The position in Assam is being argued as one of the key opposition against this Bill. It is said that the Bill is against the spirit of Assam Accord. In order to understand that what really precipitates from the Accord, and the vicious cycle of Illegal Muslim Infiltration from Bangladesh we need to understand the history behind Assam’s inclusion in Indian Union and failure of Muslim League to make it a part of their Islamic republic during partition.

On May 16, 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan arbitrarily announced to group British Indian states in A, B & C categories. Assam was kept in Group C with Bengal, creating a predominantly Muslim zone in Eastern India like the one proposed to be setup in western India.

Actually Muslim League always had a devilish eye on Assam, Jinnah himself declared in a meeting in Guwahati in 1940 that Assam was in his pocket. It was Gopinath Bardoloi who exposed these intentions of Muslim League and its leader Syed Saadullah, Prime Minister of Assam (Chief Minister) and toppled their Government. He rose to become the Chief Minister and rejected this scheme of Cabinet Mission Plan and fought to retain the indigenous character of Assam and prevented it from being a part of Islamic State of Pakistan with the support of Mahatma Gandhi. In a report submitted to the President of India on 8th November, 1998, Lt. General SK Sinha, the then Governor of Assam, has after a detailed analysis, stated that a concerted effort was made to encourage the migration of Bengali- Muslims into Assam for political reasons during Syed Saadullah’s Muslim League Ministry.

He quoted what the Viceroy, Lord Wavell wrote in the Viceroy’s Iournal, The chief political problem is the desire of the Muslim Ministers to increase this immigration into the uncultivated Government lands under the slogan of Grow more Food but what they are really after, is Grow More Muslims.

Though the evil intentions of Muslim League failed to appropriate Assam but Muslim infiltration continued in the state. In pursuance of that concern Rohini Kumar Chaudhary, Constituent Assembly member from Assam, on behalf of all other prominent members from state, on 12th August, 1949 vehemently argued against granting citizenship to those who had infiltrated in Assam. He quoted newspaper reports in the Constituent Assembly as documents specifying Muslim League’s confession of at least 3 lakh Muslim infiltrators in Assam.

He urged the political establishment to take greater care of Assam because of rising infiltration. On the same day, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar assured the house that Parliament in its wisdom would look into the illegal migration in Assam and secure the rights of native Assamese. Later on, the Interim Parliament passed a law- The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950 to protect the cultural and social interests of Native Assamese under which the Central government could order the removal of any person who had come into Assam from outside India, and whose “stay in Assam is detrimental to the interests of the general public of India or of any section thereof or of any Scheduled Tribe in Assam”, but it excluded those Hindu Refugees who came amidst riots from Bangladesh seeking refuge.

Failure to get Assam included in East Pakistan in 1947 remained a source of abiding resentment among Pakistanis. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in his book, Myths of Independence wrote, “It would be wrong to think that Kashmir is the only dispute that divides India and Pakistan, though undoubtedly the most significant.

One at least is nearly as important as the Kashmir dispute, that of Assam and some districts of India adjacent to East Pakistan. To these Pakistan has very good claims”. These evil intentions were continuously in action and the Muslim Infiltration continued to change the demography of Assam so much so that in many parts of the state native Assamese were turned into a minority. Their public spaces, economic resources, employment, etc was all going into the hands of infiltrators.

The entire evil intention behind current attempts to takeover Assam is to fulfill that desire of Islamization of Assam at the behest of Pakistan. The entire objective is to develop another Kashmir like situation in the Eastern part of India as well. Infiltration is nothing but an external aggression and Assamese resistance is against Illegal Infiltration with ulterior motives and not against persecuted minorities seeking shelter.

Common Assamese people realize this conspiracy of turning Assam into an Islamic state and are willing to prevent it from being so by accepting the Amendments in the Citizenship Bill and by accepting such Bengali Hindu refugees as Indian citizen. This method will eventually help them in preventing demographic reversal which has already been done in several districts of Assam.