GS Paper - II

The Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma set the ball rolling for the implementation of 52 recommendations of the Justice Biplab Sarma Committee regarding Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, as announced by the Assam government. This comes more than four years after the Centre-appointed high-level committee finalised its report in February 2020.

What is the Biplab Sarma committee report?

• The historic Assam Accord was a Memorandum of Settlement between the Rajiv Gandhi-led Union government and the leadership of the Assam Movement, primarily the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), which was signed in 1985.
• The accord ended the six-year-long agitation in Assam against the entry of Bangladeshi migrants into the state.
• Clause 6 of the accord states that “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.”
• In July 2019, the Union Home Ministry constituted a 14-member committee chaired by retired Assam High Court Justice Biplab Kumar Sarma, and comprising judges, retired bureaucrats, writers, AASU leaders and journalists, to suggest ways to implement the clause.
• Among the key questions before the committee was a definition of “the Assamese people” eligible for the “safeguards” under Clause 6.
• The committee finalised its report in February 2020. But instead of it being received by the Union Home Ministry, which had constituted the committee, the report was received by then Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal of the BJP.
• In August 2020, four committee members released the confidential report in the public domain.

What recommendations of the report will the Assam government implement?

• Chief Minister Sarma said that the state government has accepted 1951 as the “cut-off date” for the specific recommendations of the report.
• However, that this definition of “Assamese people” is confined to only the context of the report’s recommendations.
• Following a meeting with the AASU, he said that the 67 broad recommendations made by the report can be divided into three broad categories: 40 which come under the exclusive domain of the state government, 12 which will require the concurrence of the Centre, and 15 which are in the exclusive domain of the Centre.
• The 52 recommendations in the first two categories will be implemented by April 2025, for which the state government will submit a roadmap to AASU by October 25 this year.
• These 52 recommendations largely deal with safeguards on language, land, and cultural heritage.

Some key recommendations include:

• Land - Creating Revenue Circles where only “Assamese people” can own and possess land, and transfer of such land in these areas are limited to them alone
• Language - Keeping Assamese as the official language throughout the state as per the 1960 Assam Official Language Act “with provisions for use of local languages” in the Barak Valley, Hill districts, and the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District;
• Cultural heritage - Establishing an autonomous authority for the development of sattras (neo-Vaishnavite monasteries), which will, among other things, provide financial assistance to them.