PM ducks Assam visit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is reportedly skipping Friday’s inauguration of the Khelo India Youth Games in Guwahati because the Assamese have been unrelenting in their protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. They began on December 4, when the law was still a bill, and the protest continues daily. Many are unaware of the protests because one, they’re peaceful; two, Assam and the Northeast suffers what has been called the “tyranny of distance”; and three, their peaceful protest has been drowned out by the Kristallnacht-type assault on left-wing students of Jawaharlal Nehru University as well as the merciless police action, that UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath calls “revenge”, against anti-CAA-NRC protesters throughout Uttar Pradesh. Yet the peaceful protests in Assam continue.

The PM was warned on December 30 not to visit Assam by the All Assam Students Union, which spearheaded agitations in the 1970s and ’80s that brought the Asom Gana Parishad to power. Other organisations have joined in saying they would actively protest against the PM’s visit. At a recent cricket match in Guwahati, sections of the crowd shouted slogans against chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal and his deputy, Himanta Biswa Sarma. So many protests! No wonder the PM has developed cold feet.

Ideally, the PM ought to face the protesters and either convince them of his government’s intentions or accommodate their concerns by amending the law. But this is not a government that believes in accommodation. Rule is by fiat, and supporters routinely declare that national security overrides any other interest. For a PM whose vision is solely focused on the next election, Assam’s 14 Lok Sabha seats mean little compared to the bounty of West Bengal’s 42. It’s an irony that a “56-inch” strongman cannot even visit an important state like Assam, because its people might protest.