Immediately, after the Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) on December 11, it triggered off violent protests in Assam, and in the North-East state’s. The indigenous tribal people were spooked into believing that the new law Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was going to take away their special rights that were granted to them since the British era in 1873. That fear was exploited to the hilt by Pakistan and its allies here to further their ulterior unfinished motive of annexing Assam along with West Bengal that they had almost achieved in 1946.
The diabolical designs of Pakistan and its allies have been exposed by the Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation in its recent White Paper on the CAB. We at TheNews21 decided to cross-check and verify the historical evidences which proved to be correct.
Much of the debate today centers around The Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR), 1873, the Chin Hills Regulation of 1896, The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act 1950, the Nehru-Liaquat Ali pact of 1950,The Migration Citizenship Act of Assam, 1956, the Migration bill of 1983, the Assam Accord of 1985, the Illegal Migrant (Determination by Tribunals) Amendment bill (IMDT), 1988, the 2013 Supreme Court monitored National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the High Court verdicts of Patna, Gujarat and Meghalaya between 2011 and 2014.
What many tend to overlook and mix-up CAA with NRC, is that the NRC was the fallout of the Assam Accord signed between All Assam Students Union (AASU) leader Praful Kumar Mahanta and Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi. The Accord besides guaranteeing the protection to ethnic Assamese had called for detection and deportation of illegal immigrants. The NRC came much later in 2013.
The unrest in Assam and the North East suited Pakistan and China as the unrest forced the government to cancel Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Assam. For Pakistan the ulterior, nefarious aim is to create another Kashmir like situation in the North-East. Whereas, for China, the cancellation of the Japanese Prime Minister’s visit also serves its nefarious designs of not allowing any infrastructure development and progress in the North-Eastern region of India.
In a report submitted to the President of India on 8th November, 1998, Lt. General S K Sinha, the then Governor of Assam, had after a detailed analysis, stated that a concerted effort was made to encourage the migration of Bengali Muslims into Assam for political reasons during Syed Saadullah’s Muslim League Ministry.
He quoted what the Viceroy, Lord Wavell wrote in the Viceroy’s Journal, “The chief political problem is the desire of the Muslim Ministers to increase this immigration into the uncultivated Government lands under the slogan of Grow more Food but what they are really after, is Grow More Muslims”.
In the run-up to granting India its independence, the British set up the Cabinet Mission that was supposed to draw up the plan, and that plan was to partition India. On May 16, 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan (CMP) arbitrarily announced to group British Indian states in A, B & C categories. Assam was kept in Group C with Bengal, creating a predominantly Muslim zone in Eastern India like the one proposed to be setup in western India.
It was this failure to get Assam included in East Pakistan in 1947 has remained a source of continuing resentment among Pakistani’s. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in his book, Myths of Independence wrote, “It would be wrong to think that Kashmir is the only dispute that divides India and Pakistan, though undoubtedly the most significant. One at least is nearly as important as the Kashmir dispute, that of Assam and some districts of India adjacent to East Pakistan. To these Pakistan has very good claims”.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah then had famously declared that Assam was in his pocket. Had it not been for Gopinath Bardoloi who exposed the Muslim League leader Syed Saadullah, who was then the Prime Minister of Assam (Chief Minister), and toppled his government. After assuming charge, Bardoloi went on to reject the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 and thus prevented Assam from becoming part of East Pakistan.
In an irony of sorts, just as Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar became India’s first law minister and gave us our constitution, Pakistan too had its first Dalit law minister in the form of Jogendra Nath Mandal. He had helped the Muslim League in getting district’s like Sylhet in Assam to be put in Group C and tried to mobilize local support in favor of the Muslim League. However, a disillusioned Mandal quit his cabinet post in Pakistan on October 8, 1950 and came back to India, and died as a refugee in West Bengal in 1968.
It is not hard to understand as to why some members of the Constituent Assembly and later on some Members of Parliament had favored India throwing open its borders and allow people fleeing persecution from Bangladesh and Pakistan, come and settle in India. Also there were members who favored granting citizenship rights to Hindus and Sikhs from these countries.
Constituent Assembly member Rohini Kumar Chowdhary on August 12, 1949 had argued in favor of granting citizenship rights to the infiltrators from Bangladesh into Assam. The fallout of the assurance given by Dr Ambedkar then was The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act of 1950 which sought to protect the unique cultural and social interests of native Assamese people.
