Notably, 15 key recommendations of the Justice Biplab Sarma Committee will not be implemented for the time being. These, CM Himanta said, will require Constitutional amendments. Here's all you need to know about the issue.
After a meeting with representatives of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) on Wednesday, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma set the ball rolling for the implementation of 52 recommendations of the Justice Biplab Sarma Committee regarding Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, as announced by the Assam government earlier this month.
This comes more than four years after the Centre-appointed high-level committee finalised its report in February 2020.
Notably, 15 key recommendations of the committee will not be implemented for the time being. These, the chief minister said, will require Constitutional amendments to be implemented. “We will take up these matters with the Centre at the right forum,” he posted on X on Wednesday.
What is the Biplab Sarma committee report?
The historic Assam Accord was a Memorandum of Settlement between the Rajiv Gandhi-led Union government and the leadership of the Assam Movement, primarily the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), which was signed in 1985. The accord ended the six-year-long agitation in Assam against the entry of Bangladeshi migrants into the state. Clause 6 of the accord states that “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.”
In July 2019, the Union Home Ministry constituted a 14-member committee chaired by retired Assam High Court Justice Biplab Kumar Sarma, and comprising judges, retired bureaucrats, writers, AASU leaders and journalists, to suggest ways to implement the clause. Among the key questions before the committee was a definition of “the Assamese people” eligible for the “safeguards” under Clause 6.
The committee finalised its report in February 2020. But instead of it being received by the Union Home Ministry, which had constituted the committee, the report was received by then Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal of the BJP. In August 2020, four committee members released the confidential report in the public domain.
Among the key recommendations made by the committee was that the definition of “Assamese people”, for the purpose of implementing Clause 6, should include “Indigenous Tribals”, “Other Indigenous Communities of Assam”, “Indian citizens residing in the territory of Assam on or before January 1, 1951” and their descendants, and “Indigenous Assamese” people. Based on this, the committee made several recommendations for reservations for “Assamese people”, including in Parliament, the state Assembly, local bodies, and jobs.
What recommendations of the report will the Assam government implement?
Chief Minister Sarma said that the state government has accepted 1951 as the “cut-off date” for the specific recommendations of the report. He said, however, that this definition of “Assamese people” is confined to only the context of the report’s recommendations.
Following a meeting with the AASU on Wednesday, he said that the 67 broad recommendations made by the report can be divided into three broad categories: 40 which come under the exclusive domain of the state government, 12 which will require the concurrence of the Centre, and 15 which are in the exclusive domain of the Centre. The 52 recommendations in the first two categories will be implemented by April 2025, for which the state government will submit a roadmap to AASU by October 25 this year.
These 52 recommendations largely deal with safeguards on language, land, and cultural heritage. Some key recommendations include:
Land
* Creating Revenue Circles where only “Assamese people” can own and possess land, and transfer of such land in these areas are limited to them alone;
* Launching a time-bound, three year programme to allot land titles to “Assamese people” who have occupied a certain piece of land for decades, but are without possession of land documents;
* Carrying out a special survey of char areas (riverine regions along the Brahmaputra), and for newly created chars to be treated as government land, in which river erosion-affected people should get priority in allotment;
Language
* Keeping Assamese as the official language throughout the state as per the 1960 Assam Official Language Act “with provisions for use of local languages” in the Barak Valley, Hill districts, and the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District;
* Making it compulsory for all state government acts, rules, orders, etc. to be issued in Assamese along with English;
* Constituting an Autonomous Language and Literature Academy/Council of Assam to preserve and promote all indigenous languages of Assam;
* Making Assamese a compulsory subject up to class VIII or class X in all English medium schools, both under the state board and CBSE;
Cultural heritage
Establishing an autonomous authority for the development of sattras (neo-Vaishnavite monasteries), which will, among other things, provide financial assistance to them; and
* Creating multipurpose cultural complexes in each district to “uplift” the cultural heritage of all ethnic groups.
Chief Minister Sarma said that the autonomous councils of Assam’s Sixth Schedule Areas — namely the Bodoland Territorial Council, the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council and the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council — will decide whether to implement the 52 recommendations. The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution provides autonomous tribal councils in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram certain legislative and judicial autonomy.
Along with the Sixth Schedule areas, Sarma said that the primarily Bengali-speaking Barak Valley will also be exempted from the implementation of these recommendations.
Which recommendations has the Assam government left out?
Some of the most sensitive recommendations by the committee, however, do not find mention in the 52 points listed by the state government. Assam Congress president Bhupen Borah recently referred to these as the “soul” of the committee’s report.
Among them are the introduction of an Inner Line Permit for entry into Assam as is in place in Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Mizoram, as well as numerous reservations for “Assamese people”. The latter include 80-100% reservation in Assam’s seats in Parliament, and the same proportion reserved in the state Assembly and local bodies; 80-100% reservation in Assam government jobs; and 70-100% reservations in vacancies arising in undertakings run in partnership between the Assam government and private companies. There was also a recommendation for the creation of an Upper House (the Legislative Council of Assam) which would be completely reserved for the “Assamese people”.
The BJP’s political opponents have questioned where the Centre featured in discussions regarding the implementation of the committee’s recommendations. Former AASU general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi, who was a member of the committee, questioned whether the Union Home Ministry even accepted the report.
“The Home Ministry has still not accepted the report… Until it accepts the report, the recommendations do not have any legal or constitutional value… the fundamental points here are those on political representation,” he said. However, Chief Minister Sarma has said that the Assam government will appeal to the Centre to have talks with AASU, and work towards the implementation of the remaining 15 recommendations.
“Our aim is that we should not let those recommendations which are attainable lie by the wayside because of those which are difficult and may take time,” he had said earlier this month.
Written by Sukrita Baruah
