Dilemma on Axomiya

PATRICIA MUKHIM

'It cannot be denied that this (the Assam Accord) was the watershed that created a major disconnect between the indigenous people and the Axomiyas’

It is amazing how bloodshed is written into the DNA of Assam. And this happens with regular frequency for a number of reasons. The latest turmoil besetting Assam relates to the updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), a process which has been pending since 1951. Some call the NRC part fact and part fiction because it does not provide a solid base for determining the citizenship status of the Axomiya. The NRC has excluded certain districts which together constitute more than half of the present state of Assam. It is therefore a Catch 22 situation for any government to come up with a definition of who is an indigenous inhabitant of a piece of geographical space more so when 32 per cent of the population of Assam today constitutes Muslims who seem to create xenophobic nightmares for the average Axomiya who lives in a very exclusive domain and is already a minority in his state if you leave out the tribes and the Bengali-dominated Barak Valley.

Disconnect

It is interesting that the debate on defining who is an Assamese has spilled over into neighbouring Meghalaya with many leading intellectuals and politicians pitching in their views. Perhaps the best and most inclusive definition attempted was by Glenn Kharkongor, vice-chancellor of the Martin Luther Christian University, who said the Bodos, Karbis, Misings, and the non-indigenous Ahoms and others who came in from other parts of India, including erstwhile East Bengal, should be termed “Assamese”. But considering that the tribes have a rich culture, language and script of their own would they agree to be termed Assamese, a derivative that emerges out of a language spoken by a particular group of people? Suppose Meghalaya was still a part of Assam, would the Khasis and the Jaintias want to be called Assamese? Therein lies the crux of the problem. The word Assamese is too exclusive to bring everyone under its umbrella.

It was the lack of foresight, and should one call it a cultural chauvinism, of Assamese rulers who sought to impose a language on the many tribes living within their jurisdiction which led to the vivisection of Assam. Sadly the Assamese, and by this I mean those whose first language is Assamese and whose culture and cultural symbols are also Assamese, (not those who speak it as a second language and who have their own cultural moorings) have not learnt any lessons from history. When the Assam Accord was signed in 1985 after a protracted struggle, those at the vanguard of the Assam Movement repeated the blunders of their predecessors. The three signatories, Biraj Kumar Sarma, Bhrigu Kumar Phukan and Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, were all caste Assamese. They did not even make any pretence of inclusiveness. It cannot be denied that this was the watershed that created a major disconnect between the indigenous people and the Axomiyas. The Bodos who lent their wholehearted support to the movement felt sidelined and that is what led to Bodo insurgency and the creation of the Bodoland Territorial Council and a belligerent and hardened identity politics.

Impractical

To try and define who is an Assamese at this juncture when the caste Axomiya and the Ahoms together constitute only about 10 per cent of the total population of Assam seems like a futile exercise if not impractical. Of the several constitutional, legislative and administrative measures suggested in the Assam Accord, perhaps the one pertaining to the identification of a genuine “Assamese” citizen and therefore the counter identification of non-Assamese, or in other words the ubiquitous illegal immigrant/migrant or the Bangladeshi, is definitely the most problematic.

A group of ministers (GOM) have been appointed to resolve this conundrum but the task appears insurmountable. Let us remember that if the Nellie massacre which was meant to be a wake-up call to so-called illegal immigrants could not achieve what it set out to do, why do we assume that something can happen now? At the time the Muslim immigrant was perhaps a hapless defenceless victim. Today the position is drastically reversed. Politically and demographically the Muslims are the most powerful group in Assam and they are fully conscious of their political clout. We only have to revisit past incidents to know that the Muslims have taken on very belligerent stances on certain issues where their control is challenged. Look at what happens in Goalpara each time the Rabhas raise the demand for the Sixth Schedule. It is inevitably followed by protests from the Muslim community there followed by violence. This happened in 2008 and 2009. The Muslims assert that the Rabhas can only have a council wherever they constitute more than 50 per cent of the population, knowing fully well that is not the demographic reality in Goalpara or Kamrup.

