Assam Students Body Protests Against Government's Directive On Hindu Migrants
The Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had denied media reports on Thursday that his government has asked officials of the foreigners tribunals to drop cases against members of six communities—Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, and Parsi—who entered the state before 2015, citing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).
However, the CM's assurances have not cut ice with AASU, which has spearheaded anti-CAA protests in the state.
In Guwahati, members of AASU's Kamrup Mahanagar district unit assembled in front of the Swahid Nyas, where they burned copies of the reported directive and shouted anti-government slogans.
Addressing the media, AASU President Utpal Sarma said, "The Government of Assam has issued instructions to all Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police to withdraw citizenship-related cases against illegal Hindu migrants from Bangladesh. These directives are unacceptable."
"AASU firmly opposes this move. As a mark of protest, we have burned copies of the directive at all district headquarters today. We reiterate our stand against the CAA and demand that the government withdraw this decision, which effectively protects illegal Hindu Bangladeshis in foreigners' tribunals," he said.
Utpal Sarma also reiterated AASU's consistent demand for the full implementation of the Assam Accord.
"Only those who entered Assam before March 24, 1971—regardless of religion—are eligible for Indian citizenship. Anyone who came after that, Hindu or Muslim, must be identified and expelled. That has always been our stand," Mr Sarma said.
He concluded by announcing that protests would continue across the state until the government revokes the directive and upholds the constitutional and historical sanctity of the Assam Accord.
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On July 19, Chinese Premier Li Qiang attended a groundbreaking ceremony in Tibet to mark the start of what China calls the Yarlung Zangbo Lower Reaches Hydropower Project. When completed, this will be the largest hydroelectric project in the world, with an installed capacity of 60,000 MW. A hydroelectric project to dam the river in Tibet has been rumoured for decades, and caused several cycles of anxiety in India, because the Yarlung Tsangpo (called Zangbo by the Chinese) eventually, after a formative confluence of tributaries in the foothills of Arunachal Pradesh, becomes the Brahmaputra. Now that it is finally happening, the reaction from India has been relatively muted. Even Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam, the state whose core is the Brahmaputra valley, has been uncharacteristically measured in his response. There are at least three clearly discernible reasons for this. One is that, in recent years, the Brahmaputra has come to be better understood by officialdom in India. It is therefore understood that most of the water in the river comes from sources on the Indian side of the border. Two popular misconceptions however remain. Part isn't whole The first is that the Yarlung Tsangpo is the Brahmaputra. It is not; the Brahmaputra is the Brahmaputra. The second, specific to this hydroelectric project, is that this will be the biggest dam in the world. That may not be the case. The first misconception arises from a popular but excessively simplified image of rivers. The imagination of the world's great rivers, shaped by their representation on maps, is that of natural canals. There is usually a single neat line that is labelled as the river, and this line is then traced as far back as it can be to what is called the source of the river. The whole thing, from its beginning as a few trickles of water, is understood as the river. This hydrological convention of tracing rivers to their headwaters has its roots in the ' Age of Exploration ' between the 15th-17th centuries when intrepid colonial explorers were trotting around the globe 'discovering' continents such as America. Exploration was followed by imperialism and colonialism, and it was in the time of colonialism, as companies such as the East India Company poured resources into the mapping of rivers – the primary mode of inland transport in the absence of proper roads – that the current convention that identifies the Tsangpo with the Brahmaputra began to emerge. The Brahmaputra as Brahmaputra exists only in Assam. Lohit's primacy The earlier convention, still found in Assamese popular culture, for instance in the songs of Bhupen Hazarika, identified another of the Brahmaputra's main tributaries, the Lohit, with the Brahmaputra. The Brahmaputra itself is referred to as the Burha Luit or Old Lohit in a celebrated song by Hazarika, the 'bard of the Brahmaputra'. The name Brahmaputra is used for the river only after a confluence of its three formative tributaries, the Lohit, the Dibang and the Siang, near the foothills of Arunachal Pradesh bordering Assam. The Siang, in turn, is the river that can be traced back and identified as the Yarlung Tsangpo – although that too is a reductive simplification as there are numerous tributaries and streams that flow into the Siang after it enters India. While the Siang is a significant river, it is by no means the Brahmaputra, because the Brahmaputra has not less than 25 major tributaries. The Siang is not the largest of these tributaries. That honour goes to the Subansiri. The Lohit and Dibang come next, although there are wide seasonal variations in flow especially in the case of the Dibang. 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These tunnels will form a 'short-cut' that will carry the bulk of the water which now goes around the mountain through the Great Bend. The water will be passed through a cascade of five hydroelectric power stations where turbines turned by the rushing waters will generate electricity. After passing through the power stations the water will be released back into the river. The key feature of this plan is the tunnels, not the dam. They would need to be not less than 20 km long and not less than 10 m wide. The biggest tunnels ever built for a hydroelectric project so far, the Jinping II project on the Yalong River in China, are about 16.6 km long and 12-13 m wide. Incidentally, that project is also located in a mountainous area at a place where the river Yalong, a tributary of the Yangtse, makes a U-turn, known as the Jinping Bend. Several such tunnels in parallel would be required for the Tsangpo project. 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