Homeward ho to cast votes, prove identity

In no man's land

He travelled almost 220 kilometres overnight from Guwahati to the westernmost town of Assam. He didn’t get a seat on the overcrowded bus, but could manage two for his wife Saleha Khatun and 10-year-old son Tajuddin.

Nurul and Saleha still have a long way to go. They will board another bus, ride a cycle-rickshaw and finally take a boat to reach Jharnar Char, a river-isle on the Brahmaputra. “We came to cast our votes on Monday,” says Nurul. The 43-year-old works in a carpentry shop in Guwahati.

Not only Nurul and Saleha, but countless others also over the past few days travelled from cities like Guwahati, Jorhat and Dibrugarh to reach their villages in western Assam. They include vegetable vendors, construction labourers and other menial workers. They all came home just to cast their votes and thus to dispel doubts about their identity as citizens of India.

“If we don’t vote, they will delete us from the roll,” says Gafur Ali Sheikh, who works in a brick kiln in Dibrugarh and is now on his way to his home at Majher Char. It is difficult to dispel such unfounded apprehensions in Assam, where all Bengali-speaking Muslims are often generally branded “Bangladeshis.”

The issue of illegal migration from Bangladesh has been dominating emotions and politics in Assam, ever since Prafulla Mahanta led a students’ stir from 1979 to ’85 against influx of refugees from the neighbouring country. The “Assam Agitation” catapulted Mahanta to chief minister’s office twice, but the issue remained unresolved and is still debated.

The Opposition parties like Mahanta’s Asom Gana Parishad and the BJP accuse the Congress of being soft to the illegal migrants and thus compromising national security for its own political interests. The Congress refutes the allegations, but adds that it is also committed to protecting genuine Indian citizens from being branded Bangladeshis.

There are around 1.47 lakh “D-voters” in Assam. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi promised to move the Supreme Court to restore their voting rights, obviously if the Congress retains power in the state.

“The Congress wants the community to live with a perpetual fear-psychosis and a perpetual loyalty to it,” says the All India United Democratic Front’s candidate in Dhubri, Jahan Uddin.

Congress candidate Nazibul Umar strikes back: “Their leader Badruddin Ajmal was reported to have joined Mahanta to celebrate the latter’s birthday. Did he forget that Mahanta was responsible for the plights of Muslims in Assam?”