[Assam] Need of Uniform in Assam Assembly

[Chan Mahanta]

Sorry it took so long to get back to you Chitta. 
The flag-waving fire-works kept me at bay, as you 
must have noticed. Hope it was an enjoyable 
display :-).


>  It is the religion combined with language 
>combined with an alien culture that has been 
>causing the >discomfort. If there are millions 
>of khukri wielding Saulor phut luwa Daajus and 
>Kaanchas also, the >reaction of the local 
>populace would have been similar.


*** That is your explanation. OK, fair enough. 
Let me ask you this: What is your reaction to 
garish alien culture temples pock-marking the 
once beautiful Assamese landscape, including 
smack-dab in the middle of Kaziranga  ? When was 
the last time you can point to anyone complaing 
about that?

Or for that matter full 25 % of Karbi Anglong 
population is Hindi speaking, about to get its 
own autonomous defense establishment? Or of 
Tinsukia ?


Ram will intervene here with his trump card: Illegality ! Let us examine that:

	Ram, Krishnendu , probably you, and 
number of other netters  past and present, who
	joust with me on these issues always 
invoke the 65% or whatever other voter 
participation
	as proof of Assam's fealty to Indian 
rule. In a developed democracy that could be a 
valid
  	yardstick, where a large percentage of 
the voters have an idea what it is all about, 
issue
	oriented ,nominally  informed  even 
though at times  can be entirely ideologically 
driven.

	So  the uninformed ( about the 
desi-condition and realities)  might surmise that 
geez-- they
	go vote, elect a government of their own 
, believe in the rule of law ( as opposed to might
	is right, mob rule etc.) and endowed with 
that vaunted 'free-press' keeping guard
	over democratic values from being eroded 
by 'authorities' and holding public servants
	accountable; what more can one ask for?

	Now then a  huge problem facing the 
'Oxomiya' identity not to mention 
'national-security'
	and complete destruction of the rule of 
law ( as aptly pointed out by Ram) has been
	brewing and building for over a  quarter 
century -- the lungi menace. A select group of
	Oxomiyas ( I won't attempt to label it, 
but I could :-))  and a certain segment of the 
English
	language press have been wailing about 
it,  charging ULFA with carrying out ISI orders to
	gift wrap Assam over to Islamists from 
the east, and to be fair, when challenged, at 
least
	nominally admitting GOVERNMENTS' 
responsibilities over the issue: Upholding the 
laws
	of the land.

	For over twenty five years this 
dereliction of governmental duties ( as pointed 
out by Ram,
	the Sentinel, Dilli based security 
analysts etc.) for failing to stem the flow of the
	lungi-menace has been going on, unabated.

	Do the governments care? What are the 
governmental duties? Whose duty is what? What
	have they been doing?

	Would it be reasonable to say almost NOTHING?

	If so, don't the voters who vote so 
intelligently ( as I was corrected by outraged 
netters
	for my temerity to question that recently 
) CARE about this abject dereliction of
	governmental duties?

	Would it be reasonable for us to conclude 
THEY DON'T, as soundly affirmed by the
	re-election of the Assam government by a huge 65% voter turnout?

So Chitta, tell me why  anyone  should BELIEVE 
that  your outrage over the 'lungi-menace' or 
Ram's or of the others like you, is  over 
ILLEGALITY of the immigrants?

That leaves the Islamophobia ,  as the 
pre-eminent reason, as is evidenced by a 
pervasive and ancient  animus. Oh I know that 
most know how to package it in genteel and 
secular  wraps. And it is not as virulent as say 
Togadia's, or the RSS' or VHP's or displaced 
Sileti Hindus' .  I  point here to the RSS' 
Jagadamba Mall's  article in its mouthpiece the 
Organizer, quoted in Sanjib Baruah's Post 
Frontier Blues as an example.

But even in its benign wrappings, the outcry, 
replete with claims of a grand conspiracy to hand 
Assam over to B'desh, over their own 
'democratically elected' government conspiring to 
certify illegals as genuine, of ULFA as an ISI 
agent doing its bidding to help overrun Assam 
with the lungi-menace, of posing shrill questions 
like 'how is it that Arunachal or Nagaland can 
throw them out but we can't' ; the message is 
very clear to all those who are not inferentially 
challenged.

Who are we kidding?

