Daulat Rahman/Guwahati

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday said his cabinet has taken the decision to provide certificates to six minority communities in the State at the directive of the Central Government. He asserted that the move will help the minorities to secure the benefits of various schemes including scholarships funded by the Centre.

“There is a general perception that the Muslims can only be categorized as a minority. The same mindset prevails when it comes to avail the benefits of various schemes of the Central Government and State Government. But the Centre recently issued a directive to consider the Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Parsis residing in the State as minorities and issue minority certificates to them to avail benefits of various central government’s schemes, particularly scholarship,” Sarma told media persons.

Sarma’s assertion has, however, come at a time when the Opposition and some other organizations are dubbing the move as the ruling BJP’s “divisive agenda.”

President of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee Bhupen Bora has alleged that the move will “further the divisive agenda in a subtle way.” He said it will create division among various minority communities.

Md Aminul Islam, organizing secretary of All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), said there is no need to provide separate identity documents to minorities and suspected the ruling BJP could have a “divisive agenda” behind the decision.

“I simply wonder why this move was necessitated. The move appears to be a move to classify various groups of minorities. The Constitution has already declared who are minorities in India,” Allen Brooks, former member of Assam State Commission for Minorities.

Brooks has also rejected Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s statement that the move would help the minorities to avail benefits of Central Government’s various schemes including scholarships.

“The National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992 has defined Minority as a smaller group representing less than half of the whole or predominant population. As per the Act there is no requirement of issuing minority certificates by the government. Do I need to approach the government to certify that I am a Christian,” Brooks said? “We have certificates given to scheduled tribes, scheduled castes, and other backward castes, but no such certificate is given to minorities, which could help identify them. The State has a separate board for the development of minorities and various schemes meant for them. But there was no way of identifying a member of the minority? Now they will have the certificates and will be able to avail themselves benefits,” State Cabinet Minister Keshab Mahanta said.

An Assam government official said that modalities of how the certificates would be provided are being discussed. He, however, said the deputy commissioners of every district would be entrusted with the job.

As per the 2011 Census, Hindus make up 61.47% of Assam’s population, Muslims 34.22%, Christians 3.74%, Sikhs 0.07%, Buddhists 0.18%, and Jains 0.08%. According to the Assam Minorities Development Board, there are 16 million people belonging to the six communities in the state at present.

In March this year Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma while speaking at the Assam Legislative Assembly had said, "Minority definition must change district wise depending upon the geography, population and threat perception. There is no definition as to who are linguistic minorities. How many people need to speak a language to make the same a minority or majority language. From the Supreme court judgments, it is inferred that states are the unit of determining linguistic minority for states that were reorganized on the basis of language."

"In Assam's Barak valley Manipuri, Rengma Naga are minorities. In Brahmaputra valley Bengali speaking people are a linguistic minority however this may not be the case in Dhubri. In the South, Salmara Hindus are a minority. This whole thing is evolving. There are people in the tea garden that despite having other backward castes (OBC)status are claiming themselves as a minority for being Christian and are also demanding scheduled tribe status," the Chief Minister said in March.