Guwahati: While phase 2 of the Mission Basundhara is being implemented, the Prabajan Virodhi Manch (PVM) on Wednesday termed the scheme a “land policy for Bangladeshi immigrants”.
PVM Convenor, Upamanyu Hazarika in a statement said, “Mission Basundhara, styled as a land reform/settlement scheme is in actual fact a scheme for creating a Bangladeshi vote bank, by allotting 13.6 lakh bighas (over 4.5 lakh acres) of PGR/VGR land to landless immigrant families who came into Assam until 2011.”
He added that on one hand the State Government is trying to portray an anti-immigrant image by conducting eviction drives in many parts of the State but in reality they are on a mission to give them settlement in the rich and fertile PGR/VGR lands of the state.
“On the face of it, Mission Basundhara appears to be a laudable initiative simplifying land procedures but the actual aim is the establishment of Bangladesh migrants on indigenous lands and at one stroke nullifying the Assam Movement, Clause 6 Committee Report, Brahma Committee Report, Upamanyu Hazarika Committee Report etc”, he added.
On November 11, 2022, the State Government set out the modalities of the grant of Professional Grazing Reserve and Village Grazing Reserve (PGR-VGR) lands to encroachers and others by conferring ownership rights upon them.
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“More than 90% of those encroachers are of Bangladeshi origin”, the statement by the PVM convenor alleged.
He pointed out the following:
1. For identity proof, Aadhar, PAN Card or driving licence are sufficient.
2. Towards eligibility for allotment, refugee certificate, erosion affected certificate, encroachment fine receipts, touzi land revenue receipts or minimum needs programme beneficiary are the specified categories.
3. The cut-off date is 1st of January 2011, which means that the documents produced have to be prior to such date.
Listing out these points, Hazarika added that none of the above documents is certifications of citizenship. “The NRC process being undertaken on a 1971 cut-off basis did not consider these documents to be sufficient proof of citizenship”, he added.
He further claimed that migrants who have come from Bangladesh as recently as 2011 will be entitled for grant of rich and fertile PGR-VGR lands.
He added that even though under the Assam Accord, citizenship was granted to migrants from Bangladesh/East Pakistan into Assam prior to 25 March 1971 and Assam took the burden of 23 years of additional immigration.
He said that this was in comparison to the rest of India where the cut-off year is 1948.
“Clause 6 of the Assam Accord provided for safeguards to the local indigenous population and the Committee appointed by the present Government in February 2020 had recommended that land rights, employment, trade licences etc should be granted only to those whose names or that of their ancestors who are recorded in the 1951 NRC. This was also the recommendation of the Upamanyu Hazarika Commission submitted to the Supreme Court in 2015 and accepted by the State Government”, he added.
He added, “It is pertinent that the present Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in December 2019 had emphatically asserted as a minister in the earlier Government that Clause 6 Committee report would be implemented by the Government without altering any full stop or comma.”
“In fact, senior officials and land experts have expressed surprise at the appointment of Shri Nazrul Islam as the advisor and architect of Mission Basundhara as a significant number of officers having greater expertise on land and revenue matters have been overlooked”, the statement added.
The Brahma Committee report, commissioned by the very same BJP Government in 2018 had identified 7.28 lakh bighas of PGR and 6.38 lakh VGR lands in the State. “This committee had made a significant recommendation of preserving PGR and VGR lands on the basis that Assam being primarily an agricultural economy (65% of the land being agriculture dependent) and with uneconomic size of land holding, the PGR and VGR lands would supplement the income of farmers for cattle rearing and grazing”, he added.
Hazarika said that not only has the Brahma Committee recommended against the de-reservation of PGR and VGR lands, but it had also proposed that further additional land be re-reserved for PGR/VGR to promote cattle rearing and grazing as additional sources of income.
He added, “This entire exercise of land allotment is being undertaken furtively and surreptitiously, the Chief Minister focusing his Government’s ‘achievement’ of eviction of encroachers from Satra land etc., and trying to distract public attention from this nefarious project to settle illegal immigrants.”
All of those encroachers who have been evicted in various operations have been resettled with permanent land rights, housing etc in alternative sites which is completely contrary to the provisions of the Assam Land Grabbing Act, 2010 under which land grabbing is a punishable offence carrying a maximum imprisonment of 5 years, the statement read.
“Commission of an offence under this Act according to the Chief Minister deserves to be rewarded and particularly in the person is of Bangladeshi origin where such allotment is carried out without verifying citizenship credential”, he added.
He added, “This is what happened in the much-touted Gorukhuti, Sipajhar eviction process where all the encroacher families have been resettled with housing and cattle in Dalgaon. The so-called Gorukhuti agriculture project in Sipajhar has grabbed the land of indigenous cattle grazers who are now denied access to land on which they have been grazing cattle and sustaining their livelihood over generations. Local villagers who’re graziers have to pay Rs 1600, to the Garukhuti project per bigha per month on lands they’ve been grazing for generations”, he added.
Hazarika further termed Himanta Biswa Sarma as an evergreen power politician.
“Even after abusing Prime Minister Modi and the BJP in 2014 while he was in the Congress and overnight changing colours into an extremist Hindutva politician, it is clear that his consistency pandering to the Bangladeshi vote bank has remained undiminished”, Hazarika said.