Guwahati, Dec 9: Senior advocate and former Union Minister, Kapil Sibal, has stoked a major controversy by claiming that Assam was once part of Myanmar. In reply, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has hit out at Sibal, stating people who have no knowledge of Assam should not speak of it.
The controversy broke out when Kapil Sibal, on December 5, made this claim during a hearing on multiple petitions challenging the validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act of 1955.
Section 6A in the Citizenship Act was inserted as a special provision to deal with the citizenship of people covered by the Assam Accord. The provision provides that those who have come to Assam on or after January 1, 1966 but before March 25, 1971 from specified territories, including Bangladesh, as per the Citizenship Act amended in 1985, and since then are residents of Assam must register themselves under section 18 for citizenship. As a result, the provision fixes March 25, 1971 as the cut-off date for granting citizenship to Bangladeshi migrants in Assam.
Supporting the constitutional validity of Section 6A, Sibal argued that no migration can ever be mapped. “And if you look at the history of Assam, you will realise that it is impossible to figure out who came when. Assam originally was a part of Myanmar. And it was way back in 1824 after the British conquered part of the territory that a treaty was entered into by which Assam was handed over to the British. You can imagine the kind of movements of people that must have taken place in the context of the then British Empire. And if you jump to 1905, you have the partition of Bengal,” he said in his argument.
Reacting to this statement, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said those who have no knowledge should not speak. “Assam was never a part of Myanmar. There were clashes for a brief period. That was the only relation. Otherwise, I have not seen any data which stated that Assam was a part of Myanmar,” he said.
A 5-judge Constitution bench of Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI), DY Chandrachud, is currently hearing petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Section 6A of Citizenship Act, 1955. The Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha, a Guwahati-based civil society organization, filed a petition in November 2012 challenging Section 6A. The petition claims that the provision discriminates against other Indian citizens. The issue is also connected to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise carried out in Assam, which declared almost 1.9 million people as non-Indians, which draws on Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and Assam Accord of 1985 to identify Indian and non-Indian citizens.
Read: Prince of Pop Armaan Malik performs at Me’gong Festival
WATCH:
Find latest news from every corner of Northeast India at hubnetwork.in, your online source for breaking news, video coverage.
Also, Follow us on-
Twitter-twitter.com/nemediahub
Youtube channel- www.youtube.com/@NortheastMediaHub2020
Instagram- www.instagram.com/nemediahub
