Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday once again brought to the fore the fact that Assam has been facing aggression from illegal migrants, because of which the indigenous people of Assam are becoming increasingly unsafe with each passing day. He made this observation while speaking at a function held on the occasion of Martyrs' Day on December 10, which marks the supreme sacrifice of Khargeswar Talukdar, the first person – a student – in the five-year-long movement in Assam (1979-85) against illegal migrants. That Assam has been facing demographic aggression from a neighbouring country is a reality no one can deny. This neighbouring country, now called Bangladesh, was once East Pakistan, and even before that East Bengal. While the people of Assam have no enmity whatsoever with the people of present-day Bangladesh, one however can and should never forget that it is this well-designed demographic aggression from erstwhile East Bengal or East Pakistan (as well as present-day Bangladesh) that has pushed the indigenous people of Assam to the brink. While those belonging to Assam and had been witness to the Assam movement of 1979-85 know what the issue is, it is imperative that the present and future generations are being repeatedly told about how a demographic invasion has been threatening the very existence of the Assamese and other indigenous communities of the state. The present generations must also be told that the demography of Assam, including that of the Barak Valley, was not like what they see now even up to 100 years ago. While it was the British who had clubbed Assam with East Bengal in 1905, it was the Muslim League born immediately thereafter in Dhaka which had hatched the conspiracy to push in hundreds and thousands of Muslim peasants from East Bengal to Assam with the long-term objective of making it a Muslim-majority province. The percentage of immigrant Muslims in Assam about 120 years ago was not as it is now. The same is the case with the Barak Valley, which was a tribal-majority valley when the British had arrived in Assam in 1826. But while the tribal population in the Barak Valley has been literally wiped out, there is a long-term conspiracy to also wipe out the indigenous communities of the Brahmaputra Valley. Former Assam Governor Gen SK Sinha (also a former Vice-Chief of the Indian Army) had in 1998 expressed apprehension that the illegal migrants will one day not only demand merger of Assam's border districts with Bangladesh but will also try to sever the entire Northeast from India. The Supreme Court of India had in a very important judgment in July 2005 described the immigration as an external invasion of India's Northeast, and had directed the Government of India to protect its people and territory from this external demographic invasion. Chief of Defence Services Gen Bipin Rawat, who had died in a tragic helicopter mishap a few days ago, had in February 2018 openly stated that the illegal migrants had also entered into electoral politics with the intention of making inroads into Parliament and the Assembly. While Chief Minister Sarma on Friday said around 40 per cent of Assam's land was in the grip of aggression from illegal immigrants, the fact remains that occupation of land, irrespective of whether it belongs to the government or private indigenous individuals, is being done in a very calculated manner by the illegal migrants and their protectors. In certain districts, families belonging to indigenous communities are being compelled by various means to sell off their ancestral land at throwaway prices to the illegal migrants and abandon their villages. For this the illegal migrants apply various tactics like thefts, lootings, kidnapping and forcibly marrying girls and women, cutting ripe paddy of the indigenous communities. Successive governments in the state have preferred to remain mute spectators to such incidents for reasons best known to them. There is a systematic approach to occupy all kinds of professions like masons, drivers, electricians, plumbers and construction and agricultural labourers by the illegal migrants, yet organizations like All Assam Students' Union, ABSU etc too have only remained silent to such incidents. It is in this backdrop that the Chief Minister's statement is very timely and significant. It is a wake-up call for every Assamese, a member of every indigenous community of the state. It is a wake-up call for the student bodies, and the various socio-cultural and literary bodies whose proclaimed objective is to work for the protection of indigenous languages, culture and identity.