There shouldn’t be any delay whatsoever. Politics over implementing the report has taken a toll on us and we have already lost four years. The state government should [end] the confusion and ensure constitutional protection for the indigenous people.”
The AASU on the other hand has expressed support for the decision, saying that the decades-old struggle over the constitutional safeguards for the Assamese people, the end result of which was the signing of the accord in 1985, is close to fruition.
Speaking to The Wire, AASU president Utpal Sarma said, “…I would say it is a positive development. He [Sarma] himself said the state government would be cooperating with AASU, and discussions will continue with the state government. We need results. We have extended our full support. We need positive results.”
Interestingly, AASU was a part of the protests against the CAA that took place in Assam in March this year. The CAA was passed in the parliament in 2019 and was implemented by the BJP government on March 11, 2024, just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
The protests were mostly called out by the Congress and other opposition (16) parties. At the same time, a group of around 30 non-political organisations including the AASU also called for peaceful protests against CAA. It was widely reported that at various places the copies of the Act were burnt.
In early March, it was reported that AASU would be sitting on a 12-hour hunger strike to protest Modi’s visit to Assam before elections. Critics of the BJP cited that both Sarma and Modi were out to grab electoral points out of this.
Back then AASU president Utpal Sarma told The Hindu, “The Assamese people will never accept the CAA, and we will continue our democratic and legal fight against the Centre’s bid to impose it on us.”
CAA was born out of an amendment of the Citizenship Act, 1955. CAA was then used as a tool to expedite the process of granting citizenship to non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
It allows the easing out of the required 11 years of residence under the Citizenship Act of 1955 to a mere five years. All those, except Muslims, who have entered India before December 31, 2014 were considered eligible.
In August, a 50-year-old man, Dulon Das, was granted citizenship under CAA. He became the first person in Assam to be granted citizenship under the amended Act. He entered India illegally in 1988 from Sylhet in Bangladesh and settled at Silchar in Barak Valley. This led to outrage amongst various groups.
“The recommendation should be based on legal terms. Sarma should provide constitutional protection to the indigenous people. But what is the definition of an Assamese? This is the job of the central government. The ball is in the Centre’s court,” said Ainuddin Ahmed, adviser to the All-Assam Muslim Students’ Union (AAMSU).
Interestingly, Gorky Chakraborty, an associate professor at the Kolkata-based Institute of Development Studies drew an analogy suggesting that Assamese nationalism is “ best exhibited by the Brahmaputra river”.
“The process of Assamese nationalism has always enabled various communities who were outside the domain of the caste structure to be a part of it. Ironically, the other side of this process was also apparent where the proximity from the caste Hindu core decided the process of inclusion in the Assamese nationality formation. The political compulsion of a particular time actually decided which of these two-process became dominant. So, this has been an inclusion process. In other words, Assamese nationalism formation is best exhibited by the Brahmaputra River. The river gains its enormity as the many different tributaries feed into it,” Chakraborty said.