Populism

It is easy to sound populist slogans especially on the eve of the Assembly elections but for AASU and others to be speaking of 1951 as the cut-off year as this point is sheer rhetoric because they had already signed and sealed to making March 1971 as the cut-off year for the identification of non-citizens. Unfortunately, election eves are also a propitious occasion for certain political parties to whip up xenophobia.

Identity politics in Assam has taken firm roots. The Bodos would never want to call themselves Axomiyas in the sense that those who speak the Axomiya language do? Neither would the Misings, the Karbis or Dimasas. Each group has shown what it can do if pushed to the limits.

It is interesting to note that when the indigenous people had not reached a stage of political savvy the Axomiyas never bothered to make them feel part of themselves. Today when the indigenous people have begun to resent the exclusive nature of the Axomiya ruling elite, there is an attempt to make them feel they are as Axomiya as any other indigenous settler of Assam. Today the inclusion project is sought to be waved about like a flag but the damage is already done and the schisms already too entrenched to be reversed.

Fallacy

If only the Axomiyas had realised that theirs is a heterogeneous society and if they had respected that heterogeneity, the fight against illegal migrants would have been a united fight. Alas! That opportunity is lost forever. Defining a person on the basis of a language he speaks is practical only in a mono-lingual, mono-cultural society. How anyone can even presume to define an “Assamese” in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-religious society that inhabits Assam today is quite a feat. The creation of Assam on linguistic grounds it in itself a fallacy.

The Union home ministry is playing some more mind games here. Is the ministry not aware that identifying an Assamese is akin to looking for a needle in a haystack? Who will decide who has come after 1971, particularly when by now every illegal immigrant has a paper to vouch for his citizenship and lakhs of such immigrants are already enrolled in the voter list? I doubt that we have a mechanism anywhere in the world for identifying human beings on the basis of their looks, their language and their religion. So for now the identification project looks like a wild goose chase. The “Assamese” will remain an amorphous entity.

(The writer can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com PATRICIA MUKHIM

'It cannot be denied that this (the Assam Accord) was the watershed that created a major disconnect between the indigenous people and the Axomiyas’

It is amazing how bloodshed is written into the DNA of Assam. And this happens with regular frequency for a number of reasons. The latest turmoil besetting Assam relates to the updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), a process which has been pending since 1951. Some call the NRC part fact and part fiction because it does not provide a solid base for determining the citizenship status of the Axomiya. The NRC has excluded certain districts which together constitute more than half of the present state of Assam. It is therefore a Catch 22 situation for any government to come up with a definition of who is an indigenous inhabitant of a piece of geographical space more so when 32 per cent of the population of Assam today constitutes Muslims who seem to create xenophobic nightmares for the average Axomiya who lives in a very exclusive domain and is already a minority in his state if you leave out the tribes and the Bengali-dominated Barak Valley.

Disconnect

It is interesting that the debate on defining who is an Assamese has spilled over into neighbouring Meghalaya with many leading intellectuals and politicians pitching in their views. Perhaps the best and most inclusive definition attempted was by Glenn Kharkongor, vice-chancellor of the Martin Luther Christian University, who said the Bodos, Karbis, Misings, and the non-indigenous Ahoms and others who came in from other parts of India, including erstwhile East Bengal, should be termed “Assamese”. But considering that the tribes have a rich culture, language and script of their own would they agree to be termed Assamese, a derivative that emerges out of a language spoken by a particular group of people? Suppose Meghalaya was still a part of Assam, would the Khasis and the Jaintias want to be called Assamese? Therein lies the crux of the problem. The word Assamese is too exclusive to bring everyone under its umbrella.

