Opposition parties, student orgs condemn BJP over citizenship grant to Bangladesh-born Hindu in Assam
Guwahati: The ruling BJP in Assam has come under fire from opposition parties and student organizations after a Bangladesh-born Hindu man was granted Indian citizenship under the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). The move has sparked concerns that the BJP is undermining the rights and identity of Assam’s indigenous communities.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the Bangladesh-born Hindu man Dulon Das, originally from Sylhet district in Bangladesh, has been residing in the Bengali-dominated town of Silchar in South Assam since 1988. In April, shortly after the BJP-led Indian government finalized the implementation rules for the CAA, Das applied for Indian citizenship. He recently received official confirmation of his new status, making him the first person in the Northeast to obtain citizenship under the CAA.
The CAA, which was passed by the Indian Parliament in December 2019, provides fast-track citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who entered India before December 31, 2014. The act has been widely criticized for its exclusionary nature, particularly in Assam and other Northeastern states, where the law sparked massive protests in 2020. During these protests, at least five people were killed in police firing in Assam.
Opposition parties and student organizations in Assam, representing the region’s indigenous communities, have been vocal in their opposition to the CAA. They argue that the law violates the Assam Accord of 1985, which promised to detect and deport all illegal foreigners who had entered Assam after March 24, 1971. The Accord was a result of the six-year-long Assam Agitation (1979-1985), a mass movement aimed at protecting the rights of indigenous Assamese people.
“The granting of citizenship to a man from Bangladesh is a grave insult to the indigenous people of Assam,” said Lurinjyoti Gogoi, president of the Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), a regional party born out of the anti-CAA movement in 2020.
The AJP, along with other opposition parties, has said that the BJP was using the CAA to further its communal agenda and secure votes by settling Hindu immigrants at the expense of Assam’s cultural and demographic integrity. Senior Congress leader and MLA Debabrata Saikia echoed these concerns, stating, “Our party demands the Assam Accord be implemented in letter and spirit so that all post-1971 foreigners are detected and deported.” Akhil Gogoi, MLA and chief of the regional party Raijor Dal, also condemned the CAA as unconstitutional, warning that it poses a significant threat to the culture and identity of Assam’s indigenous people.
BJP’s CM of Assam Himanta Biswa Sarma previously stated that the number of people seeking citizenship under the CAA in Assam would be negligible. But Utpal Sarma, president of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), refuted this claim, arguing that the issue is not about numbers but about the impact on the indigenous population already burdened by the influx of migrants between 1947 and 1971. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP have betrayed the Assamese people,” Sarma said.
