Assam CM slams Kapil Sibal, says those who dont know history should not speak

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has responded to Kapil Sibal's 'Mynamar' comment by saying that those who have no knowledge of history should not speak about it. 

The Assam CM was reacting to senior lawyer Kapil Sibal's statement that Assam was once a part of Myanmar. Sibal had made the comment during the hearing on a series of petitions challenging 6A of the Citizenship Act of 1955 in the Supreme Court. A bench of justices led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud began hearing the series of petitions challenging the Citizenship Act on December 5, 2023.

Reacting to Sibal's comment, CM Sarma said that those who have no knowledge of history should not be speaking about it. 

"If someone does not have knowledge about history, then he should not speak about it. Assam was never a part of Myanmar. People from Myanmar had once invaded Assam. For a brief period of a couple months, we were under their occupation. This is the contact between Assam and Myanmar. But till date I have not come across any data which suggests that Assam was a part of Myanmar," said CM Sarma. 

This comes after senior advocate Kapil Sibal while commencing his submissions on behalf of the respondents with regard to a series of petitions challenging Section 6A of the Citizenship Act of 1955 said that the migration of the population is embedded in history and cannot be mapped.

"Migration of people in the population is embedded in history and cannot be mapped. Assam was a part of Myanmar and then the British conquered a part of it and that is how Assam was handed over to the British you can now imagine the amount of movement of people that took place and under the partition, East Bengal and Assam became one and Bengali language was being taught in schools where there was large scale opposition. The interaction and absorption of the Bengali population in Assam has a historical context", Sibal says. 

Further citing his example, Sibal said, "We (Sibals) were also displaced from Lahore and my maternal grandparents were killed. We also came here and when partition took place, people from Bengali ethnicity etc will obviously try to come.. so saying that this disrupted the cultural ambience of Assam is Constitutionally unavailable and I have the complete fundamental right to move from one part of the country to another."

The Supreme Court yesterday directed the Union Government to furnish data on the inflow of illegal migrants to Assam and North-Eastern states after March 25, 1971.