Dear friends/well wishers, Hope you are fine. Here is aPPFA statement for your kind endorsement.
Regards, Nava Thakuria, Guwahati PPFA calls for genuine spaceto citizenship debates Guwahati: Expressing concernover creating sentiments with unhealthy debates and aggressive attacks over the organizations, who reportedlysupported the Centre’s initiative to amend the citizenship acts in front ofJoint Parliamentary Committee in New Delhi recently, the Patriotic People’sFront Assam (PPFA) insists on rational debates over the pertinent issue. The forum, in a statementissued to the media, claims that a section of Assamese intellectuals and civilsociety groups have tried their best to project the citizenship amendment bill2016 in a bias perception as if the whole initiative is Assam centric. “Those biased individualshave made the hue and cry that once it turns into a law, millions of BengaliHindu people from Bangladesh would be dumped into Assam and the practice will continue for decades.So whoever supports the initiative (s)he should be termed as Jatidrohi (readanti Assamese),” said the PPFA statement. They cleverly avoidedthe fact that those asylum seekers are not merely BengaliHindus, but also a mix of Rajbongshi, Hajong, Jayantiya, Bishnupriya, Chakma,Garo, Khasi, Adivasi etc people. Moreover, all these people became the victimsof Pakistan’s partition game plan and had to live in a foreign land, for thecreation of which they were not at all responsible, added the statement. It also clarifies that theinitiative is meant to allow citizenship for those Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Christian, Jain andParsi community refugees, who were persecuted because of their religionspractices in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and had already taken shelterin India prior to 31 December 2014, andthere is no provision to bring more Bangladeshi (or Pakistani and Afghannational) after the said date. Extending supports to theinitiative, the PPFA however demanded that the asylum seekers from theneighbouring countries must be distributed judiciously across the country. Moreover, those whoprefer to stay legally in Assam, they should adopt the Assamese language as their medium of instructionthe forumasserted. “Adopting the Assameselanguage as the medium of official language by those settlers would help inpromoting the Assamese culture and also contributing for a stronger and saferIndia. Their goodwill will also remove the linguistic threat perception huntingthe indigenous populace of Assam,” the statement pointed out. The PPFA also reiterated itsold stand to detect all illegal immigrants from the then East Pakistan (andlater Bangladesh) with the cut-off year of 1951 as it is applicable to theentire nation. It argued that the spirit of Assam Movement (1979 to 1985) wasto deport all foreigners since 1951, for which over 850 martyrs-KhargeswarTalukder being the first, sacrificed their lives. The forum also claims thatthe immigrants who entered India between 1951 and 16 December 1971 should be treated as East Pakistani nationals,as Bangladesh emerged as a sovereign nation only after 16 December (not 25March 1971 as often reported in the media) following the surrender of Pakistaniforces under the leadership of AAK Niazi to the Muktijoddhas (forces of Bangladeshfreedom struggle). It clarified that Banglafather of the nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman only declared the independence ofBangladesh on 25 March of 1971. But till 16 December of the year, the land wasvery much under the Pakistani authority and hence it cannot be termed asBangladesh (so the residents as Bangladeshi nationals), the statement added. Finally the PPFA statementconcluded that if the deportation ofillegitimate immigrants becomes impossible (or very difficult) because ofserious humanitarian and international crisis, the Union government in NewDelhi should think about offering work permits (without voting rights) for themto resolve the issue amicably. Endorsed by Rupam Barua,Nava Thakuria, Jagadindra Ray Choudhury, Pramod Kalita, Kishour Giri, Arup Koch, Anup Sarma, Dayal Krishna Nath, OkenJeet Sandham, Bidhayak Das, AnirbanChoudhury, Ujjal Saikia, Rubee Das, Prarthana Hazarika, Rajib Chowdhury, SmritiDivya Barua, Namrata Datta, Babita Sarma, Kuntala Chakrabarty, Sanjeeb Kalita,Bhuban Saikia, Anujata Talukdar, Pallabi Borah, Pankaj Kr Borah, SimantaSharma, Kaushik Chakraborty, Prasanta Chakraborty, Dhruva Saikia, Mridul KrChakrabarty, Navadeep Bharali, Kisor Sarma etc for the PPFA
