Assam Movement

The decadal population growth of Assam against that of India.[12]

Assam, a Northeast Indian state, has been the fastest growing region in the Indian subcontinent for much of the 20th century with the population growing six-fold till the 1980s as against less than three-fold for India.[17] Since the natural growth rate of Assam has been found to be less than the national rate, the difference can only be attributed to a net immigration.[18]

Immigration in the 19th century was driven by British colonialism—tribal and low castes were brought in from central India to labour in tea gardens and educated Hindu Bengalis from Bengal to fill administrative and professional positions. The largest group, Muslims peasants from Mymensingh, immigrated after about 1901—and they settled in Goalpara in the first decade and further up the Brahmaputra valley in the next two decades. These major groups were joined by other smaller groups that settled as traders, merchants, bankers, moneylenders, and small industrialists.[12] Yet another community that had settled in Assam were Nepali dairy farmers.

The British dismantled the older Ahom system, made Bengali the official language (Assamese was restored in 1874), and placed Hindu Bengalis in colonial administrative positions. By 1891 one-fourth the population of Assam was of migrant origin. Assamese nationalism, which grew by the beginning of the 20th century, began to look at both the Hindu Bengalis as well as the British as alien rulers.[19] The emerging Assamese literate class aspired to the same positions as those enjoyed by the Bengali Hindus, mostly from Sylhet.

The Bengal Muslims, who came in mainly from Mymensingh, were cultivators who occupied flood plains and cleared forests,[20] and who were not in conflict with the Assamese and not aligned with the Bengali Hindus.[21] In fact the Assamese elite encouraged their settlement. In the post-partition period as Assamese nationalists tried to dismantle Bengali Hindu dominance from the colonial period the tea garden labourers as well as the Muslim Bengalis supported them.[22] Ever mindful of being the neighbour of the populous and culturally dominant Bengali people,[23] the Assamese were alarmed that immigration not only had continued illegally in the post-independence period but that illegal immigrants were being included in electoral rolls.[24]

Immigration from East Bengal to Assam became cross-border in character following Partition of India—the 1951 census records 274,000 refugees between 1947 and 1951, most of who are estimated to be Hindu Bengalis. On the basis of natural growth rate, it was estimated that the immigrants numbered 221,000 between 1951 and 1961. In 1971, the surplus over the natural growth was 424,000 and the estimated illegal immigrants from 1971 to 1981 was 1.8 million.[25]

Immigration of Muslims from East Pakistan continued—though they declared India as the birth country and Assamese as their language, they recorded their religion correctly.[26] As the immigration issue was growing the immigrant Muslims from Bengal supported the Assamese—by accepting the Assamese language, supporting the official language act in contrast to the Bengali Hindus who opposed it, and casting their votes for the Congress.[27]

In 1963 official reports emerged for the first time that foreigners were being enlisted in Indian voters list by politically interested parties.[8] In 1965 the Government of India directed the Assam Government to expel Pakistani (later Bangladesh) infiltrators but the implementation had to be given up when a number of Assam legislators threatened to resign.[28] In 1978 S L Shakdher (the then Chief Election Commissioner)[29] and a cabinet minister[30] admitted that the practice of enlisting foreigners in electoral rolls was going on.

AASU had included "expulsion of foreigners" in their charter demands and after Shakdher's announcement in 1978, called a three-day program of protest.[31]

After the Lok Sabha member from the Mangaldoi Lok Sabha Constituency had died the Election Commission started the process for a by-election and published the draft electoral rolls and ordered a summary revision in April 1979.[32] It received a list of about 47,000 doubtful names of which about 36,000 were processed. Of these processed names 26,000 names (about 72 percent) were confirmed to be non-citizens.[33]

With the fall of two successive governments in Delhi—the Morarji Desai government in July 1979 and the subsequent Charan Singh government in August, 1979—early Lok Sabha elections were called and the Mangaldai by-election was cancelled.[34] Nevertheless, the large number of non-citizens in electoral rolls became a sensation and by October 1979 AASU decided to oppose the newly announced elections if the electoral rolls are not reviewed and the foreigners' names were not removed.[35]

Even though the relationship of the Assam Movement to the earlier Assamese Language Movement was clear[38] the leadership were careful to kept the issue of language out—instead they staked their claims purely on the basis of population statistics and constitutional rights and presented a set of demands that were secular and constitutionally legitimate.[39] They clearly defined who they considered to be foreigners and tried to project the problem as not local but constitutional.[36] Despite these formal positions and the demands structured around constitutional values, movement leaders did use ethnic themes for political mobilization.[40] The Assam Accord that concluded the Movement, in its Clause 6, called for protection of the "Assamese people".

Indira Gandhi (Congress (I)) came to power after the 1980 Indian general election, and she met the Movement leaders in Delhi on 2 February 1980. She did not accept the demand to use the NRC 1951 and the Census report of 1952 as the basis for identifying foreigners and suggested 24 March 1971 as the cut-off date instead since she wanted to factor in the Liaquat–Nehru Pact of 8 April 1950 and her own agreement with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1972,[41] and the talks stalled.

AASU sponsored the first general strike on 8 June 1979 demanding the detection, disenfranchisement and deportation of foreigners.[43] This was followed by the formation of the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad, an ad hoc coalition of different political and cultural organizations, on 26 August 1979[44][45] On 27 November 1979, AASU-AAGSP called for the closure of all educational institutes and picketing in state and central government offices. Mass picketing was arranged in front of all polling offices where candidate filed their nominations, in the first week of December 1979. No candidates were allowed to file nomination papers in the Brahmaputra valley.

On 10 December, the last date for submitting the nomination papers, was declared as a statewide bandh. The government proclaimed a curfew at different parts of the state, including the major city of Guwahati.

At Barpeta, then IGP K.P.S. Gill led the police force in escorting Bagam Abida Ahmed to file nomination papers; they attacked protestors. Khargeswar Talukdar, the 22-year-old general secretary of Barpeta AASU Unit, was beaten to death and thrown into a ditch next to the highway at Bhabanipur. Talukdar was honoured by the Assam Movement as its first Martyr.[46]

On 7 October 1982, while leading a procession from Nagaon to hojai in support of a bandh called by the All Assam Students Union, Anil Bora Was beaten to death at Hojai by people who opposed the bandh as well as the Movement.[47]

Subsequently, violence spread across the Brahmaputra valley. In a stunning incident on 18 February 1983, during the Nellie massacre, a mob of indigenous Tiwa tribe[48] killed 2,191 suspected muslim immigrants, in 14 villages in Nagaon district.[49]