Guwahati: A minority student leader in Assam stirred a hornet’s nest with remarks that Bengal-origin Muslims would list Bengali, and not Assamese, as their mother tongue in public documents.Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who played his part in securing the classical language status for the Assamese, said language cannot become a tool for “blackmail.”“Assamese language is permanent in Assam, as state and official language,” he said.“Nobody is affected by the threats ahead of every census about listing this or that language. They (some elements) were made to believe if more people do not speak Assamese, the language will become extinct. But the Assamese language will remain where it is,” the chief minister said.He added that if some people seek to replace Assamese with Bengali in the electoral rolls, it will give an idea about the number of “foreigners” in Assam.Mainuddin Ali, leader of All BTC Minority Students’ Union, had made the controversial remarks.During a protest on Wednesday against ongoing eviction drives in parts of lower Assam, he stated if the Bengal-origin Muslims do not list Assamese as their mother tongue in the census exercise, it will no longer be the language of the majority in Assam.“We, the Bengal-origin Muslims, clearly state that we will not write Assamese as our mother tongue this census. We will remove the Assamese language. The Assamese language as well as the Assamese community will become a minority,” Ali stated.
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