The Unfinished Accord

The Unfinished Accord: How Assam's 1985 Settlement Fractured the Idea of India by Sailajananda Saikia examines the Assam Accord signed on 15 August 1985 between the Government of India, the Government of Assam, and leaders of the Assam Movement (AASU/AAGSP). The book traces the deep historical roots of Assam's citizenship and migration anxieties-from colonial-era settlement and Partition's "Chicken's Neck" geography through the 1971 Bangladesh war, the 1979-1985 mass agitation, and the Nellie massacre-before offering a close reading of the Accord's text, especially its tiered 1966/1971 citizenship cut-offs (Clause 5) and the vague promise of cultural safeguards for the "Assamese people" (Clause 6). It then documents four decades of partial, contested, and often failed implementation: the Foreigners Tribunals and the IMDT Act, the Supreme Court-monitored NRC process that excluded nearly 1.9 million people, the long delay in addressing Clause 6, the rise and decline of the AGP and ULFA, and the 2019 Citizenship (Amendment) Act, widely viewed in Assam as a betrayal of the 1971 principle. Drawing on official figures, court judgments, and secondary sources while carefully noting contested numbers, the book assesses what the Accord achieved (ending a major agitation through negotiation) and what it left unfinished, arguing that the gap between its promises and their delivery reveals deeper tensions in Indian federalism, identity, and citizenship.