As per the law, the Center could order removal of any person who came to Assam from outside India and whose “stay in Assam is detrimental to the interests of the general public of India, or of any section thereof, or any Schedule Tribe in Assam.” The law however, excluded Hindus and Sikhs who came to India due to riots in what was then called as East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
The law was in consonance with the provisions of The Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873, what is now commonly known as “The Inner-Line” or the “The Inner-Line Permit System”. It was invented by the British as a sort of truce and to safeguard the territorial rights of the native tribals in Assam and the North East. During the passage of the CAB in both the houses of the Parliament, Union Home Minister, Amit Shah had to categorically reassure the MP’s from the North-East that this Inner-Line permit system will remain intact and protected.
The permit system so devised on August 27, 1873 was applicable to district’s of – Kamrup, Darrang, Nowgong, Sibsagar, Lakhimpur (Garo Hills), Khasi, Jainta Hills, Naga Hills, Cachar. This was further extended in 1874 to cover – Eastern Duars in Golpara district, Mokochang sub-division of Naga Hills, Sadiya Frontier Tract, Bailpara Frontier Tract, Lakhimpur Frontier and Lushai Hills district.
As per the Foreigners (Protected Areas) Order, 1958 and 1963 all areas falling between the “Inner-Line” and the “International Border’s” of the state have been declared as Protected Areas. These protected areas are located in – Arunachal Pradesh, parts of Himachal Pradesh, parts of Jammu and Kashmir, parts of Rajasthan and whole of Sikkim. Whereas, the Restricted Areas declared in 1963 are located in – Andaman and Nicobar Island’s (entire Union Territory) and part of Sikkim.
The law mandates any citizen of India, or any foreigner obtain necessary permit to enter the notified tribal areas in the region by paying requisite fees. The holder of the permit is not allowed to cross boundary set by “The Inner-Line”, he is also not allowed to carry any items like rubber, wax, ivory, diary, manuscripts or articles of religious or scientific interests. If the holder of the Inner-Line Regulation (ILR) permit is found to be in violation of its provisions, then he can face imprisonment, a fine of Rs 1,000, or both.
While India honored its commitment towards protecting the rights of the minorities under the Nehru-Liaquat Ali pact signed on April 8th, 1950, the same was never followed by Pakistan. It is well documented as to how the minority population in Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) has come down drastically between 1947 to the present day. That pact in Bangladesh was honored till the assassination of Bangladesh’s first Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rehman on August 15, 1975.
The CAA seeks to give citizenship rights to those who fled Pakistan post 1947, Bangladesh liberation war of 1971, during the General Zia-ul-Haq regime years of 1977-88, till December 31, 2014. It includes the influential Matua’s and Namshudra’s who migrated from Bangladesh to India in the 1960’s. Categorized as Other Backward Classes (OBCs), they settled around Thakurnagar in West Bengal 59 years ago. Besides, these the other influential caste’s include the Poundra, Khatriya and Majhi’s. Besides, West Bengal, the Matua’s are settled in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
But it is the citizenship case of the Matua’s and Namshudra’s that dominates the agenda still today. It was the 102 year old late matriarch of the Matua’s, Binapani Devi who until her death very recently had urged Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee to support the passage of the CAB and help the Matua’s realize their long pending demand of Indian citizenship.
Since Independence in 1947, the influential Matua’s have been used first by the Congress to win elections in West Bengal, thereafter the Communist’s and now the TMC. The TMC chief used to affectionately call Binapani Devi as “Boroma” (Elderly Mother). It is quite strange that those very people who had advocated the need to allow these Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhists, Parsis and Christian minorities to come into India and be granted Indian citizenship, are now deviating and opposing the CAA.
The demand for Indian citizenship for these immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan has been well documented in the debates of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and that of the Constituent Assembly. Then Union Home Minister, late Guljarilal Nanda had on March 5, 1964 in the Rajya Sabha had referred to the Congress leadership’s favorable stance in letting Hindus from East Pakistan (Bangladesh) to come and settle in India.
The then Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi had in a memorandum to then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on April 20, 2012 had called for granting these people Indian citizenship. Late Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) MP Bhupesh Gupta had consistently raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha between 1964 till 1974. The Communist Party of India (CPI) at its session at Amritsar in 1958 had condemned the West Bengal governments move to lathi-charge the refugees demanding Indian citizenship.
Besides these, CPI-M Basudeb Acharia (April 25, 2012), CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat letter to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on May 22, 2012, the CPI-M’s Kozhikode resolution of April 4, 2012, Sukomal Sen (1988) or CPI-M’s Gautam Deb had all called for granting these refugees especially those from East Pakistan (Bangladesh) Indian citizenship. It is not hard to understand this sudden change in stance of these very people and parties who once championed the cause of the refugees.
