The Assam Movement

The present government has done well to recognize the sacrifice of hundreds of people who took part in the six-year-long Assam Movement (1979-85), by extending a one-time financial grant of Rs 2 lakh each to 192 persons who had sustained grievous physical injuries during that period. While this financial grant was announced on December 10, which is observed as "Martyrs' Day" to recollect the sacrifices of those who had made the supreme sacrifice while taking part in the anti-infiltration movement, this government also deserves praise for having set up a separate Directorate for Assam Accord implementation. It is worth recalling that while the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) had in 1979 launched the movement demanding the detection and deportation of illegal migrants from erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh, it culminated in the signing of the Assam Accord by the then government headed by Rajiv Gandhi on August 15, 1985. Though the Accord failed to resolve the basic issue (because it was nothing but a replica of the notorious IMDT Act insofar as fixing a cut-off date for detection and deportation of the infiltrators is concerned), it did usher in a new era of development as it also addressed several vital socio-economic issues of the state. In the retrospective, the Assam Movement must be seen from various angles. While the country for the first time woke up to the reality of infiltration and demographic invasion of Assam since the time of Partition, if not from before, it also saw for the first time overwhelming participation of people from all walks of life in a mass movement in the post-1947 era in India. While the movement leadership tried their best to maintain its non-violent character, the State however resorted to all kinds of repressive measures, which peaked during the general elections held in February 1983, causing the death of over 200 young men in just about one week or so. Significantly, the present government has, since first coming to power in 2016, given a lot of importance to the basic issues raised during the Assam Movement. While the 'jaati-mati-bheti' slogan of the BJP-led alliance in 2016 has its roots in the Assam Movement, so does the slew of measures adopted by the present regime to protect land belonging to the Xatra institutions, clearing encroachers from government land, granting land rights to the indigenous communities, to name a few. Though there were attempts by those with vested interests to project the Assam Movement as a parochial, anti-national and separatist agitation, the fact remains that it stood for protecting Assam from a dangerous design of a demographic invasion intended at fulfilling the unrealized dream of Jinnah and the Muslim League to include Assam in Pakistan.