In poll-bound Assam, Shah reiterates BJP’s promise to introduce pan-India UCC

Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday reiterated the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) promise to introduce a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) across the country, reemphasising that tribals will be kept out of its purview.

“If you form a BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party]-led government in Assam, we will bring UCC, which will ensure that no one marries four times. And I assure that tribals will be kept outside of the purview. We know who it should cover,” Shah said at an election rally in Goalpara ahead of the April 9 assembly polls in Assam.

The BJP on Tuesday released a 31-point manifesto for the polls, promising UCC, a contentious and polarising issue, which refers to a common set of laws for personal matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and succession for all citizens. Constitution’s Article 44, one of the directive principles of state policy, advocates UCC. But respective religion-based civil codes have governed personal matters since independence.

In February 2024, the BJP-ruled Uttarakhand became the first state in the country to pass a UCC law. Gujarat, another BJP-ruled state, followed suit last month. A pan-India UCC is the BJP’s third unfulfilled major ideological promise. The construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status under the Constitution’s Article 370, the other two major ideological goals, have been achieved since the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014.

Shah accused the Congress of using tribals, who account for over 12% of Assam’s population, as vote banks and ignoring their welfare. He credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the elevation of Droupadi Murmu, a tribal, to the President’s post. Shah highlighted the significant increase in the budget for the welfare of tribals since Modi took charge as the Prime Minister in 2014.

Shah promised a big dairy would be set up in Goalpara and every tribal family would be provided with one cow and buffalo each. He reiterated the BJP promise of detecting undocumented immigrants in Assam and other parts of the country and sought another five years to complete the task. Shah referred to the eviction drives targeting “illegal settlers” from 49,500 acres of government land and forests over the past five years.

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has sharpened his rhetoric against documented immigrants in the run-up to the polls in Assam, where the perceived threat to the indigenous language, culture, and land from outsiders has resulted in agitations that claimed hundreds of lives. Ethnic and linguistic tensions in Assam date back to the 19th century, when the British declared Bengali the official language in 1836. The protests against the move forced its withdrawal in 1873.

The 1947 partition and the linguistic reorganisation of states in the 1970s sparked fresh protests against the “outsiders.” In the 1980s, the six-year agitation against “infiltrators” from Bangladesh ended with the 1985 Assam Accord, which finalised March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for citizenship, irrespective of religion. Bengali-speaking Hindus who moved to Assam from Bangladesh before December 31, 2014, can become Indian citizens under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

Shah accused Congress of keeping Assam disturbed and playing politics with the lives of the state’s youths. “But we signed deals with the rebel groups, and to date over 10,000 youths have laid down arms, bringing peace to the state,” he said.

He accused the Congress of not doing anything to protect the state’s culture. Shah highlighted the installation of a statue of Ahom general Lachit Borphukan, a memorial for the 860 people killed during the Assam Agitation of the 1980s, and the UNESCO world heritage site tag to the Charaideo Maidams during the BJP rule.