All Assam Students' Union or AASU is an Assamese nationalist student's organization in

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. It is best known for leading the six-year

Assam Movement The Assam Movement, also known as the Anti-Foreigners Agitation, was a popular uprising in Assam, India, from 1979 to 1985, that demanded the Government of India detect, disenfranchise and deport illegal alien (law), aliens.: "The citizenship ...

against

Bengalis Bengalis ( ), also rendered as endonym and exonym, endonym Bangalee, are an Indo-Aryan peoples, Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the Bengal region of South Asia. The current population is divi ...

of both Indian and Bangladeshi origin living in Assam. The original leadership of the organisation, after the historic

Assam Accord The Assam Accord was a Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) signed between representatives of the Government of India and the leaders of the Assam Movement. It was signed in the presence of the then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in New Delhi on 15 Au ...

of 1985, became part of the newly formed

Asom Gana Parishad Asom Gana Parishad (translation: ''Assam People's Council'', AGP) is a political party in the state of Assam, India. The AGP was formed following the historic Assam Accord of 1985 and formally launched at the Golaghat Convention held from 13 t ...

which formed a state government in Assam.

History

In 1940, a student union named ''Asom Chattra Sanmilan'' (Assam Students' Association) divided into the All Assam Student Federation and the All Assam Students' Congress. A decade later the two recombined as the All Assam Students' Association, which was later renamed All Assam Students' Union in January 1967. In August 1967, the Union "established itself as a formal organisation and adopted its Constitution".

Assam agitation

AASU formed the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad in August 1979 consisting of AASU, Assam Sahitya Sabha, Purbanchaliya Lok Parishad. The Jatiyatabadi Dal, Asom Yubak Samaj and Young Lawyers Forum also joined the Gana Parisha later on. AASU started observing massive satyagraha on the lines of India freedom struggle.

Assam Accord

Finally the central government signed the historic

in 1985 to resolve the matter. The agitation ended and AGP won the election to the state Legislative Assembly and its leader became the chief minister of the state. Under the Assam Accord, a person who came to Assam from

East Pakistan East Pakistan was the eastern province of Pakistan between 1955 and 1971, restructured and renamed from the province of East Bengal and covering the territory of the modern country of Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Burma, wit ...

after 1951 and before 1971 was given citizenship. The Assam Accord stated in clause 6 that while giving citizenship to immigrants, constitutional protection will be given to original citizens of Assam. The Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983 (IMDT Act) was enacted by the Parliament of India in 1983 . This Act was struck down by the Supreme Court of India in 2005. Known as the IMDT Act (1983) it described the procedures to detect illegal immigrants (from Bangladesh) and expel them from Assam. It was applicable to state of Assam only whereas in other states, detection of foreigners is done under The Foreigners Act, 1946.

Citizenship Amendment Bill

The Lok Sabha on 9th Dec 2019 passed the bill for Citizenship (Amendment) 2019 with 311 votes in favour and 80 against. The

Rajya Sabha Rajya Sabha (Council of States) is the upper house of the Parliament of India and functions as the institutional representation of India’s federal units — the states and union territories.https://rajyasabha.nic.in/ It is a key component o ...

on 11th Dec 2019 passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, with 125 votes in favour and 99 against. The students' union stated that it opposes the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill stating that it is unconstitutional. Following the passage of the bill, AASU, along with several Nationalist organisations like KMSS , launched a mass protest against the bill. Following the failure of the protest, AASU and Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) came together to launch a new regional political party, Assam Jatiya Parishad(AJP) in September 2020 to contest the

2021 Assam Legislative Assembly election The 2021 Assam Legislative Assembly election was the 15th quinquennial State legislative assemblies of India, legislative assembly election held in the Indian state of Assam from March 27 to April 6 in three phases, to elect 126 Member of the L ...

. The primary reason of forming the AJP and contesting elections was securing the interests of the indigenous people of Assam.

References

{{reflist 1967 establishments in Assam Asom Gana Parishad Organisations based in Assam Student organizations established in 1967 Students' unions in India Volunteer organisations in India Anti-immigration politics in India

Official website