Citizenship Bill: BJP paying the price of ignoring Assam’s history

By now, everyone in India (except for the bhakts) knows that the BJP has its own version of history. It’s a variant that is divorced from fact, revolts against morality and serves just one purpose — fooling its credulous followers and selling them dreams of a Hindu rashtra that would address imagined grievances against others.

History serves a specific purpose — it reminds us of the past and the lessons that ought to have been learnt from it. But, since the BJP has its own brand of history, it is too much to imagine that it would learn from the past. It will, as the adage goes, be more likely condemned to repeat it, and its mistakes.

Take the case of Assam, where the BJP experimented with the local history only to destabilize the state. Today, several cities in Assam are burning, people are on the warpath, ready to defy curfew and unleash violence in a bid to stop the BJP from amending India’s citizenship law through a controversial bill that was passed by parliament earlier this week. Assam has had a history of protests and mass movements to protect its culture and language. The Citizenship (Amendement) Bill piloted by the BJP has started another uprising.

Also read: Assam will be preserved, will continue to grow: PM assures on CAB

The BJP’s battle

The BJP sold the 2016 assembly election to the people of Assam as the Battle of Saraighat, positing itself as the representative of the Assamese people taking on Muslim invaders of the land. In a tragic twist of events, the self-proclaimed protector of the Assamese has now morphed into their enemy.

The Battle of Saraighat was fought between the Mughal army and the Ahom rulers of the region on the banks of the Brahmaputra in 1671. After some dramatic events that are now part of the Assamese legend, the Ahoms, who were much less in numbers, were able to push the Mughals back and secure their kingdom forever from invaders. In Assam’s history, it has the same significance as the Battle of Plassey for India or Panipat for the Marathas.

Also read: Train services to Tripura, Assam suspended; army conducts flag march

In 2016, the BJP went to the voters saying it is fighting against a similar army of invaders threatening their existence. By successfully positioning itself as a representative of the indigenous people and calling its rivals — the Congress and the All India United Democratic Front — as flag bearers of the others (read Muslims from Bangladesh), the BJP swept the polls. In the process, through its aggressive campaign against immigrants, it created great expectations among the Assamese people, who believed that the party would solve the problem for ever. Alas, the promise turned out to be a jumla (slogan). And today, the people of Assam are fighting another political battle—this time against another army from Delhi led by home minister Amit Shah.

The BJP slipped in Assam because it tried to be clever like a cat. It tried to turn a local issue, with its own intricacies into a pan-India blitz for Hindu votes. Since, as the joke goes, its leaders didn’t pay attention in their history classes, they got the entire symbolism of the Battle of Saraighat wrong.

Also read: IUML moves SC challenging Citizenship (Amendment) Bill

Assam’s real battle

If the BJP had read history, it would have known that the Mughal army was led by the Rajput king of Jaipur at Saraighat. And there in lies the moral of the story: The Battle of Saraighat was not just against the Mughals — and by inference not just against the Muslims. It was against outsiders of every faith. So, when the Assamese people voted for the BJP in 2016, they presumed that the BJP will protect their identity and culture by removing illegal immigrants of every faith and religion from the state. But, the party misread the result as a mandate for targeting only Muslims.

In a bid to identify illegal immigrants, the BJP first toyed with the idea of a National Registry of Citizens. In the list released by the government, 19 lakh people were excluded from the national register of citizens. But, to the BJP’s discomfiture, only a fourth of them were Muslims. And, that’s when the problem began.

Ideally, if it were to go by its own rhetoric of cleansing Assam of illegal immigrants, the BJP-led government should have taken a policy decision to treat all of them as unauthorised foreigners in India. But, it decided to use the opportunity to ramp up its anti-Muslim agenda through a controversial bill that allows immigrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan to apply for citizenship in India, subject to the condition that they should not be Muslims. The underlying theme of this stratagem is telling everyone that Indian borders are open for minorities of the region, but Muslims would be thrown out.

Also read: Northeast burns over CAB, Army deployed in Guwahati

The legality of this Bill may be subjected to close judicial scrutiny. Since the Indian Constitution disallows discrimination on the basis of caste, creed or religion, the BJP government would have to find innovative arguments to defy the Constitution. But, that’s a battle for another day.

On its doors at the moment is another fight — that against the people of the northeast, especially from Assam and Tripura. The people of these state believe that the amended citizenship law will allow outsiders, regardless of their religion, to settle down amidst them. They see these outsiders — especially the Bangla-speaking immigrants from the east — as a threat to their culture, demography and identity.

The people of Assam and Tripura want every immigrant out of their land — even if they are Hindu, Christian or Sikh. But, the BJP has slipped on its double game. In a bid to appease Hindus, meddle with the Constitution, make religion the sole criteria for citizenship, put its stamp of approval of Jinnah’s two-nation theory and persecute the minorities, it has set the northeast aflame.

Also read: People defy curfew in Guwahati, Army conducts flag march

Assam is not Kashmir where a similar ploy could be rammed home through brute force and restrictions. Its people have had a history of bringing governments to its knees. Also, they are not Muslims whose repression or anger can be countered by mobilizing the footsoldiers of Hindutva in the mainland.

Assam will remind the BJP of the perils of not learning the right lessons from the Battle of Saraighat. And that of the might of the local tribes arrayed against forces trying to rule the state from the darbar of Delhi.