The Citizenship Amendment Act, or CAA, is a law passed by the Indian Parliament in 2019. It aims to amend the country’s citizenship laws, defines illegal immigrants and lays down the rules and prerequisites for applying for Indian citizenship. It allows minorities of six communities, namely Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians, from India’s neighboring countries — Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Bangladesh — who entered India before 31 December 2014 to get citizenship more easily on the grounds of religious persecution.
The introduction of this bill led to mass protests from students, civil society, and the opposition parties as religion for the first time was made a test of Indian citizenship. The most notable was a 100-plus day protest in Shaheen Bagh, a working-class Muslim neighbourhood in the country’s capital, New Delhi with Muslim women at the forefront of this protest.
Four years after the CAA’s initial introduction and passing, the rules were brought into effect in March 2024.
No wonder the AASU considers this as ‘betrayal’.
For a violent organization with a tribal mindset, the CAA is indeed a betrayal. The murderous mobs of AASU cadres that engaged in rampant massacres of Muslims and Bengalis during the 60s, 70s and 80s do not deserve the epithet of “martyrs”. These were mobs of lumpen anti-social elements which left a trail of blood, destruction and misery all over Assam. Thousands of Muslims and Bengalis were slaughtered by these mobs. To call them “martyrs” is a travesty of justice.
The AASU should be ashamed of it’s past deeds and try to make amends for the same.
Mr. Himanta Biswa Sarma is an utterly corrupt person. And he may well be the ‘ambassador of betrayals’.
However, he, by no means, is a xenophobic mass murderer.
The AASU, on the other hand, is an utterly xenophobic organization. For decades it has thrived on fanning hatred for Bengalis and others residing in Assam. The AASU cadres have been responsible for massacres of Bengalis across Assam. The Nellie massacre is one such example – it remains till date the worst massacre in independent India’s history. Till date, not a single person has been held responsible for this gruesome massacre.
Numerous other massacres, murders, rapes and arson were carried out by AASU targeting the Bengali community in Assam.
Ms. Karishma Hasnat would do well to provide proper context on this virulently xenophobic organization called AASU.