The delimitation exercise in Assam has not only redrawn the boundaries of the constituencies but also political fault lines of the state. Hailed by a section as a step to safeguard the rights of indigenous communities and critiqued by another for ensuring skewed representation, the act may have multipronged impact on the state politics ahead of elections.
The appearance of the Assam Accord in the recent citizenship debates in India has a historical significance. Providing a critique of liberal citizenship, Assam’s journey shows how citizenship in a culturally diverse nation state like India evolved distinctively along with different identity questions. Assam, through a popular movement against “illegal” migrants, under the leadership of the educated (middle) class, asserted this identity question and tangled the Assamese nationality in the legal framework of Indian citizenship. The accord, which ended the protest, led to the first amendment of the Citizenship Act, 1955 in 1985, specifically addressing Assam’s case. Drawing from vernacular literature and archival records, this paper offers a fresh perspective on the political history of citizenship in Assam from pre-independence until the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985 and its immediate implementation.
Hyper-populism riding on welfare schemes along with a polarised campaign on religious lines paved the way for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance’s return to power in Assam. As the new government resumes office, it remains to be seen if it will continue its emphasis on polarising issues such as reverification of National Register of Citizens and ban or focus on larger issues like the Covid-19 pandemic, flood and erosion that continue to hamper the state’s development.
Deepankar Basu and Debarshi Das, in their article “Assam’s Politics and the NRC” (EPW, 1 February 2020), have raised a few critical issues regarding the fundamental flaws in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) updating process in Assam and emphasised building an alternative narrative.
In this episode, we speak to Anupama Roy about the implications of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and the ordeal to establish citizenship in Assam.
The false narrative of Assamese "xenophobia" stinks, and today, except the Hindutva camp, no mainstream Assamese organisation propagates racist or communal agenda in the state.
The peaceful indefinite sit-in by Muslim women at Shaheen Bagh has become the epicentre of nationwide protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act–National Population Register–National Register of Citizens, as the protestors have brought to the fore a protest performative that is to be comprehended beyond the physical protest site. As a people’s protest in the true sense, it contests the state’s excessive urge to define and dominate, and flags pressing concerns vis-à-vis discrimination in the face of a consumerism-driven argument of inconvenience. In doing so, the protestors help us understand resistance as an expression of belonging and citizenship as a participatory tool, rather than a status granted by the state on the basis of select documents.
