Assam Movement

The Assam Movement (also Anti-Foreigners Agitation) (1979–1985) was a popular uprising in Assam, India, that demanded the Government of India detect, disenfranchise and deport illegal aliens. Led by All Assam Students Union (AASU) and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) the movement defined a six-year period of sustained civil disobedience campaigns, political instability and widespread ethnic violence. The movement ended in 1985 with the Assam Accord.

It was known since 1963 that foreign nationals had been improperly added to electoral rolls—and when the draft enrollments in Mangaldoi showed high number of non-citizens in 1979 AASU decided to campaign for thoroughly revised electoral rolls in the entire state of Assam by boycotting the 1980 Lok Sabha election. The Indira Gandhi government that followed could not accept the demands of the movement leaders since it came at considerable political costs and the movement escalated to economic blockades, oppression, violent pogroms and lasting ethnic conflict. The political nature of this movement was heavily debated among scholars in the journal Economic and Political Weekly. The accord became possible under the Rajiv Gandhi ministry when the emphasis was on negotiation and compromise which both sides made, and particularly because Rajiv Gandhi was less concerned with Congress (I)'s electoral fortunes.

The Assam Accord did not solve the problem of foreigners' names in electoral rolls, primarily due to the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983 passed by the Indira Gandhi government soon after the disastrous 1983 elections that made it practically impossible to prove anyone in Assam was an illegal alien.