Guwahati, Jan 3: Prabajan Virodhi Manch (PVM), a forum against illegal immigrants, has questioned the memorandum of settlement (MoS) signed with the pro-talks faction of ULFA recently, alleging that there has been “no sincere intent” on the part of the government to protect the rights of indigenous people of Assam.
“It is obvious that there is no sincere intent on the part of the government to do anything for the rights of the indigenous people. While indigenous people are primary supporters of this government, they are only given promises by forming committees and signing accords like this,” Manch convenor Upamanyu Hazarika alleged during a media conference here on Wednesday.
“Whereas, the Bangladeshi migrants actually have schemes such as Basundhara 2.0 of November 2021, under which 14 lakh bighas (5 lakh acres) of PGR-VGR (professional grazing reserve and village grazing reserve) land has been earmarked for all those migrants who came from Bangladesh to Assam until 2011,” Hazarika said.
Notably, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had during an interaction with the media here on Monday, claimed that the tripartite accord, signed with ULFA, had established both political and land rights of the state’s indigenous people for a long time to come.
In contrast, the PVM convenor alleged that the ULFA accord, though voluminous with a lot of content, in actual fact, “is an accord for setting up cultural centres in different districts of Assam and an institute for preservation of bhaona culture.”
“The so-called 1.85 lakh crore projects are nothing but on-going or upcoming projects of the central and state governments in the state,” the Manch convenor said.
“ULFA, which originally started with a key goal of pushing out infiltrators and securing rights for the indigenous people of the state, have settled for some mere economic incentives on paper amounting to nothing,” he said.
“A key feature of the accord is that all the promises made, whether economic rights, forest rights or land rights are left to the discretion of the government for their consideration and discloses a wrongful application of the law as far as NRC, voting, etc are concerned,” Hazarika claimed.
“There is no reference whatsoever to preservation of indigenous identity and conferment of indigenous rights either in respect of land or employment,” he said, adding that “it is an acknowledged and admitted fact that indigenous people will turn into a minority in Assam by 2040 or even earlier, a key political plank of the BJP to consolidate non-migrant votes,” he said.
“However, there is no reference or any assurance/promise regarding protection of indigenous people in land or in employment, which have been a subject matter of three reports – the Assam Accord Clause 6 Committee Report, the Brahma Committee and the Upamanyu Hazarika Committee Report,” he pointed out.
The PVM convenor further said that in the political sphere, the promises made by the government relate to issues which are either already part of existing law or in disregard of existing law. “For instance, Clause 2.5 provides that ‘no person will be a voter in more than one constituency.’ There is already a provision to this effect in Section 17 of the Representation of People’s Act 1950 where there is a prohibition in respect of being a voter in more than one constituency,” he said.
“Another instance is of Clause 5.2, the promise to undertake NRC reverification after conclusion of a pending matter in the Supreme Court. This is again completely erroneous, as the Citizenship Act 1955 and the rules framed thereunder empower the central government to carry out re-verification. The sanction of the court is not required,” he added.