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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | In Assam, a government-appointed panel suggests farmland be reserved for 'indigenous people' -Arunabh Saikia

In Assam, a government-appointed panel suggests farmland be reserved for 'indigenous people' -Arunabh Saikia

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published Published on May 21, 2018   modified Modified on May 21, 2018
-Scroll.in

The committee goes on to list the ‘basic elements’ that make an individual indigenous to Assam.

The transfer of agricultural land should be restricted to people indigenous to the state, a committee appointed by the Assam government in February 2017 for “ensuring the protection of land rights of indigenous people” has recommended in a report submitted in January. The Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state has said that it would implement the recommendations of the committee, which was headed by former chief election commissioner HS Brahma.

The committee in its report, seen by Scroll.in, has suggested that non-indigenous people could be allotted non-agricultural land in towns and cities – but not at the expense of an indigenous person.

Among other conditions specified by the committee, it should be ensured that the allottee’s “antecedents are not such as to make him an undesirable person”, the report added.

But who is indigenous?

In Assam, the definition of who qualifies as indigenous is contentious, courtesy its diverse population and many waves of migration. Besides, many parts of what is now Assam were previously part of other provinces with significantly different cultural allegiances.

According to the 1951 Census report, an indigenous person is defined as anyone “belonging to the state of Assam” and speaking any one of the languages and dialects spoken in the state. The Brahma committee rejects this definition, calling it incomplete and saying that it leaves room for misuse.

The Assam Accord, signed in 1985 following a movement against alleged migration, defines citizenship: anybody who entered the state before March 24, 1971 – just before the beginning of the Bangladesh war – is considered a non-foreigner. The same criterion is being used to include people in the National Register of Citizens, which is being updated for the first time since 1951 in a bid to identify illegal migrants.

However, an original inhabitant category was used as an internal marker while including people in the updated list. Officials claimed this was to ease bureaucratic pressures. Who qualified as an original inhabitant, officials concede, is contingent on bureaucratic discretion – a situation that has made linguistic and religious minority groups in the state wary. When these groups approached the Supreme Court, under whose aegis the process is being executed, it ruled that such concerns were “wholly unfounded” and “citizens who are originally inhabitants/residents of the state of Assam and those who are not are at par for inclusion in the NRC”.

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Scroll.in, 18 May, 2018, https://amp.scroll.in/article/879116/in-assam-a-government-appointed-panel-suggests-farmland-be-reserved-for-indigenous-people


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