In response to Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal’s comments suggesting that the northeastern state was formerly a part of Myanmar, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took a hard line. He refuted the claim and stated that people who were ignorant of Assamese history ought to refrain from discussing it.
“Those who have no knowledge should not speak. Assam was never a part of Myanmar. There were clashes for a brief period. That was the only relation. Otherwise, I have not seen any data which stated that Assam was a part of Myanmar,” Sarma told reporters.
At a Supreme Court hearing on several petitions contesting the legality of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act of 1955 on December 5, Sibal stated that Assam was once a part of Myanmar before being given to the British as part of a treaty.
In addition to highlighting Assam’s historical evolution from being a part of Myanmar to its subsequent governance under British rule and association with East Bengal post-partition, Sibal made these remarks while highlighting the difficulty of tracking population movements throughout history. He emphasized the Assamese Bengali population’s assimilation and placed it in the context of historical narratives.
Sibal said, “Migration of people and populations is embedded in history and cannot be mapped. If you look at the history of Assam, you’ll realise that it is impossible to figure out who came when. Assam was originally a part of Myanmar. It was way back in 1824 after the British conquered part of the territory that a treaty was entered into by which Assam was handed over to the British. You can imagine the kind of movement of people that might have taken place in the context of the then British Empire.”
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