It was the lack of foresight, and should one call it a cultural chauvinism, of Assamese rulers who sought to impose a language on the many tribes living within their jurisdiction which led to the vivisection of Assam. Sadly the Assamese, and by this I mean those whose first language is Assamese and whose culture and cultural symbols are also Assamese, (not those who speak it as a second language and who have their own cultural moorings) have not learnt any lessons from history. When the Assam Accord was signed in 1985 after a protracted struggle, those at the vanguard of the Assam Movement repeated the blunders of their predecessors. The three signatories, Biraj Kumar Sarma, Bhrigu Kumar Phukan and Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, were all caste Assamese. They did not even make any pretence of inclusiveness. It cannot be denied that this was the watershed that created a major disconnect between the indigenous people and the Axomiyas. The Bodos who lent their wholehearted support to the movement felt sidelined and that is what led to Bodo insurgency and the creation of the Bodoland Territorial Council and a belligerent and hardened identity politics.

Impractical

To try and define who is an Assamese at this juncture when the caste Axomiya and the Ahoms together constitute only about 10 per cent of the total population of Assam seems like a futile exercise if not impractical. Of the several constitutional, legislative and administrative measures suggested in the Assam Accord, perhaps the one pertaining to the identification of a genuine “Assamese” citizen and therefore the counter identification of non-Assamese, or in other words the ubiquitous illegal immigrant/migrant or the Bangladeshi, is definitely the most problematic.

A group of ministers (GOM) have been appointed to resolve this conundrum but the task appears insurmountable. Let us remember that if the Nellie massacre which was meant to be a wake-up call to so-called illegal immigrants could not achieve what it set out to do, why do we assume that something can happen now? At the time the Muslim immigrant was perhaps a hapless defenceless victim. Today the position is drastically reversed. Politically and demographically the Muslims are the most powerful group in Assam and they are fully conscious of their political clout. We only have to revisit past incidents to know that the Muslims have taken on very belligerent stances on certain issues where their control is challenged. Look at what happens in Goalpara each time the Rabhas raise the demand for the Sixth Schedule. It is inevitably followed by protests from the Muslim community there followed by violence. This happened in 2008 and 2009. The Muslims assert that the Rabhas can only have a council wherever they constitute more than 50 per cent of the population, knowing fully well that is not the demographic reality in Goalpara or Kamrup.

Populism

It is easy to sound populist slogans especially on the eve of the Assembly elections but for AASU and others to be speaking of 1951 as the cut-off year as this point is sheer rhetoric because they had already signed and sealed to making March 1971 as the cut-off year for the identification of non-citizens. Unfortunately, election eves are also a propitious occasion for certain political parties to whip up xenophobia.

Identity politics in Assam has taken firm roots. The Bodos would never want to call themselves Axomiyas in the sense that those who speak the Axomiya language do? Neither would the Misings, the Karbis or Dimasas. Each group has shown what it can do if pushed to the limits.

It is interesting to note that when the indigenous people had not reached a stage of political savvy the Axomiyas never bothered to make them feel part of themselves. Today when the indigenous people have begun to resent the exclusive nature of the Axomiya ruling elite, there is an attempt to make them feel they are as Axomiya as any other indigenous settler of Assam. Today the inclusion project is sought to be waved about like a flag but the damage is already done and the schisms already too entrenched to be reversed.

Fallacy

If only the Axomiyas had realised that theirs is a heterogeneous society and if they had respected that heterogeneity, the fight against illegal migrants would have been a united fight. Alas! That opportunity is lost forever. Defining a person on the basis of a language he speaks is practical only in a mono-lingual, mono-cultural society. How anyone can even presume to define an “Assamese” in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-religious society that inhabits Assam today is quite a feat. The creation of Assam on linguistic grounds it in itself a fallacy.

The Union home ministry is playing some more mind games here. Is the ministry not aware that identifying an Assamese is akin to looking for a needle in a haystack? Who will decide who has come after 1971, particularly when by now every illegal immigrant has a paper to vouch for his citizenship and lakhs of such immigrants are already enrolled in the voter list? I doubt that we have a mechanism anywhere in the world for identifying human beings on the basis of their looks, their language and their religion. So for now the identification project looks like a wild goose chase. The “Assamese” will remain an amorphous entity.

(The writer can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com