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Citizenship will put pressure on scant resources: Assam intellectuals to CJI

Last Updated 21 January 2020, 12:53 IST

Citizenship to "a huge number of foreigners" living in Assam will put immense pressure on the scant resources and its native population, a group of respected intellectuals in the state told Chief Justice of India, SA Bobde in a letter, days before the apex court's hearing on the anti-CAA petitions.

The letter signed by at least 10 prominent citizens highlighted that the threat of unchecked migration from neighbouring countries like Bangladesh to Assam had been compared by the Supreme Court to a silent invasion, and the NRC for Assam was expeditiously prepared under the monitoring of the apex court.

"At this juncture, the grant of citizenship to a huge number of foreigners will put immense pressure on the scant resources of the state and its native population. The gravity of the situation may be gauged from the fact that while the density of the population of India is 375 per sq. kilometer, in Assam it has soared to 400, and given the land under numerous water bodies and hills the actual density here may even be as much as 1000 per sq. kilometer," said the letter.

The letter was shared with media on Tuesday, a day before a bench of the apex court hears 75 petitions submitted by various organisations challenging the CAA.

The letter was signed by prominent writer and social scientist Hiren Gohain, writer and editors Homen Borgohain, Nagen Saikia and Indibor Dewri, retired scientist Dinesh Chandra Goswami, educationists Gajendra Nath Talukdar, Udayaditya Bharali and Abdul Mannan, film-maker Jahnu Baruah and NN Barman, former principal of Gauhati Medical College.

The indigenous communities in Assam and parts of the Northeast have been agitating against the CAA as it seeks to allow migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who had migrated till 2014 to apply for Indian citizenship. The agitators fear that citizenship to such migrants would reduce them into minorities and endanger their ethnic identity, culture and language.

"The younger generation, as admitted by all impartial observers, is particularly aggrieved and agitated by certain issues casting a dark shadow on their lives. It is incidentally quite possible, as suggested in some press reports, that there might have been certain excesses, which are to be deplored. But the public discontent and unrest can hardly be dismissed, as is currently being done by the government, as wilful violence." it said.

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(Published 21 January 2020, 12:53 IST)

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