ASSAM TIMES POST
Guwahati : Anti-infiltration forum, prabajan Virodhi Manch has appealed to the high-level committee, instituted for implementation of clause 6 of the Assam Accord, to seek views of the state government first and “Make the exercise meaningful”
Suggesting the safeguards be given in two stages and at two different levels, the Manch’s chief Upamanyu Hazarika addressing a press conference here on Monday said, in the first stage it is necessary to reserve land, employment, trade licence, higher education opportunities for those citizens who were residents in Assam in 1951 or prior there to and their progeny.
“This will correct the imbalance and injustice to the people of Assam for taking the burden of 23 years of additional migrants, unlike the rest of India and so that the newly granted citizens post 1951 do not enjoy co-equal rights as that of the existing citizens”, Hazarika asserted.
This will ensure that all resources in Assam will be reserved only for those who are citizens in 1951 and not for those who became citizens after 1951, said the PVM chief, who is also a senior Supreme Court advocate.
“There are over 115 ethnic communities in Assam numbering from 5,000 like the Tai Phake and Tai Khamyang to 60 lakh like the Koch Rajbongshis and the Tea Tribes each facing its own threat to identity and existence”, he added.
In the second stage, Hazarika suggested each of these communities have to be enabled to secure their identity and existence.
Implementation of the safeguards have to be by either Parliament or the State Assembly by framing laws, Hazarika said.
“At the first instance, the Chief Minister, MPs and MLAs should have advanced their proposal regarding constitutional safeguards to the committee and the public could have given their suggestions because regardless of what the public may suggest or the committee may propose if the Government doesn’t want to implement it, it will be an exercise in futility. This is the modus followed by the Government in case of the Citizenship Amendment Bill where they came forward with a proposed legislation and then sought public views” he said.
Appealing the committee to first seek theviews of the Government as only then their exercise will be meaningful, the PVM head said,
“even though land is the key issue and the key reason for migration and need to be protected first for indigenous people, the Committee has still not been granted the authority and the power to give recommendations on land and trade licences, without which any safeguard is meaningless”.
The central home ministry on July 16 last had constituted a 12-member high-level committee on Assam Accord’s Clause 6 for providing constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.
