Agreement reached on 38 of 52 recommendations: Himanta on Assam Accord
Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the 38 recommendations will be implemented in a time-bound manner
GUWAHATI: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Sunday that the state government and All Assam Students Union (AASU), the state’s premier student body, have reached an agreement on implementing 38 of the 52 recommendations of a high-level committee on Clause 6 of the Assam Accord of 1985 that seeks to give more protection to indigenous people of the state.
“Among all recommendations of the committee, 52 come under purview of the Assam government. Today, AASU and the state government reached an agreement on implementing 38 of those recommendations,” Sarma said in Guwahati following a meeting with representatives of AASU.
The CM stated that the 38 recommendations will be implemented in a time-bound manner through provisions in the coming annual budget of the state and various legislations and ordinances brought in in the future.
“There will be further discussions with AASU in March and in April on implementing the remaining 14 recommendations of the committee. We hope to reach an agreement on those as well,” said Sarma.
The CM said the 38 recommendations include mandatory inclusion of Assamese language as a subject in all schools of Brahmaputra Valley and Assamese and Bodo languages as subjects in all schools in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR). Similarly, all schools will have to teach students about Assam’s history and geography mandatorily till Class 8.
Sarma said that the state government will also identify some blocks in the state where only those who have been residing there for at least three generations or since 1951 will be allowed to buy land. Such restrictions won’t apply in urban areas, he said.
The CM said that the state government has already asked the Centre to hold tripartite talks to implement those recommendations of the high-level committee, which don’t fall under the jurisdiction of the state government.
The committee headed by Justice (retired) Biplab Kumar Sarma, which was formed by the Centre in July 2019, had submitted its recommendations to the then chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal in February 2020. It had stipulated 1951 as the cut-off date to determine who an Assamese is (those who themselves or their ancestors were living in the state in that year).
Apart from setting 1951 as the cut-off year to determine who an Assamese is, other recommendations of the committee include protection of the state’s culture, heritage and languages, job safeguards (100% reservation in Grade III and IV jobs and 70% in Grade I and II jobs for Assamese people), protection of land of indigenous people as well reservations in parliamentary and assembly seats for indigenous people.
The Assam Accord was a tripartite agreement signed in 1985 between the Centre, the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) that brought the six-year-long anti-foreigner movement in the state to an end.
Clause 6 of the accord states, “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”.
