India’s Assam gears up for anti-Bangladeshi agitation

Assam is once again gearing up for a massive 'anti-foreigner movement' over the alleged encroachment of the state’s tribal belts by suspected Bangladesh nationals.

Citizenship of the northeastern Indian state’s Bengali-speaking population has always been a contentious issue.

Organisations representing tribal and other indigenous communities claim that a large number of these people are Bangladesh nationals who have illegally infiltrated into the state.

On the other hand, organisations representing Bengalis rubbish such claims and say they have been victimised on the basis of ethnicity.

The issue is once again reaching the boiling point with an influential tribal body, the All Assam Tribal Sangha (AATS) deciding to launch agitation against the illegal encroachers, doubtful citizens and non-protected class of people from this month.

AATS leaders on Wednesday met the state's Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and demanded that he take immediate steps to free Assam's tribal belts and blocks from illegal occupation of doubtful citizens.

AATS General Secretary Aditya Khaklari told bdnews24.com its members would start agitation programmes before Sep 15 in every districts of the state to force doubtful citizens to vacate lands they are illegally occupying in tribal belts and blocks.

The tribal leader also said the agitation programmes aside, the AATS would send a memorandum to the chief minister as well to prime minister demanding their intervention on the issue.

Members of the All Assam Tribal Sangha will also take out a bike rally across the state to create awareness among the local people about the problem while a massive gathering of people is being planned in state capital Guwahati on the same issue.

On Dec 5, 1947, Tribal belt and blocks were constituted for the first time in India to protect the rights of the tribal over the land.

But reports now indicate that most land allocated under tribal belts and blocks are being held by non-tribals.

There are allegations that these tribal land and forests are being illegally occupied by Bangladeshi citizens.

There are 17 tribal belt and 30 blocks in 14 districts of Assam. Under these belts and blocks, there are 3980 villages with total land area of 85,80,842 bigha (7.5 bigha = 1 hectare).

Dhubri, Berpeta and Goalpara are three such districts which used to be under tribal belt and blocks but have now turned into Muslim-dominated districts.

Meanwhile, the Assam Government has released Rs 100 crore from the Central Funds to rehabilitate the 19,641 victim families of the 2012 ethnic-communal clashes which rocked Bodo Territorial Administrative Districts (BTAD) area in 2012.

Most of the victims were Bengali-speaking Muslims, the majority of whom are suspected by the locals of being Bangladeshi citizens.

The Bodo Territorial Council (BTC) administration has refused to rehabilitate any such victim families in forest land and tribal belts and blocks even as the Assam government has declared that the families will be settled in the places where they stayed before the clashes.

This has created a rift between the present Congress government in the state and its former alliance partner the Bodo People Front (BPF), which is totally against the move.

BPF leader and Deputy Chief of BTC Kampa Borgoyary has declared that no non-tribal people would be allowed to settle in forest land and tribal belts and block in revenue villages.

More than half of the victim families have, meanwhile, unofficially returned to their homes. BTC administration has only permitted rehabilitation of those families on the land who had land pattas.

The people who did not have the land pattas are being treated as ‘doubtful Bangladeshi citizens’.

But according to the victims, their land documents were destroyed along with their other properties when their homes were set on fire by miscreants.

The BTC administration has directed them to get duplicate land certificates from the revenue department if the land were actually in their names.