New Delhi: The “high-powered” committee set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to recommend measures for the implementation of the Clause 6 of Assam Accord met home minister Amit Shah on the evening of July 24.
Joint Secretary (Northeast), Satyendra Garg, told The Wire earlier that day: “It will be a courtesy visit.” He said, “That he is meeting the members shows the importance the government is giving to the committee.”
On the morning of July 24, the 13-member committee, headed by Justice (retired) Biplab Kumar Sharma, had an audience with minister of state for home, G. Kishan Reddy before huddling up for the committee’s maiden meeting in the North Block.
The accord was signed in 1985 between the Rajiv Gandhi government and the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) to end the six-year-long anti-foreigner movement in the northeastern state bordering Bangladesh. Clause 6 of the Accord says that the “Assamese people” would be granted “constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate” to “protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage.”
Later, addressing a press meet in Assam Bhavan, the members said that in less than two week’s time, the committee would have its next meeting in Guwahati. “Today’s was the first meeting. In the subsequent meetings, we would thrash out issues like what should be the definition of the ‘Assamese people’, which year should be the base for granting constitutional safeguards, etc. We would meet a cross-section of people to decide on the recommendations,” said Justice Sharma.
Also read: Home Ministry Reconstitutes ‘High-Level’ Committee on Clause 6 of Assam Accord
A July 16 report in the Assam Tribune said that the committee would consult a slew of stakeholders “including social organisations, legal and constitutional experts, eminent persons from the fields of art, culture and literature, conservationists, economists, linguists and sociologists” to determine the appropriate level of reservation of seats in the state assembly and local bodies for the “Assamese people”.
Aside from Garg, Justice Sharma was flanked by the other members of the committee in the media meet. It includes the top leadership of AASU – Samujjal Bhattacharya, Dipanka Nath and Lurinjyoti Gogoi, besides former advocate general of Assam Ramesh Borpatragohain, retired additional chief secretary of Assam Subhash Das, Arunachal Pradesh advocate general Niloy Dutta, retired IPS officer Pallav Bhattacharya, retired professor Srishtidhar Dutta, author-columnist Sumanta Chaliha, professor Jaikanta Sharma and Guwahati-based journalist Wasbir Hussain. The committee doesn’t have a woman member.
Giving a hint to the reporters about the broad roadmap that the committee would work on, AASU advisor Samujjal Bhattacharjee said:
“All these questions about who and what should be included in the recommendations have already been dealt at length by the committee set up in 1998 under the then joint secretary (NE) in the MHA, G.K. Pillai. We (Bhattacharjee was then the AASU general secretary) had thrashed out on record issues like reservation of (assembly and other elected body) seats etc. It was also decided (in 2012) by the committee headed by the assembly speaker Pranab Gogoi (during the Tarun Gogoi government). The Gogoi committee also defined who should be an Assamese/khilonjia (indigenous) after consulting 28 organisations and representatives of different communities.”
Later, upon being asked whether the committee would also address the issue of reservation of land rights even though it doesn’t come under the ambit of the Clause six of the Accord, he told The Wire, “It is included in Clauses 10 and 11 of the Accord. But we will recommend to the government to include it in the agenda of the committee set up for Clause 6. This is because we feel that without addressing the issue of land rights, it is meaningless to talk about the constitutional protection of the indigenous people.”
While Clause 10 speaks of “prevention of encroachment of government lands”, Clause 11 is about “restricting acquisition of immovable property by foreigners.”
Also read: Six of Nine Members Refuse to Be Part of Centre’s Committee on Assam Accord
Garg later told The Wire, “Since land is a state issue, it was naturally not included in the mandate of the committee set up by the Centre. But if the committee wants it, it can be done.” Garg also played down the Pillai committee report, stating, “I am not aware of that report.”
The committee has also sought one more member who would belong to the tribal community aside from widening its ambit to also include Clause 7 of the Accord which deals with “speedy all-round economic development of Assam so as to improve the standard of living of the people.”
The 13-member committee is the second attempt by the Narendra Modi regime to form a panel to offer suggestions to the government to implement the particular clause of the Accord. When the Centre set up a six-member committee this past January – keeping in mind the vociferous agitation in the state against its decision to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to grant citizenship to undocumented Hindu Bangladeshis (among others) purportedly residing in the state aside from other parts of the country – all the members resigned in a matter of days due to a broad consensus that it was meant to be only an enticement to weaken the protests and not implement the Accord with sincerity.
The new committee has two members from the earlier committee – Subhash Das and justice Ramesh Borpatragohain.
