Citizens draw court’s attention to Himanta Sarma’s anti-Muslim remarks
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Guwahati: More than 40 leading citizens, including academicians, doctors, authors and retired bureaucrats, have urged the Gauhati High Court to take suo motu cognisance of recent statements by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma against Bengali-speaking Muslims in the state, according to a report by PTI.
They maintained that "silence or inaction against constitutional transgressions" could lead to eroding the "moral authority of the Constitution itself".
In a letter to Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar on Thursday, the citizens drew the high court's attention to a series of public statements by Sarma, "which, on the face, amount to hate speech, executive intimidation and open vilification of a particular community", referring to the CM's remarks against 'Miyas' (Bengali-speaking Muslims).
They maintained that the Bengali-speaking Muslims have become a "part of the larger Assamese society" over the course of more than 100 years, and the statements of the CM "enter the prohibited constitutional zone of dehumanisation, collective stigmatisation and threats of state-sponsored harassment".
'Miya' is originally a pejorative term used for Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam, and the non-Bengali-speaking people generally identify them as Bangladeshi immigrants. In recent years, activists from the community have started adopting this term as a gesture of defiance.
The citizens said that Sarma has indulged in "instigation for physical harm, economic discrimination and social humiliation", specifically referring to his statement urging the people to pay less than the actual fare for rickshaws pulled by Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Among the 43 signatories are academician and intellectual Hiren Gohain, ex-DGP Harekrishna Deka, former archbishop of Guwahati, Thomas Menamparampil, Rajya Sabha MP Ajit Bhuyan, environmental scientist Dulal Chandra Goswami, retired principal of Assam Medical College T R Borbora, advocate Santanu Borthakur, joint convenor of Joint Council of Trade Unions Garga Talukdar, and litterateur Arupa Patangia Kalita.
They also pointed to the CM's statements of ordering BJP workers to file objections targeting Bengali-speaking Muslims during the ongoing Special Revision (SR) of electoral rolls.