It has filed a writ petition within the Supreme Court in search of the annulment of the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024, whereas asserting that the Centre’s notification of the Rules on 11 March contradicts the Assam Accord and Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955. The AASU believes that the CAA contradicts the aim of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Earlier this month, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma asserted that he’ll step down if non-NRC candidates achieve citizenship through the CAA — his phrases appears to have calmed tempers and slackened the motion, however analysts and political observers additionally level on the dwindling clout of the organisation, whose six-year motion towards ‘outsiders’ or ‘foreigners’ had led to the Assam Accord in 1985.
Six many years since its inception, critics level out the previous lapses and the current AASU management’s check of sincerity over the CAA subject. A sequence of interrelated occasions over the previous nearly 20 years has progressively dragged the scholars’ organisation into digital insignificance, they are saying.
The weakened motion has led to some analysts questioning if many sympathisers of the trigger are additionally suspicious of the AASU’s sincerity due to its “past history of alleged compromise”.
While the election fervour has taken a lot wind out of the AASU’s sail, some really feel that the one recourse is now via the doorways of the Supreme Court — the apex courtroom has already taken up the problem for examination.
“The AASU has failed to calibrate its strategies with the changed political environment. It is not surprising that the organisation finds itself in a mess now, and is unable to retain the space in student politics,” one of many observers tells ThePrint.
But, AASU advisor Samujjal Bhattacharyya tells ThePrint that the main target stays intact since its formation — securing the way forward for Assam and the indigenous folks, and a protected future for the scholars.
“It is a continuous journey, a continuous struggle. Whenever there has been a crisis situation affecting the indigenous people, the AASU has led from the front. Since the very beginning, we have covered many milestones, and as time changes, and with advancement of technology, our strategies too have changed,” Bhattacharyya says.
Another political analyst claims that the actions of the AASU have misplaced steam over time whilst the scholars’ union together with the Asam Sahitya Sabha, the apex literary physique within the state, stay the “pillars of the Assamese community”, the Jatiya (nationwide) organisations.
“Along with the AASU, Assam has seen the emergence of several ethnic organisations led by youths in their districts. That the AASU needs the support of 30 ethnic groups suggests it has weakened over the years. The way it collectively led movements in the past involving the entire student fraternity of Assam is not much seen now. It also indicates the eroding support of people in different parts of the state towards the student body,” the analyst mentioned.
“Even during the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) rule, the way the AASU was expected to fight for the rights and identity of the Assamese people did not happen. Today, the CAA has been implemented in Assam. Will the AASU still restrict itself to memorandums and slogans?”
The AGP leaders had been primarily scholar activists of the Assam Movement. Formed two months after the Assam Accord was signed on 15 August 1985, the AGP had gone on to win the state election held in December that 12 months below the management of Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. The AGP fashioned the federal government for a second time in 1996.
Similarly, former chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who moved the Supreme Court towards the now scrapped Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, started as a scholar chief with the AASU earlier than becoming a member of the AGP. In February 2011, he resigned from the AGP and joined the BJP which made him the chief minister 5 years later.
Bhattacharyya clarifies that the AASU will work solely with ideologically related outfits and on widespread grounds.
“When violence erupted in Barpeta during the NRC updating exercise in 2017, AASU and 26 ethnic organisations joined hands against the Bangladeshi lobby. The number gradually increased to 30. We are working together on common issues, and also with the Sahitya Sabha units. It’s a cordial atmosphere in Assam because of that,” he says.
Former Assam DGP and famous author Harekrishna Deka feels that the AASU-led agitation in 2019 obtained mass help, largely in city centres, however the message failed to succeed in the agricultural areas.
“The existential fear of the indigenous people is strong but at the same time, no ethnic organisation has been able to earn uncritical trust of the people. They are unable to galvanise rural people as before. The Assam Agitation, having begun with a roar, ended in a whimper; the people resignedly, but grudgingly accepted the Assam Accord. The masses seem not so much influenced by the exhausted pattern of agitation and do not give blind support to these methods as they did before,” he says.
Sounding a warning, Deka says a potential discount of ethnic inhabitants can show disruptive sooner or later, as is being witnessed in Manipur. The discontent could have apparently weakened on the political floor — with robust undercurrents not seen on the bottom, he warns.
“If the next Census shows that the percentage of ethnic population has been reduced, resulting in further erosion of their political space, a centrifugal force may manifest strongly to complicate the federal structure. Though the issues of Manipur and Assam are different, its fault line may equally be complicated.”
Reacting to the announcement of a statewide anti-CAA agitation, Raijor Dal chief and Sivsagar legislator Akhil Gogoi had mentioned that AASU’s motion was nothing however a “drama to show its presence”.
“CAA is unconstitutional, communal and a legislation against the interests of the Assamese community. Assam’s 80 percent population had revolted against the CAA in 2019. But AASU’s programme suggests only that they have taken up certain plans in consultation with the state government, possibly not to upset it,” he tells ThePrint.
Also Read: Renewed protests in Assam over CAA guidelines notification
Student politics in Assam & AASU’s journey
As seen within the position performed by All India Students Federation‘s (AISF) Assam unit throughout the freedom wrestle of India, college students had been on the forefront of socio-political actions put up Independence too — be it the Refinery Movement of 1956, and the Language Movement within the Nineteen Sixties.
In the last decade that adopted, an upsurge in scholar activism was seen within the 1972 motion that demanded Assamese as a medium of instruction as much as college stage, the 1974 Food and Economic Agitation, and the 1979-85 Assam Movement that sought the detection of unlawful immigrants, their deletion from voter record and deportation to Bangladesh.
