Sarbananda Sonowal sworn in as Assam CM; what will happen to Bangladeshis?

As people started trickling out of the Veterinary Field at Khanapara, after the swearing-in ceremony of the CM of Assam and his council of ministers, cabbie Hoibur, 25, and his friends sat outside waiting.

“Do you think they would have won if we would not have voted?” he says. He revealed that his uncle’s family were not too lucky; they were not allowed to vote. They were on the ‘de-voter’ list of the National Register of Citizens.

Hoibur says that his family has been here their whole life, and they have papers to prove it. “My uncle was not that lucky, he doesn’t have papers,” he says.

As the BJP formed its first government in the northeast in a glittering ceremony attended by PM Narendra Modi, LK Advani, former CM Tarun Gogoi and others, many thought of the party’s most effective poll plank -- sending back illegal Bangladeshis.

The BJP vision document, too, spoke of stopping encroachment of government land by “doubtful citizens”, securing the Indo-Bangladesh border, and scrutinising the citizenship of doubtful residents as per NRC.

Even during the meeting with governor PB Acharya to stake claim to form the government, Sarbananda Sonowal discussed the issue of illegal citizens, and assured the governor that he will work on the immediate completion of the NRC, and the identification and deportation of illegal citizens. He further guaranteed the sealing of Assam’s borders in the next two years.

Yet it is important to note that a significant stretch of the 126-km border Assam shares with Bangldesh, about 40 km lies along the Brahmaputra. Most of illegal immigrants enter the country through the ‘chars’, the mounds of silts that come up during the winters and dry seasons, and are engulfed by the river once monsoon arrives.

Lawyer Ila Sharma, 58, says that she is hopeful about the new government.

“Tarun Gogoi’s government never acknowledged their presence, and they enter Assam in droves, changing its demographics and taking away jobs that should ideally belong to the state’s youth. I hope they seal the borders for good; it is not too practical to send all of them back,” she says.

The most significant political achievement of Sonowal was to scrap the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983, via a Supreme Court petition in 2005. The Act was largely seen as a boon for illegal immigrants as it was upon the accuser to prove the charge and not the accused. In 2005, Sonowal was a member of the AGP, a party that originated during the Assam Andolan that sought to send back ‘foreigners’ back to their state. Despite a rousing victory in 1985 where they bagged 67 of the 126 seats, the AGP has effectively deported only 385 people during its two tenures between 1985 to 1989 and 1996 to 2001.

Hafizur Rehman, a journalist from Gossaigaon, a small border town in Kokrajhar district that has seen intermittent bloodbaths against its Bangladeshi residents in 1996, when 22 people were killed, and, in 2012, when over 30 people, says that he is doubtful the government will do anything significant.

“The government is unlikely to turn everyone away, even those who are kept in the devoter camps. It is also not a secret that a lot of Muslims voted them to power,” he said.

As he took to the dais to thank the people, Sonowal spoke of a newer, emboldened Assamese identity that will march in the path of development. “We have brought into our folds Rabhas, Tiwas, Kacharis and Bodos. Be it Assamese, Marwadi, Nepali or Bengali, all of us will work together for a better future,” he said. What was missing were Bangladeshis.