Why create confusion on Assam Accord base year?

Mystery shrouds over Minister’s figure about the persecuted Hindu Bangladeshis

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: Confusion over the base years of the Assam Accord concerning 1966 and 1971 was glaringly visible during the January 13, 2020 special session of the Assam Assembly. It is not known if the learned legislators were victims of the trick – if you can’t convince them, confuse them.

One has to see if what someone else says stands to reason or not. The Assam Accord makes it crystal clear that 1.1.1966 is the base year (cut-off date) for ‘detection and deletion’ of foreigners. On the contrary, March 25, 1971 is the base year (cut-off date) for ‘detection and deportation’ of foreigners.

Clause 5(1) of the Assam Accord makes it crystal clear that foreigners entering Assam between 1966 and 1971 should be detected and deleted from the electoral rolls for a period of ten years, after which they would be taken as Indian citizens automatically. However, for automatic inclusion of such people in the electoral rolls they were to register their names in the FRRO (an authority for registration), failing which they were to be deported. This makes it amply clear that 1.1.1966, according to the Assam Accord, was a cut-off date for deletion of detected foreigners from the electoral rolls, not for their deportation from India.

Clause 5 (8) of the Accord, on the other hand, says that foreigners found to have entered Assam after March 25, 1971 should be detected, deleted from the electoral rolls and expelled (deported) from India in accordance with the law. The hard fact, however, is that only 32,537 foreigners of the 1966-1971 stream were detected by Tribunals, and of them only 12,914 registered their names with the FRRO, and the remaining 19,623 did not. In accordance with the Assam Accord, the 19,623 infiltrators from East Pakistan should have been deported. However, till 2012 there are deportation records of only 2,440 of them.

The foreigners deleted from the electoral rolls for ten years and included in the electoral roll automatically after ten years was done in accordance with a condition laid down in Section 6(A) of the Citizenship Act, 1955. This Section says that foreigners of the 1966-1971 stream should be detected and deleted from the voter list for a period of ten years after which their names would appear in the voter list automatically only if such people got their names registered in the FRRO within 60 days from the date of their detection, failing which they were liable to be deported from India.

Meanwhile, the suspense over the State Government’s assertion that not more than five lakh Hindu Bangladeshis are to get India citizenship under the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) in Assam is still to be dispelled. The moot point is: how come the government asserts this figure of Hindu Bangladeshis with certainty without receiving even a single application for Indian citizenship from such people?

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