Indigenous people must fight together to thwart Bangla design

GUWAHATI, February 20: All the indigenous people of Assam must fight together to thwart the design to include Assam and other parts of the Northeastern region into Bangladesh with demographic invasion, said the adviser of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU), Samujjal Bhattacharyya. Referring to the reports that a section of intellectuals of Bangladesh mooted the idea of dividing India to form a confederation comprising Bangladesh and the NE States of India, Bhattacharyya alleged that the failure of the Central and the State Governments to check the demographic invasion was the main reason for such outrageous proposals. He said that the indigenous people of Assam now have two options before them - either to surrender to the designs of Bangladesh or to fight together to thwart such designs. He appealed to all sections of indigenous people of the State to join hands to fight such designs of Bangladesh. Bhattacharyya pointed out that Bangladesh had a long term plan to include Assam in their territory because of the natural resources available in the State. He pointed out that in the recent proposal mooted by the Bangladeshi intellectuals, it was clearly mentioned that Bangladesh has the work force while, Assam has the natural resources. During the time of the partition of the country also, the leaders of the erstwhile East Pakistan tried their best to include Assam in their country but that move was thwarted due to the bold leadership of Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi. The move surfaced once again mainly because Assam today lacks strong leadership to strongly oppose such move, he added. He further alleged that the political parties, who are only interested in the votes of the Bangladeshis, do not have the courage to speak out against the demographic invasion that had been going on for years. Hitting out against the Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, the AASU adviser said that Mahanta became the Chief Minister on the strength of the Assam agitation for the detection and deportation of foreigners from the State but after coming to power he failed to take any step against the foreigners. Now Mahanta even refuses to talk on the issue fearing that they might lose the votes of the illegal migrants, he alleged. He further said that Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi saved Assam from being included in Bangladesh and the weakness of the present political leaders of the State would once again give rise to the move to include Assam in Bangladesh. Criticising the militant leaders who are taking shelter in Bangladesh, Bhattacharyya said that if the militants really want to do something well for the State, they should make their stand clear on the reported move to include Assam in Bangladesh. The AASU adviser also criticised the Central Government for its inaction on the issue and said that the Central leaders like the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister LK Advani had time and again assured to take positive steps for the solution of the problem of infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals into Assam but in practice, they failed to do anything in this regard. He said that the Central Government was maintaining double standard in case of Assam and Jammu and Kashmir. He pointed out that the Centre was making all out efforts to solve the problems of Kashmir, but when it came to solve the problem of infiltration of foreigners, which posed a serious threat to the unity and integrity of the country, the Centre is silent. Even the State Governor, Lt Gen (Retd) S K Sinha, who is a representative of the Central Government, in a report to the President of India, warned that if the illegal migration was not stopped, parts of Assam would become parts of Bangladesh. The Governor, in his report in 1998, also gave a series of proposals for the solution of the problem, but till date the Central Government has not taken any step for implementing the suggestions of the Governor. This proves that the Centre is not keen to protect the integrity of the country, he added. He further said that the indigenous people of Assam have proved that they are more patriots than the leaders at Delhi as the Assamese people launched an agitation for the detection and deportation of foreigners from Assam to protect the unity and integrity of the country, while the Central leaders have not initiated any step in this regard.