E-Paper
Understanding Clause 6 of Assam Accord
This is the third time this year that Clause 6 has hit the headlines; in January, it was in the news after the Modi government formed a committee to implement it. The accord brought to an end, six years of the Assam movement, an agitation in the state against undocumented immigrants.
During discussions on the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) , home minister Amit Shah referred to Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. On Monday, while speaking in the Lok Sabha, he accused the Congress of not acting on implementing the clause since the accord was signed in 1985 . The lower house passed the bill on Monday.
“Clause 6 of the Assam Accord had a provision that a committee will be set up for the demands of the people of Assam. This was signed but till (Narendra) Modi became PM, for 33 years, no committee was made… None of the protections that were promised to the people of Assam happened,” said Shah while introducing the bill in the Upper House on Wednesday. Later in the day, just before voting on the Bill began, Shah said that Clause 6 will act as a safeguard and protect the interests of people of the state. The Rajya Sabha passed the law Wednesday.
This is the third time this year that Clause 6 has hit the headlines; in January, it was in the news after the Modi government formed a committee to implement it. The second time it was in the news was in July, when the chairman of the committee, former tourism secretary MP Bezbaruah, quit after protests against the CAB broke out in Assam.
What is Clause 6?
It is one of the promises in the Assam Accord, a memorandum of settlement inked between the representatives of the All Assam Students Union, the Assam state government and the government of India. The accord brought to an end, six years of the Assam movement, an agitation in the state against undocumented immigrants.
“Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people,” Clause 6 reads.
Former Assam chief minister Prafulla Mahanta, who, as a representative of the AASU, was one of the signatories of the accord said that Clause 6 was supposed to act as a safeguard against the effect of migration between 1951 and 1971 on Assam’s demography and the state’s culture.
However, Mahanta disagreed that the clause would protect Assam’s interests now.
“Clause 6 is not going to act as a protection against the CAB; instead CAB is undoing Clause 6. CAB is extending the cut-off year from 1971 to 2014,” says the Asom Gana Parishad leader. AGP is a BJP ally and part of the BJP government in the state.
Mahanta added that his government, on January 21, 1986 formed the Assam Accord Implementation Department to oversee the implementation of the compact. In 1990, the union government set up a special task force for the same purpose, with LC Jain, a Planning Commission member as its chairman. This panel made 94 recommendations, of which the state government had to implement 62 and the Centre, 25.
Mahanta said that after the Jain committee recommendations, the Centre agreed to a divide of 90:10 ratio of funds for Assam for Centre schemes. Apart from that two more Committees were formed -- headed by AGP leaders Dinesh Goswami and by Paragdhar Chaliha, respectively. He added that the Goswami Committee recommendations were never submitted to the state government and due to the Chaliha Commission, the Sankardev Kalakshetra was formed.
Nothing much happened till January when the government appointed a committee headed by Bezbaruah. The other members of the committee are Assam advocate general Ramesh Borpatragohain, Arunachal Pradesh advocate general Niloy Dutta, former IAS officer Subhash Das, former IPS officer Pallav Bhattacharya, academics Srishtidhar Dutta and Jaikanta Sharma, writer Sumanta Chaliha, journalist Wasbir Hussain, AASU’s Samujjal Bhattacharya, Dipanka Kumar Nath, and Lurinjyoti Gogoi, and MHA joint secretary Satyendra Garg.
AASU’s Gogoi echoed Mahanta. “Since CAB totally violates the Assam Accord, then why is the government selectively picking clause 6.The BJP had 11 years of governance at the Centre; why did it not implement it then?”.