I am not suggesting the outrage is not 
justifiable. There is some justification to 
it--as far as
governmental dysfunction is.

But  where is Assam's intelligentsia or for that 
matter India's, to  act to help change the 
unresponsive and dysfunctional system? When have 
you seen an editor-for-hire write an editorial on 
HOW to change the dysfunctional government.

Last but not the least is the absence of a 
remotely informed and intelligent  discourse on 
HOW can the B'deshi problem , both real and 
imagined , be resolved, if at all?

Can YOU explain why it is missing ?  I have some 
ideas. But I know it will distract everyone from 
the subject as it always does, when I share my 
views :-). Want to give it a try?



m-da




















At 6:21 AM -0700 8/14/07, chittaranjan pathak wrote:
>Well, yes Mahanta da, I am still at loss.
>Please explain to me and to others like Ramda, 
>more explicitly why you try to make the Assamese 
>Hindus suffer from collective guilt complex by 
>dubbing their anti BDesh stance as an anti 
>Muslim one. Decrying others of being 
>unnecessarily sensitive to lungi menace and 
>yourself garbing a selectively broadminded 
>image-this is quite beguiling!! Or is there a 
>hidden motive and may be you also have the same 
>level of jingoism you accuse your fellow 
>Assamese Hindus of harbouring, which for the 
>time being may be you have kept in suspended 
>animation for some technical reasons.
>By the way, a clarification on why I used the 
>term Assamese Hindus (at which you jumped to 
>emphasize that the usage of that term itself 
>exposed every thing-I don’t know what you meant)
>1) I believe amongst the Assamese speakers-they 
>(Hindus) are still in majority in Assam. Or do 
>you think otherwise?
>2) They are the more vocal on this issue infiltration by BDeshis
>3) This feeling of paranoia is present amongst 
>Assamese speaking Muslim also. But their 
>protestations are not that loud as their Hindu 
>counterparts as they are less in number, many 
>come from more disadvantaged back ground. Many 
>of those who are economically well off, 
>educated, learned and city bred (say from 
>Lakhtokiya of Guwahati), same religious 
>affiliations and post 9/11 more cohesive feeling 
>make it some what difficult for them to be as 
>vocal as their Hindu counterparts. Most of the 
>educated Assamese Hindus understand this dilemma 
>and should not have qualms about it.
>So I hope it is now clear why I used the term Assamese Hindus?
>CM said
>*****Are only 'Assamese Hindus' burdened by 
>illegal immigrants? Is Assam the home of B'deshi 
>despising Hindus only? And if they are the only 
>ones outraged or aggrieved, then is it ALL of 
>Assam's Hindus or most or just a handful of 
>them? And is it because of:
>The offenders' name?
>The color of their skin?
>Their cuisine?
>The language they speak?
>The lungis they wear and the skull-caps they flaunt?
>The unkind cuts the male of their species live with?
>The high wage jobs they deprive the natives of?
>The economy they depress by their dependence on public charity?
>The criminal activities they spread in society?
>The corruption they promote by bribery of public officials?
>The economic progress they thwart by their habitual sloth?
>Inundate the free public health-care system?
>Flood the public school system with children of 
>the non-producing, lowering the quality of 
>education?
>Usurp and rob the Oxomiya bhaxa of its purity and ownership?
>Other ills I have not mentioned, deliberately or otherwise?
>Or is it because of their religious persuasion?*****
>
>Your numerous clues did not help me much. If the 
>last line was your punch line it is again the 
>same hackneyed manifestation of your covert 
>agenda. As I told you many times before-it is 
>not the religion alone. It is the religion 
>combined with language combined with an alien 
>culture that has been causing the discomfort. If 
>there are millions of khukri wielding Saulor 
>phut luwa Daajus and Kaanchas also, the reaction 
>of the local populace would have been similar.
>So I am still at dark about your attempts. 
>Please explain more explicitly and clearly 
>unlike those numerous inconclusive mails where 
>you end by saying something like “I will explain 
>later if you want” or by adopting those avoiding 
>techniques saying that “I will explain if you 
>first answer this question”.
>Come on Mahanta da enlighten us on the eve of 60th Independence Day of India.
>Regards
>Chittaranjan Pathak
>
>
>
>Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's 
><http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=47093/*http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/222>Comedy 
>with an Edge to see what's on, when.
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