Massive protests have erupted in Assam against the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, likely to be tabled in Parliament on December 9th, 2019, with agitating students claiming that it goes against the country’s spirit of secularism and nullifies the Assam Accord.
The students of Dibrugarh University (DU) along with students of several educational institutes came out of their campuses and hit the town’s streets in protest against the Bill on the night of December 7th, 2019.
The students took out rallies from their respective colleges and marched towards the busy Thana Chariali junction. The students staged a blockade throwing traffic out of gear for several hours.
The students of Dibrugarh Hanumanbax Surajmall Kanoi College, Manohari Devi Kanoi Girls’ College, Manohari Devi Kanoi Girls’ Science College, Dibrugarh Hanumanbax Surajmall Kanoi Commerce College, Dibru College and Nandalal Borgohain City College, among others, took part in the protest.
They held mashaals (torch), placards and banners and chanted slogans against PM Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal and other BJP-AGP ministers for supporting the Bill. The protesting students slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments at the State and Centre and also burnt tyres on the busy square.
The protesting students then assembled together at the Thana Chariali junction and sang O Mur Apunar Desh – the state song of Assam and one of the most popular Assamese patriotic songs of all time. A video of the students singing the state song has now gone viral on social media.
Watch the video here:
The song (0:57 duration) was written by Lakshminath Bezbaroa and attuned by Kamala Prasad Agarwala. The song itself is from among the finest poems created by Bezbaroa. It was first published in 1909 in an Assamese magazine named Bahi. It was officially adopted as the Assam’s state song in 1927 at Assam Student Conference held in Tezpur.
It may be mentioned, Union minister of state for food processing industries Rameswar Teli was heckled by the activists of the All Assam Students’ Union on December 7th, 2019 in Naharkatia in Dibrugarh district.
The DU Post Graduate Students’ Union also announced that it has ‘banned’ the entry of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal into the campus for supporting the Bill. The DU is Sonowal’s alma mater.
Photo: Time8
