Framework for Assam Accord

It is a matter of great regret that the vital clauses of the Assam Accord that was signed away back in August 1985 with the basic objectives of detecting and deporting illegal migrants of Bangladesh/East Pakistan origin from Assam, has remained unimplemented despite the passing of nearly four decades. Though the fact remains that the Accord should have fixed 1951 as the cut-off year, successive governments have failed even to implement in letter and spirit the task of detecting and deporting the post-1971 infiltrators. Various factors can be identified as having been responsible for this. As far as the Congress governments were concerned, it was clear that those were not at all interested in detecting and deporting the illegal migrants. The basic consideration was drawing electoral gains; it is an open secret that names of large numbers of illegal migrants had entered the state electoral rolls allegedly because of the Congress party. About the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) which had formed the government twice, the less said the better. Looking back at various analyses, one can easily surmise that the AGP had not only lacked the basic will to detect and deport the illegal migrants but had also lacked the capability of understanding the legal aspects of the issue and placing things in the right perspective before the Supreme Court and the Union government. The BJP, which had come to power in 2016 and 2021 however to date appears to be better than the Congress and the BJP in that it has displayed the basic willingness to do something. It was this government that had completed the NRC (though it requires a thorough revision as there have been large-scale allegations of names of several lakh illegal migrants and their progenies being registered there through fraudulent means), activated the Foreigners Tribunals and has taken several measures to evict the illegal migrants from government land and land belonging to the Vaishnavite institutions. While the Gauhati High Court last week asked the government to take steps to ensure that the Foreigners Tribunals have the minimum decent working conditions, the State Government on Friday constituted an eight-member sub-committee to prepare a framework for implementation of all clauses of the Assam Accord, especially the report on Clause-6 prepared by the high-power committee. The sub-committee will emphasize the implementation of Clauses 7, 9 and 10 of the Assam Accord, besides the National Register of Citizens (NRC) update, issues of flood and erosion, rehabilitation of families of martyrs and victims of Assam Agitation. This is a positive step in the right direction.