GUWAHATI, Jan 12 - A group of members from the Assamese diaspora residing in the United States and Canada, while registering their opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act-2019 in a letter to the Indian Supreme Court and the President of India has demanded that the Indian government repeal the Act immediately and implement the Assam Accord in its entirety, a press release received here stated. It has also strongly condemned the human rights violations by the police and Indian paramilitary forces against peaceful protesters and students, and the unconstitutional silencing of media and public narratives opposing the CAA.
�We are deeply saddened by the number of innocent people who lost their lives while being incarcerated in migrant detention centres in Assam, and are concerned regarding many others who stand at the risk of facing a similar fate in these centres. This is not only against international humanitarian laws, it calls to question our own sense of humanity as people. We demand the government to stop this immediately. Instead, we urge the government of India and Assam to adopt a comprehensive and sustainable approach that involves consultation with the public and the government of Bangladesh, and rehabilitation and resettling migrants in a manner that does not dehumanise them, but treats them as individuals worthy of dignity, respect and deserving of lives that are economically, culturally, and spiritually fulfilling, while at the same time protecting the indigenous people of Assam, their land, culture, and language,� the release, expressing the views of Jishnu Baruah, who had some close deliberations during his recent visit with members of the diaspora, stated.
In the letter to the President of India, the petitioners have pointed out that the recently-enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in India is an unconstitutional Act that threatens the secular fabric of the nation, is anti-indigenous, and has grave economic and socio-cultural implications for Northeast India, specifically Assam.
The CAA violates the Assam Accord, the peace treaty signed between Assam and the Government of India in 1985, according to which it was mutually agreed that Assam would host all immigrants who arrived until March 1971, the year Bangladesh got its independence and no further, the letter stated. It added that it also violates Articles 14, 15, 19, 21, 25, 29 of the Constitution of India.
It further said that Assam will bear the brunt of the Act in the absence of a coherent government strategy to rehabilitate migrants in humane, just, and sustainable ways. �Assam is one of the poorest States in India � almost 1/3rd of the population lives in extreme poverty, according to World Bank data, and the poverty rate remains higher than the national average. It also lags behind almost every other State in the country on Human Development indicators and lies below the national average. In the absence of the economic systems and infrastructure necessary to support a growing population, accommodating more migrants who arrived since 1971 and who are likely to arrive in the future will bring these systems on the verge of a collapse,� it said.
The Act also threatens the cultural diversity and plurality of indigenous traditions in Northeast India, offends the Indian Constitution and Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and international norms on the rights of indigenous people. Assam is home to a rainbow of ethnicities, tribes, and indigenous groups. A large influx of homogenous groups threatens the delicate balance of this multicultural, multiethnic, and multi-indigenous society which has maintained mostly harmonious relations in the past, it said.
The letter writers, stating that they are not affiliated with any political or news media organisations, countries, or agencies with vested interests, but are merely immigrants in a foreign land who love their homeland, India, and their host country, the United States/ Canada, also strongly condemned the violation by the police and the Indian paramilitary forces of the basic human right of Indian nationals to �freedom of peaceful assembly� as per Article 20 of the United Nation�s Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the fundamental freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution of India, the release added.
Bora said that the petition was written collectively following a period of extensive consultations and feedback-gathering with the diaspora based in the United States and Canada. Thereafter, a signature campaign was taken up and more than 350 signatures collected.