The National Register of Citizens (NRC) has once again brought Assam under the scanner of the International media, but it's reporting have left most of the Assamese people unhappy.
"Have the decency to be neutral. Please report about the human right violation of those to be excluded but also mention how over 21 years, 7 governments and five chief ministers leave alone the 40 years struggle have resulted into the NRC" said Mr Rajeeb Bhattachhrya, Journalist from Guwahati.
As almost all the media houses from the Time to Al Jazeera have descended on Assam and doing NRC related stories, most of the Assamese feel that all the stories were seen through the Hindu-Muslim binary.
"If you read the international media and a section of online portals like Wire and Scroll, it looks like that there is religious persecution going on in Assam at the behest of the Assamese people, AASU and the party at the helm" said Banglore based Abhijit Bhuyan.
A similar sentiment was echoed by Dr Bhaskar Papukon Gogoi from Dibrugarh. He, however, said that Assam has lost this round in the PR Exercise.
As the ruling party BJP has helped the cause by twisting it in religious line, the international media has a field day terming the whole NRC Exercise into an ill-designed ill motive exercise of religious persecution to make millions stateless, said internationally acclaimed filmmaker Utpal Borpujari.
Most of the Assamese people feel that reporting were biased and some had crossed all limits by even comparing the NRC exercise with the anti -semitism of Nazis during the Third Reich, Rajeev Bhattacharya, a senior Journalist of Assam.
The Pratidin Time today sought out reaction from the student and corporate community from across the nation and here are some comments.
"The ones who go for a PhD in elite institutions out of Assam and the country, who has no connection with Assamese people except when they visit some villages in Assam for their research paper purpose because it's cheap and cost-effective for them, who have never spent a night in a Miya village, who have never studied about social and political history of Assam and have no knowledge about it, who have no touch with the actual Assamese lifestyle day in and day out…..are going ga ga with their so called intellectual blabbering everywhere possible because it suits their research purpose to be something different, getting some attention and popularity among the illegal immigrants and ofcourse it aligns with their leftist ideology' said Mr Bhuyan.
"They talk about atrocities on Miya's, they cry for the Miya women suffering the pain of standing in NRC process queue in various NRC centres….But….They have never ever said a single word on the malnutrition and detoriated health of Miya women due to excessive reproduction (one gives birth up to 10-12 children) and all. These kids are ultra feminists (read feminazis) but strangely silent on the oppression, exploitation and atrocities on women within the Miya community" said Mr Bhuyan
