Will the Citizenship (Amendment) Act be a boon or spell doom for the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in Assam? One will have to wait for May 2 when votes will be counted. With the hustle and bustle of campaigning coming to an end ahead of the third and the final phase of voting in this remote part of the region on April 6, the issue holds utmost importance. Why has the CAA become a political hot potato for the BJP in Assam which led to the party’s meteoric rise in the previous election?
While the BJP has been going gung-ho on CAA in the neighbouring West Bengal, the party has been very indifferent on the issue as far as Assam is concerned. Ironically, the issue was high on the agenda of the BJP before the elections were announced, so much so that Assam’s powerful minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who dons several hats for the BJP in the state and the entire northeastern region, would not miss any opportunity to rake up the issue even during the Corona pandemic when all kinds of activities, including political, came to a complete halt. Can the CAA have two different connotations for two different states and that too when they share their boundaries and have Hindu Bengali migrants, who stand to benefit because of the new Act?
Perplexing, isn’t it?
What has happened between 2016, when the BJP swept to power in Assam largely benefiting from the twin issue of the CAA and NRC (National Register of Citizens), and now when it is maintaining studied silence?
The BJP’s promise of detecting and deporting “illegal migrants” from Bangladesh if it came to power resonated with the people of the ethnic communities who voted in large numbers for the party in the 2016 elections. Though the process to update the National Register of Citizens began following a Supreme Court order in 2013, the BJP hijacked the issue and made it a poll plank. And as it turned out, it vaulted the BJP to unexpected political gains, resulting in the formation of its government for the first time in Assam.
Similarly, the CAA promised Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities who had migrated from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan and arrived in India before the end of December 2014. This also helped the BJP in garnering the votes of the Bengali Hindus, who account for nearly 25 percent of the state’s population.
In effect, the BJP secured the support of both the ethnic communities as well as the Bengali Hindus as can be seen by its performance. It improved its seat tally by 12 times winning 60 of the 126 assembly seats. Its winning strike rate was more than 70 per cent as it contested only 84 seats.
So far so good!
But all the hell broke loose when the CAA was passed by Parliament in December 2019. Several parts of Assam, particularly the Brahmaputra Valley, erupted in protest. The indigenous people feared the CAA would pave the way for citizenship to a large number of Hindu Bengali migrants which would not only reduce them to minorities, but also destroy their identity, culture and language. The indigenous people want 1971 as the cut-off date for citizenship as agreed to in the Assam Accord of 1985 following years of agitations.
The CAA runs counter to the provisions of the Assam Accord as it seeks to grant citizenship to Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh and Parsi migrants who have entered India illegally on or before December 31, 2014 and have stayed in the country for five years. Who stands to benefit from CAA? It’s the illegal Bengali Hindu migrants from Bangladesh who have settled in large numbers across the state.
For the indigenous people, migrant is a migrant, no matter whether he is Hindu or Muslim, and he should be identified and deported. On the contrary, the CAA makes a clear distinction between a Hindu migrant and a Muslim migrant.
Now the twist in the tail! When the Supreme Court monitored NRC finally published the list on August 31, 2019, it excluded 19.06 lakh people and a majority of those left out from the list were believed to be Bengali Muslims and Hindus. If accepted, it would rob the BJP of votes of lakhs of Hindus who could not make it to the updated list. So, the NRC, which cost the government more than 1200 crore rupees, was trashed by the very same people who were votaries of detecting and deporting illegal migrants.
Its Catch 22 situation for the BJP! If it talks about the CAA, it invites the wrath of the indigenous people. Non-implementation of CAA is bound to upset the Hindu Bengalis who may not vote for the BJP as religiously as they did the last time. That explains the silence of the BJP on the two issues. While the CAA is missing from the BJP’s manifesto, the party has promised a new NRC with corrections to protect genuine Indian citizens and exclude all illegal immigrants.
It remains to be seen how the issue pans out in the elections. But one thing is for sure that it will be very difficult for the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), the regional party that was born out of a movement against illegal immigrants, and now a junior ally of the BJP, to convince the voters on its volte face on CAA. Interestingly, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal was with the AGP which emerged as a political party from the All Assam Students Union (AASU) which spearheaded the anti-foreigners’ movement from 1979 to 1985 before he joined the BJP in 2011.
If the BJP manages to overcome its strategic silence on these two issues and springs a surprise, the victory will be seen more as a referendum of the politics of the NDA government at the Centre than its performance in the state.
(The article first appeared on CNBCTV18.com)
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