2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(1) names of non-citizens on the electoral rolls for a parliamentary by-election. The aim was to articulate an Assamese identity against the demonised entity represented by the body of the illegal immigrant.'!° The dominant narrative was built around the perceived threat to the very existence of Assamese autochthony. The six-year-long movement finally resulted in the signing of the Assam Accord on 15 August 1985 in the presence of the leaders of the two pivotal bodies of the movement — the All Assam Students Union and the Asom Gana Sangram Parishad — along with the then Prime Minister, Shri Rajiv Gandhi. This accord is critical to the citizenship issue in the state. The Assam Accord created the foundation for the insertion of s 6A through the Citizenship Amendment Act, 1986 which established the entire timeline for the National Register of Citizens. According to the terms of the Accord, 1966 was set as the base year for detecting and deleting foreigners from the electoral rolls.!!! Those who were found to have entered the State between 1966 and 1971 were to be deleted from the electoral rolls and were required to register themselves before the Registration Officers of their respective districts. This category of people was to be reinstated on the rolls after ten years had passed. Foreigners who came to Assam after 25 March 1971 were to be detected and deported according to the provisions of the law.!!? After the signing of the Assam Accord, the Citizenship Amendment Act of 1986 came into place, which included s 6A, providing the entire timeline for the identification of a genuine citizen in context of Assam. Section 6A codified the timeline agreed upon in the Assam Accord. The 24" of March 1971 is therefore regarded as the cut-off date for identifying genuine Indian citizens in the State of Assam. The Assam movement laid the foundations for the legal and socio-political changes that were to emerge over the course of time. Chetna Sharma postulates that ‘defining an “immigrant” or an “indigenous” community in fixed terms in a demographically fluid zone like Assam is a complicated exercise’.!!3 Despite this, there has been consistent fearmongering based on oversimplifications among the political class in Assam around the issue of migrants. SK Sinha, the former Governor of Assam, described the problem with dramatic flair — ‘as a result of population movement from Bangladesh, the spectre looms large of the indigenous people of Assam being reduced to a minority in their home state’.!!4 It is this fear that informed the agitation and it is this fear that continues to rise to the fore. In 1997, a new category of citizens was carved out — that of the vilified D Voter.!!5 The Election Commission of India, together with the ruling government of Assam at the time, came up with the idea of demarcating suspected immigrants from Bangladesh as lesser citizens.!!© To be a D Voter means that one is disenfranchised — an innocuous D, for ‘doubtful’ is stamped next to their name 110 Ahmed (n 75) 56. 111 Accord between AASU, AAGSP and the Central Government on the Foreign National Issue (Assam Accord), signed 15 August 1985 (Memorandum of Settlement) cl 5.1 <https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/IN 850815 Assam%20Accord.pd f> 112" ibid cl 5.8. 113 114 115 116 Sharma (n 92) 530. SK Sinha, Report on Illegal Migration to Assam (Report, 1998) <https://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/assam/documents/papers/illegal_migr ation in _assam.htm>. Nazimuddin Siddique, ‘Discourse of Doubt’ (2019) 54(10) Economic & Political Weekly 25. ibid. 248