GUWAHATI: The North East looked set for large-scale protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his government was working to ensure the proposed legislation gets Parliament’s nod, with Assam setting the tone on Saturday and the North East Students’ Union (NESO) calling for an 11-hour “Northeast Bandh” on January 8 in protest against the decision.
Agitators burnt effigies of Modi in lower Assam and Dibrugarh, even as Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal assured the people that he would protect the interests of the state.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, to grant nationality to people belonging to minority communities — Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians — in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan after six years of their residence in India.
Several indigenous organisations in the state have been opposing the bill as they believe it would harm their cultural identity.
The PM, after flagging off the BJP’s Lok Sabha poll campaign in the northeast in Silchar, said on Friday that the bill was “not for the benefit of anyone but a penance against the injustice and many wrongs done in the past”.
Around 70 organisations, led by Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), took out protest rallies in the state capital in the morning.
The KMSS members had plans to march to the headquarters of Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which was born from the six-year-long Assam agitation against foregners, to ask the party to break off its alliance with the BJP, but the police prevented them from doing so, its leader Akhil Gogoi Gogoi told reporters.
“We took out the rally to urge the people to come out of their homes and protest against the prime minister’s announcement. The bill will put the identity of the indigenous people at stake.
“We cannot tolerate a leader coming from Delhi and threatening our very existence while the chief minister and other BJP leaders applaud him,” Gogoi said.
Meanwhile, Sonowal on Saturday asked the people to keep calm as the state government would never do anything to harm their interests. “I am the chief minister of Assam and I have been entrusted with the duty of protecting the interest of the people of both Brahmaputra and Barak Valley. People should not doubt the government’s intention,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.
NESO PROTEST
NESO chairman Samuel Jyrwa in a statement issued on Saturday said, “NESO condemns the announcement of Prime Mimister Narendra Modi that the Bill would be passed soon (in Parliament). NESO has made its stand very clear that it would never accept the Bill since this move by the government of India is an imposition on the sentiments of the indigenous people of the North East.,”
Jyrwa further stated that the move by the Centre was “very dangerous as it will reduce the indigenous people of the North East to a minority. “Therefore, NESO has no other alternative but to call for a North East Bandh on January 8 (2018) from 5am to 4pm,” he said.
NESO also warned the Centre not to play with the future of the indigenous people of the North East for vote bank politics.
“NESO requests the people of the North Eastern Region to kindly cooperate with the bandh as this will send a clear message to the government of India that the North East is not a dumping ground for illegal migrants,” Jyrwa stated.
‘BLACK DAY’
Meanwhile, the All Assam Students Union along with 30 indigenous organisations of Assam voiced its resentment against the Centre’s decision to “impose the bill”, while calling for a statewide bandh on January 8 and observation of “Black Day” on January 7 against the “partial” JPC report which is scheduled to be submitted in Parliament that day.
At a media conference here, AASU chief advisor, Samujjal Bhattacharya, said that the bill would never be accepted as it violated the Assam Accord and goes against the interests of the indigenous people of the state.
“The report by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Bill too has not taken into account all stakeholders across the Northeast. The members of the JPC had only visited Guwahati, Silchar and Shillong,” Bhattacharya, who is also the adviser of NESO, said.
(With PTI inputs)