Formed in 1967, the AASU was a results of the churn generated by political events and organisations who got here collectively, regardless of political and ideological variations, to wage a joint wrestle towards the then prevailing financial disaster together with worth hike of necessities.
Slowly, AASU gained significance as a mass college students’ base, and assumed an impartial and apolitical character. The subsequent 15-20 years following the sixties had been the many years of protest and political turbulence in Assam. While the aspirations of many of those scholar leaders remained unfulfilled, some had been pushed to consolidation of energy by becoming a member of politics.
The analyst quoted earlier believes the 12 months 1985 was the top of AASU’s character as a formidable scholar organisation, particularly after the formation of the AGP.
“AGP and AASU worked in a parallel way — each influencing the other in different times. After 1985, their movements haven’t been able to make progress. The mindset of youth changed, too. They started to believe that the platform of AASU is their next step to politics,” he says.
Elaborating on the position of the AASU leaders who joined politics, Deka phrases it a “poor shadow of its predecessors”.
“After the Assam Accord, the student leaders’ hidden agenda of capturing political power was exposed, and misgovernance made them unpopular. The next generation of the AASU still gained some emotive space on various issues, but it has never been overwhelming. There has been loss of credibility of AASU leaders over the years,” the author mentioned.
Also Read: Will resign if anybody not a part of NRC will get citizenship, says Himanta amid CAA protest in Assam
‘No results for Assam Accord, NRC & CAA’
According to the analysts, the AASU has did not see any trigger to its logical conclusion — be it the NRC, the CAA, the Clause 6 of Assam Accord, the current risk to Assamese language as medium of instruction, or the usual of upper schooling in Assam.
As an instance, one of many political analysts highlights the delay in implementation of the Accord that was signed between the Centre and the leaders of the AASU and the regional political celebration, All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP).
The Assam Accord promised that each one immigrants who arrived in Assam after 1965 can be disenfranchised, and deportation of these settling after 1971. Also, the date of 25 March 1971 was accepted because the deadline for the identification of “foreigners”. This formally marked the top of the six-year Assam Movement that began in 1979.
But Assam “could not recover from the deep scars left by the political unrest”, writes Professor Arupjyoti Saikia in his ebook ‘The Quest for Modern Assam’.
The guarantees made in 1985 nonetheless stay unfulfilled, asserts a senior citizen of Guwahati. “After six years of the Assam Movement, and almost 40 years since the Assam Accord was signed, nearly 46 years have gone by — and we have only raised slogans, bearing no results.”
On his half, Bhattacharya says that non-implementation of the Assam Accord is a authorities downside.
“AASU has been continuously hammering for implementation of the Assam Accord and all its clauses. All consecutive governments did nothing to take it forward. It is only because of the AASU pressure to implement Clause 6 that the government formed a high-level committee. AASU members were also part of the committee, and we could submit the report in time. But till date, it has not been implemented,” he says.
The clause offers with legislative and administrative safeguards promised by the Centre to guard the Assamese cultural, social and linguistic id, and heritage.
“We want the foreigners’ issue to be solved urgently. The final NRC results were not satisfactory when we found that over 40 lakh people were excluded. These numbers are given by the government, not the AASU. We demanded recertification long back for a Bangladeshi-free NRC,” Bhattacharyya says.
In main the anti-CAA motion, Bhattacharya says that the folks of Assam wished a democratic, peaceable and non-violent motion.
Justifying the organisation’s position within the anti-CAA motion, he says that the AASU was the primary from Northeast to file a petition difficult the act. Of the 247 petitions from throughout the nation, 53 are from the Northeast together with 50 from Assam, Bhattacharyya tells ThePrint.
Deka asserts the Centre tackled the CAA subject “cleverly” by not framing guidelines, and will divert the eye of the plenty from it after the declaration of elections.
“The leaders of AASU and other organisations formed different political parties, thus diffusing their strength. The message against the CAA did not percolate down to the rural masses, and politically, these leaders cut a sorry figure in election,” he added, referring to regional political events fashioned after the unrest just like the Asom Jatiyatabadi Parishad (AJP) led by former AASU common secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi, and the Raijor Dal.
The AJP and Raijor Dal, fashioned by a committee of Assamese intellectuals constituted by the AASU and the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP), had collectively determined to contest the state election in 2021. Lurinjyoti Gogoi rose to prominence in 2021 after the formation of the AJP.
There have additionally been quite a few incidents of AASU leaders shifting allegiance from one political celebration to a different.
For occasion, AASU chief Zoii Nath Sarmah served as MLA from 1991 to 2001 in Sipajhar constituency on AGP ticket, and later joined the Congress in 2016. In January, AASU president Dipanka Nath, who severed his 20-plus years ties in 2022, joined the BJP. He was joined by former AASU vice-president Prakash Das. The subsequent month, Congress chief Shankar Prasad Rai, who was previously with the scholars’ outfit, joined the BJP.
The analyst explains that if AASU has to return to the glory of its adolescence, it has to fulfil all causes taken up until date — in a time-bound method, “by staying apolitical, and with people’s support”.
“The AASU had been a powerful organisation. If the AASU has grown weak, it means a big loss for Assam. For the future of the student fraternity, the AASU should introspect and revise its strategies. With the formation of every new committee, the previous committee of the AASU leadership leaves the organisation to join politics,” he says.
Bhattacharyya, in the meantime, asserts that the organisation nonetheless stays “apolitical”.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: ‘Even Ram bhakts in Assam don’t have Aadhaar’: Congress MLA & CM Sarma’s confrontation over NRC
