Assam betrayed again: Indo - bangla land deal

Assam or "Asama " in sanskrit mean peerless or unequalled and by signing this indo-bangladesh land swap deal, tarun gogoi , the chief minister of assam has proved again that he is peerless when it comes to selling the mother land. Whats more interesting is that the other person involved in this deal is the prime minister Dr. manmohan singh, a "selected" representative in rajya sabha from assam. I have used the term selected because he was never able to get into the parliament by winning general elections, where a common man votes.

Assam has been the neglected child of india for a very long time. Whether it was the chinese aggression , or the royalty of assam tea or assam oil. But never in the past have the people of assam been betrayed like this land swap deal. 

Assam has a history of discontent with bangladesh. In 1978 the member of the Lok Sabha, Hiralal Patwari, died necessitating a by-election in the Mangaldoi Lok Sabha Constituency. During the process of the election it was noticed that the electorate had grown phenomenally. AASU demanded that the elections be postponed till the names of foreign nationals are deleted from the electoral rolls, and the Assam Agitation was born. The Assam Agitation (or Assam Movement) was a popular movement against undocumented migrants in Assam between 1979 and 1985. It is regarded as one of the most vibrant democratic mass movements of independent India. The movement, led by All Assam Students Union and the 'All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad', set an agitational program to compel the government to identify and expel the illegal immigrants. The agitational programs were largely non-violent, but there were incidents of acute violence, like the Nellie massacre. The agitational program ended in 1985 following the Assam Accord that was signed between the agitation leaders and the Government of India. Although the accord brought an end to the agitation its implementation faced several lacuna and it remained a "Pyrrhic" accord till date.

In the present scenario, the resources of assam are being horrendously depleted by the govt of india without giving proper royalty to the state. Adding to the problem is the immigration from bangladesh which has risen exponentially over the past decade. More and more bangladeshi people are coming to assam usurping its resources and making the native population bereft of what is naturally their. Coming to the details of the land swap deal, in Palakhal area India gave “74.5 acres,” and in Boraibari “193 acres”. The explanation given is that these areas were never in our grasp and none of the residents are indians. But what govt of india failed to explain is why inspite of being in our possession people of india could never go to these places and when was the census taken which states that all these people are from bangladesh. Does this mean that if due to some reason some border village in gujrat or rajasthan are fully resided by pakistani people we will give away that area to pakistan. To be more precise why don't we give POK to pakistan and rename it "Azad kashmir", a term they like to use.

Not going far in history, the teesta river agreement between india and bangladesh saw major changes in between the initial and the final draft. Mamta bannerjee vehemently opposed a draft which was against the interest of the people of west bengal and govt of india bowed down to her. But in case of asssam, it was the land the most valuable resource in the earth and still our chief minister couldn't see the adversity in this deal. The future of assam looks bleak and if the youths don't combine their strengths and fight for the right of assam, the likes of tarun gogoi and others will sell it in no time. I would like to end this with a few lines from bhupen hazarika

"Kunuba kapurukhok purukh koribole Jyoti Prasandu je nai
Axom morile aamiu morim buli koboloi swahidu nai
Aaji ambika girir siyarok hejare haathe kaame nobarup dibo
Aajir axomiyai xangram nokorile axomote bhogoniya hobo"