‘Save Assam to Save India’ became a rallying cry of the main body leading the agitation. The latter was also seen as an opportunity to avenge lost honour and power, to settle scores with those who supported the Congress plan of fragmenting the vote in Assam and settling ‘Outsiders’, be they Bangladeshi Muslims or Nepali Hindus. The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), whose most prominent leaders were its president, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, and the general secretary, Brighu Kumar Phukan, spearheaded the movement. Their demands included revision of the electoral rolls on the basis of the 1951 National Register of Citizens; that Bangladeshis should be struck off these rolls and deported to their country; further, the border with that country should be ‘sealed.’ How appropriate and relevant were these demands? We shall deal with these problems one after the other, while considering the prelude as well as the aftermath of Nellie.

The core issue raised by the AASU in April 1979 of ‘foreigners’ swamping Assam and the need for a national response to what it called a national problem remains at the heart of Assam’s political agenda even today—and to a lesser degree that of other states in the North East, especially Tripura. It has acceptance among most political parties, even though groups like the Congress tend to shy away from taking an unequivocal stand and instead try to hedge their bets and positions.

While it is important to analyse why this problem arose, or what are its roots, much has already been written about this. A more serious issue is the extent to which the Indian State has failed to respond adequately to such concerns. We need to see how much of these problems are hype, how much is reality.

For decades, charges have flown around that the local Congress Party, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, patronized the influx of Muslims from East Pakistan and later Bangladesh, to retain political power in the Brahmaputra Valley. The strategy was to allow the miyahs or the Muslim Bengali-speakers from Mymensingh, Rongpur and other border districts of East Pakistan-Bangladesh to enter and settle in areas where older settlements of migrants existed. These were to be found in the lower valley segments of Dhubri and Goalpara as well as Kamrup and Darrang, going up through Nogaon (earlier known as Nowgong) and Jorhat, right up to Dibrugarh and Sibsagar. To move in and claim legitimacy was easy—one could always claim that one had moved from another part of the state and cite a fictitious parental address or name of a relative. Who was to check? Who cared, anyway?