The following piece is clearly tendentious. It is the legacy of the bias of The Sentinel, as is evident in Sri D N Bezbaruah's earlier write up on the migrant issue after Barpeta incident where he drew analogy of high birth rate in muslim community (though he was suave enough to point his fingers at illegal migrants: and I suppose there's no separate birth rate data for illegal migrants!) with multiplication of rabbits. These kind of confused write-ups show the quality of the reporters and journalists. When one has no property, or land to till, or no education to do white collar jobs, such uprooted people become 'wage-earners' by providing menial labour in different trade and industry. And if the Muslim community consists more of some people, it simply means that there are more poor people in that community. It is good that Assamese Hindu or so called son of the soil have not fallen on such bad days so far. Why be mushy over a non-issue?
When will the son of the soil be self-dependent? Can he ever? By our Staff Reporter GUWAHATI, Sept 9: The vacuum of menial workers like daily wage-earners, autorickshaw drivers, thelawalas, carpenters, masons, vegetable vendors and others becomes quite visible ahead of the Idd festival. This vacuum that lasts for a week or so is a common phenomenon that reflects on the dependence of the indigenous people of Assam on other communities in so far as menial works are concerned. It will be recalled that in order to make the people of Assam self-dependent, the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) had started a movement during the early part of the Assam Agitation. AASU activists did all sorts of menial works like hairdressing, selling vegetables, pulling rickshaws, carrying luggage etc themselves. However, that tempo was only for a few days. In Assam as of now, labourers from North India are being rapidly replaced by an industrious religious minority community. No one knows how many of them are indeed Indian minority citizens and how many are illegal Bangladeshis. The current vacuum of workers has been created because most of the people belonging to this community have left the city for their villages to celebrate Idd. At present, Assam has about ten lakh registered under-matriculate unemployed youths. What percentage of these unemployed youths belonging to the indigenous community would come forward for menial works to earn a livelihood? These youths hanker after government jobs at any cost. Menial works are a ‘‘prestige issue’’ for them. Only in Guwahati, over Rs 200 crore is doled out annually as daily wages for construction works, in both private and government sectors. In such works, the presence of indigenous people as workers, carpenters and masons is almost nil. This sector is filled by people belonging to the so-called minority community. The AASU is vocal on all issues, including politics. Would the present set of AASU leaders tell us as to why they have failed to encourage the unskilled, unemployed, indigenous youths of the State to fill the vast vacuum of menial workers? Do not they feel that this is the best way to fight illegal immigration from Bangladesh? (The Sentinel,Guwahati,Friday,September 10, 2010) Uttam Kumar Borthakur _______________________________________________ assam mailing list assam@assamnet.org http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
