Assam NRC issue - listen from an Assamese why you should not talk trash about it!

Assam NRC issue — listen from an Assamese why you should not talk trash about it!

PAHARI BARUAH

If you are a celeb starving for some popularity or a politician hunting for some unrest in the country for your personal gains and you think Assam NRC issue is your golden break, then you seriously need to shut up immediately.

It’s pathetic to see such ignorant casual tweets from some popular figures of the country regarding the NRC list of Assam. Stop portraying this as robbing off of citizenship of a particular group of people and please put this in your brains that they are not Indian citizens in the first place.

Assam NRC issue -- listen from an Assamese why you should not talk trash about it!

If you have heard about a country called Bangladesh, these are people of Bangladesh who cross over to India illegally (thanks to our pathetic border system) and start living, breeding and of course creating nuisance in Assam, just like that.

Okk I understand your needs for showing off your humanity, big- heartedness and of course the knowledge of what’s going on in the country. But let me ask you first…..

What do you really know about NRC? How much do you know about Assam’s NRC issue?

Have you ever come across the term ‘Axom Andolan(Assam movement)’ or for that matter, how much do you even know about the state of Assam itself?

Let me tell you a small story here, back in the year 1978, a MP in the Mangaldai constituency of Assam named Hiralal Patwari died requiring a re-election in the place. In the re-election, the dramatic increase in the number of voters was the first noticeable hint that voting rights were given to some foreigners to increase the vote count for a particular political party. This led to the start of an agitation led by a student party and a local political party of the state which was supported by the whole state.

Massive protests were held across Assam against granting of voting rights to illegal infiltrators at the cost of huge damage to the overall development of the state. Assamese people- youths, aged, women gave their lives for this cause (the martyrs count was 855). They died in order to protect their motherland from these illegal foreign infiltrators.

The agitation subsided with the assurance by the then government in the form of the ‘Assam Accord’ signed in the year 1985 between the “then PM” and some “incapable” leaders of the Assam movement, which later turned out to be a joke as rather than freeing Assam from these outsiders, their influx increased like wildfire throughout the state and continues even till date.

Do you know that these people are the main cause of most of the problems in the otherwise comparatively peaceful state? Do you know that if you look in any Assamese daily, about 90% of the crimes in the state are committed by this particular illegal bunch of people?

Do you know that being an Assamese, we are afraid to go into some areas of these illegal immigrants occupied places in Assam even in broad daylight? Do you know the reason why? Do you think you can live peacefully among these people who are forever encroaching our lands, literally polluting our beautiful realm, committing heinous crimes like rapes and murders and of course always multiplying like rabbits?

Are you even aware that the cut-off date for detection of foreigners in Assam is 24^th March 1971, whereas the cut-off date for citizenship in the rest of the country is just after independence? I am sure not. We are still liberal in the dates than you atleast and you want us to accept them as own? Would you accept Pakistanis or let’s say Talibanis all over your land if they illegally cross the border and just start living there.

I know you wouldn’t but we here atleast tried. Tried to keep quiet, tried to bear with the numerous inconveniences, tried even accepting them but what should we do when our own identity starts becoming a threat in our own lands.

Have you heard of Arnamai Bora or the numerous other brutal rape victims in the hands of these infiltrators. Have you ever lit a candle for them?

Do you know that Assam holds a top position in the number of kidney and cancer patients due to the cheap banned fertilizers and pesticides imported from Bangladesh and used in our crops by these people who have already acquired and started their farming businesses in our lands?

Let me tell you something, showing humanity for these people in front of the Assamese is a joke on you itself because if you have ever been to Assam, the big hearts and hospitality of Assamese people would put your humanity to shame. Were you ever aware of the annual disastrous floods that affect the state or the various other grave problems faced by us? Did you ever raise your voice on any issue of Assam or is it just the NRC issue that seems sensational enough to gain popularity?

If you have even an ounce of commonsense left you should know that the fight here is between Indians and illegal troublemaking foreigners. Shameless politicians who see these people as vote banks have always tried to defend and shelter them in the hope of a few more votes, always turning a blind eye to the dangerous future that awaits the state. Intellectuals for whom secularism has become a fashion, without bothering to adhere to its actual meaning have protected them just because they belong to a particular religion.

This is not about the communal hatred that a pea-headed leader from a neighboring state wants to portray for her personal benefit; this is about what the Assamese people from Assam have been facing since a long time. We have suffered long enough and even now although a list is out, we know that the actual problem is nowhere near being solved. Stop making it about Muslims. Stop making it about Bengalis. It is, I repeat, a last hope for the indigenous people of Assam to save themselves from being trampled over by a group of outsiders.

Also, ofcourse there maybe flaws in the NRC but that can be corrected or further more transparently investigated. But the bloodshed that some scoundrels are trying to initiate will be incorrigible. We don’t know if all these illegal Bangladeshis we see around everyday are even included in the so called list. We don’t know that even after the names are sorted if anything will actually be done regarding the issue.

We don’t know till when we will have to keep fighting for safeguarding our beautiful language and our beautiful little state. But I know that we will fight. And we can fight for Assam because we are the same Assamese that stopped the Mughals from entering our lands when they invaded the rest of the country.

Although the history books of India never bother to print anything about the only kingdom that defeated the Mughals. Recently there was so much controversy in Bollywood regarding a battle lost to Muslim invaders but no one even knows about the brave Lachit Borphukan or the glorious victory of the Battle of Saraighat.

Let me get it straight, Assam is for the Assamese but yet people of various communities like Bengalis, Marwaris, Bihars, Nepalis have been living here as our kith and kin without any trouble. But we have realized it the hard way that we cannot keep sheltering the illegal Bangladeshis anymore if we have to keep our Assamese identity alive.

And by no means should a person from mainland India who have never visited Assam and who most likely know nothing about the graveness of the issue have an opinion in support of the illegal Bangladeshi immigrants living as parasites in the state. We have sheltered these miscreants long enough only to be repaid back by increased crime rates, abnormal population increase, unrest in the state and threats to the native people of Assam.

It’s high time they go back to their own country or to the neighboring state that is so ready to welcome their new foreign vote bank.

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