VOTES AND THE CAA

WHILE THE CITIZENSHIP LEGISLATION MAY HELP THE BJP CONSOLIDATE ITS VOTE AMONG NON-ASSAMESE-SPEAKING HINDUS, THE PARTY WILL HAVE TO DO MUCH MORE TO PLACATE THE ANGER OF ASSAMESE VOTERS IN 2021

- Kaushik Deka

On January 25, the Assam minister for finance, education and health, Himanta Biswa Sarma, announced that the state government would introduce a bill which will make a person who has not studied Assamese as a subject till Class 10, even if s/he had schooled in the English medium, in eligible for a government job in Assam. This criterion would also apply for admission to state medical and engineering colleges. Assamese was to be made compulsory up to Class 10.

Once the bill is passed, his own children, Sarma admits, will not be eligible for government jobs in the state, as they study outside Assam and have not studied Assamese in school. However, it is a small price to pay for what the government hopes to gain in return—the electoral support of Assamesespeaking people who have been agitating against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, for nearly two months. Unlike the rest of India, protesters in Assam are not worried that the CAA—pushed hard by the BJP-led Union and state governments—excludes Muslims. Rather, they fear it gives citizenship to illegal Hindu Bangla-speaking immigrants from Bangladesh, who, together with the Muslim Bangla speakers in Assam, may outnumber the Assamese in their own state.