After the treacherous annexation of Assam by British India in 1826, the British brought Bengali Babus who convinced them that Assamese is just a "corrupt version of Bengali" and managed to impose Bengali as the new language of Assam.

Assamese scholars had to fight for decades to restore the Assamese language in the state.

Bengali expansionism and a dream of Bengali imposition in Eastern India have been an integral part of Bengali nationalism since long.

Even a world-renowned poet and celebrated humanist Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore was unabashed about his Bengali expansionist mindset and were a staunch advocate of Bengali imposition and 'replacement of Asomiya and Odia by Bengali’.

He was one of the pioneers of the false propaganda that Odia and Asomiya were not independent languages but offshoots of Bengali.

For Bengali Chauvinists any language that has similarities with Bengali has to be a corrupt version of Bengali.

Similarly, the Bengali Chauvinist will brazenly claim that all Bhattacharya, Das, Chakravarty, Goswami are Bengali origin people without caring to read even a little history of the neighbouring states.

Till today Bengali expansionists resort to distortion of history Like deliberately mixing up the Pala dynasty of Kamrupa with the Pala dynasty of Bengal or spreading outright lies about Assamese being an offshoot of Bengali ).

The intellectual fraud and misinformation campaign of the Bengali Chauvinists is not confined to the linguistic and cultural arena.

The most vicious misinformation campaign about Assam is seen in the issue of illegal migration from Bangladesh.

Whether the Sanghis or the liberals, most mainlanders have a colonial approach towards Assam and other parts of the Northeast and therefore the narrative is always heavily and shamelessly tilted towards the Bengali Chauvinists because 'Bengalis are more Indian than the Assamese' for the 'mainland' apparently.

Thus the left-liberals who will shed tears in support of the ‘right of the Kashmiris to protect their demography from settlers from an outsider’ will take a completely opposite stand on the issue of demographic changes in Assam and other states of northeast owing to massive migration from Bangladesh and would call every Assamese an ‘ethno-fascist’ if he or she dares to speak about it.

While the Hindutva groups are only with the Hindu illegal migrants, so-called secular and left-liberals are with both Muslims and Hindus from Bangladesh and are completely apathetic towards the problems faced by Assam and other states because of the issue of migration.

For obvious reasons, these 'mainlanders' will never talk about Tripura which is a nightmarish example for Assam and other states.

Owing to massive migration from Bangladesh, Tripura has turned into a Bengali majority state where Tripuris are now minorities.

When Biplab Deb became Chief Minister of Tripura, there were reports newspapers in Bangladesh 'proudly carrying the story of the success of a son of Bangladesh’.

Reportedly, there were celebrations in Bangladesh.

Bengali Chauvinists and 'mainstream Indian media' will remain tightlipped about such stories because it does not support their expansionist narrative of Assamese people being ‘ethno-fascist’ and hostile to ‘innocent’ Bengalis.

Ridiculously Bengali Chuvinist outfits keep talking about a fictitious history that the Bengalis are the original inhabitants of the entire northeast region and the region belongs to them.

The support to Bengali Chauvinism and expansionism by the so-called mainland media groups and a section of educated Bengalis (including journalists and bureaucrats ) is not surprising.

And the article ‘As a committee suggests a new definition of ‘Assamese’, a new cut-off year’, by AbhishekSaha published in The Indian Express on September 7, 2020, was simply a manifestation of this ugly and unabashed Bengali Expansionist mentality.

This article opposes the idea of constitutional safeguard to the Assamese in the backdrop of massive migration and completely ignores why this demand became relevant in Assam.

The article is yet another typical one-sided propaganda piece by a Bengali expansionist.

The very first intellectual fraud committed by Abhishek Saha is that the author starts with the story of Kamala Harris.

His punchline of the article is ‘No Kamala Harris For Assam'. This propaganda story is a blatant fraud at various levels.

Saha, in his venomous propaganda, deliberately ignores the facts that there is a fundamental difference between legal migrants and illegal migrants.

So there are already some Kamal Harisses in Assam. If he actually does not know about them, it is high time he goes back to journalism school.

If Saha can devote some time to research before writing, he will definitely learn that the situation in the US is different from that of Assam.

The editors of The Indian Express and writers like Abhishek Saha should use basic reasoning skills, which I am sure they have, to understand the difference between the situation of Kamala Harris and the Bangladeshi migrants.

The Bangladeshi migrants, with the help of Indian Bengali Chauvinists, have already turned Tripuris into minorities in their own state and the same is gradually happening in Assam.

For the information of The Indian Express and Saha, Assamese people are not demanding an Assamese state in Bengal like certain Bengali outfits are doing in Assam.

Assamese people are simply demanding that they have a right to be protected against a Tripura like situation. So instead of bringing up 'stupid analogies' with Kamal Harris from the US, Indian Express editors can learn to focus on the ground realities first.

If The Indian Express and Saha are interested in talking about the right of people, they should also talk about the locals who have suffered at the hands of the migrants.

If The Indian Express and AbhishekSaha are concerned with the ‘privileges’ of the migrants but are totally apathetic to that of the locals, they are simply dishonest and are worst kind of hypocrites.

As far as Abhishek Saha is concerned, it would be better for him to study the history of Bengali Chauvinism first before pointing fingers at others.

How Bengali Chauvinist Vaishnavitepreacher convinced the King of Manipur to burn the ancient scrolls in Meitei language and replace the Meitei script with Bengali scripts.

He should study how Tripuris were turned into minorities in their own state by ‘Kamala Harrises’ from Bangladesh.

He should also study the history of Bengali imposition in Assam the aggression of migrants who drove out locals from certain villages instead of studying only the sob stories of the ‘innocent Bengali Migrants’.

But most importantly he should study why and how the constitutional safeguard for the Assamese came to become a demand in the state.

He should study how the IMDT Act protected illegal migrants in Assam while in the rest of India, the Foreigners Act provided protection to locals.

Also, before lecturing others, Abhishek Saha should also search for a few Kamala Harrises in his own native state West Bengal.

It is high time Bengali chauvinists learn to respect non-Bengalis and stop being the victimised and cry babies all the time to hide their double standards.

(The views expressed are the author's own and not necessarily reflects the views of The Story Mug.)