Why there is a demand for the separate state for Barak valley?

Barak Valley comprising three districts of Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj. There is again a new surge for the old demand of the creation of a separate statehood for Assam’s Barak Valley.

Why demand for statehood?

• There is a sense in the Barak valley that people of the valley have been deprived by mainland Assam for a long time and they feel that separation is the only way out.
• The people of Barak valley complain of the step motherly treatment and allege that successive governments, no matter which party, have neglected the region.
• The Barak Valley always had a strained relationship with the rest of Assam. After the partition the Karimganj which was part of sylhet (it became part of east Pakistan) became part of India. The Hindu minorities of sylhet fearing religious persecution fled to cachar of Assam. This resulted in large number of Bengali speaking population.
• The linguistic divide resulted in demand for a separate state similar to linguistic states formed under the state reorganization act.
• The feel that politics of the state which is dominated by the politicians from Brahmaputra valley is indifferent to the cause of the people from Barak Valley.
• Many people from the valley particularly Hindu Bengalis have not find a place in Assam’s updated National Register of Citizens and there is an overwhelming support in favor of the citizenship amendment bill 2016 where the bill has been opposed vehemently in the Brahmaputra valley.

The NRC and the citizenship amendment bill has become a new cause of rift between the two valleys. This rift has led to the surge in the old demand of separate statehood.

Topics: GS-III: Role of External State and Non State Actors in Creating Challenges to Internal Security