GUWAHATI: A controversy emerged when Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal made remarks asserting that "Assam originally was part of Myanmar".
The comments came in the wake of the Supreme Court's directive to the Union Government, ordering the submission of data on illegal migrant inflows to Assam and the North-Eastern states post-March 25, 1971.
The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, initiated hearings on December 5, 2023, addressing a series of petitions challenging Section 6A of the Citizenship Act of 1955. The contentious remarks by Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal were made during the proceedings, where he, representing the respondents, argued that historical population mobility cannot be feasibly tracked.
As per reports, Sibal in this context said, “Migration of people in population is embedded in history and cannot be mapped. Assam was a part of Myanmar and then British conquered a part of it and that is how Assam was handed over to the British and you can now imagine the amount of movement of people that took place and under partition, East Bengal and Assam became one and Bengali language was being taught in schools where there was large scale opposition. The interaction and absorption of Bengali population in Assam has a historical context.”
“Sibal: We (Sibals) were also displaced from Lahore and my maternal grandparents were killed. We also came here and when partition took place, people from Bengali ethnicity etc will obviously try to come.. so saying that this disrupted the cultural ambience of Assam is Constitutionally unavailable and I have complete fundamental right to move from one part of the country to another,” he further added as per reports.
In response to this Piyush Hazarika, Minister Of Parliamentary Affairs, Water Resources, Information & Public Relations, Printing & Stationery, and Social Justice & Empowerment taking to X said, “Mr @KapilSibal sir has been poorly briefed & speaks a left liberal view that tends to alienate North East by conjuring such theories. At no point of Assam’s history, we were part of Myanmar. From times of Mahabharat & before , we have firmly been an integral part of Bharatvarsh.”
Section 6A of the Citizenship Act is integral as it operationalises the Assam Accord, permitting specific foreign migrants who entered Assam between January 1, 1966, and March 25, 1971, to apply for Indian citizenship. However, indigenous groups in Assam contend that this provision has inadvertently legitimized the illegal movement of foreigners from Bangladesh, thereby adversely impacting the demographic and cultural composition of the state.
The issue has sparked debate and drawn attention to the complex interplay between historical perspectives, legal frameworks, and the socio-cultural dynamics of Assam.