Tej Hazarika | Photo Credit: Facebook

New Delhi: The contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 has drawn severe criticism from the people of northeast India and the latest setback for the Centre has come from the son of music maestro Late Bhupen Hazarika, who refused to accept the honour on his father's behalf given the present state of affairs in his region.

Tej Hazarika, speaking to Times Now, expressed discontent and displeasure over the controversial Bill, calling it "undemocratic and unconstitutional". The US-based son told the channel that his father would have felt the same. He clarified that he did not call the gesture to award Bharat Ratna a “cheap thrill” but the timing to present the honour.

“At a time when the majority of people in North East want this bill to be cancelled, conferring a Bharat Ratna to the icon of North East is a cheap thrill,” he said over the phone.

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Here’s Tej Hazarika’s complete statement:

As the son of Dr Bhupen Hazarika—one of the most popular and loved cultural and socio-political figures for the people of Assam and its neighboring sister states of India’s great Northeast—I believe that my father’s name and words are being invoked and celebrated publicly while plans are afoot to pass a painfully unpopular bill regarding citizenship that is actually undermining his documented position. It would in reality be in direct opposition to what Bupenda believed in his heart of hearts.

For his fans—a vast majority of people of the Northeast—and India’s great diversity including all indigenous populations of India, he would never have endorsed what appears, quite transparently, to be an underhanded way of pushing a law against the will and benefit of the majority in a manner that also seems to be grossly un-constitutional, un-democratic and un-Indian.

Adopting any form of this bill at this point in the manner in which it is being proffered, now or in the future, will ultimately have the sad and undesirable effect of not only disrupting the quality of life, language, identity and power balance of the region, but that of undermining my father’s position—by delivering a wreaking blow to the harmony, inner integrity and unity of the secular and democratic Republic of India.

Bharat Ratnas and longest bridges while necessary, will not promote the peace and prosperity of the citizens of India. Only just popular laws and foresight on the part of leadership will. Numerous media journalists are now asking me whether or not I will accept the Bharat Ratna for my father. I go on record here to answer that A), I have not received any invitation so far there is nothing to reject, and B), how the center moves on this matter far outweighs in importance the awarding and receiving of such national recognition—a display of short-lived cheap thrills.