Non-government panel report on Assam Agitation set for historic assembly tabling

A politically significant move will see the Assam government place the findings of a non-government commission before the state assembly for the first time, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced on November 23.

The decision, cleared by the state cabinet on Sunday, concerns the report of the Justice (Retd.) T U Mehta Commission, which was constituted by civil society groups to examine episodes of violence during the anti-infiltration Assam Agitation. The report will be tabled during the five-day assembly session beginning Tuesday.

Sarma said the step follows demands from the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), which argued that the document should be made public so people can “get to know all sides”. He stressed that placing a report prepared outside government structures “will be a first” for the assembly.

The cabinet has also approved the distribution of copies of the 1983 Tewary Commission report, which investigated violence during that year’s phase of the agitation. Although the report was technically tabled in 1987, Sarma noted that “only one copy to the Speaker was laid”, leaving it effectively inaccessible for decades.

Both documents relate to the six-year Assam Agitation, which culminated in the 1985 Assam Accord but left unresolved tensions over undocumented migration. Sarma said the Tewary report, despite being commissioned by a Congress government, was “generally neutral and compiled through much hardships”.

He pushed back against suggestions that the reports contain politically sensitive material. “Congress thinks there are provocative things, that the BJP will gain politically. But there is nothing of the kind. It is just a historic piece that will be lost to time if the copies are not made public,” he said. He accused the party’s present leadership of being “hollow and immature” for opposing wider circulation of a report prepared under its own government.

According to the chief minister, even though the Tewary report includes “some negative things on AASU”, the student body has supported its release, saying new generations should understand the circumstances of the period. “It is a crime against humanity to hide history,” Sarma remarked.

The cabinet meeting also cleared around 27 Bills for introduction in the upcoming session. Key proposals include land allotments for tea garden workers, regulation of fees in minority-run private educational institutions, and enabling legislation for a philanthropic university backed by the Azim Premji Foundation.