Guwahati, March 13: Asam Sahitya Sabha today said the onus of coming up with a definition of "Assamese" lies with the Assam government.

According to the Sabha, it is the "constitutional and legal" responsibility of Dispur to define who is an Assamese. It demanded that the latter come up with one during the ongoing budget session that will conclude on March 31.

The definition is required to provide constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to Assamese people under Clause 6 of the Assam Accord that was signed on August 15, 1985.

"Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the culture, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people," the accord said.

The Sabha has already come up with a definition of its own, according to which an Indian national, who irrespective of community, language, religion and place of origin, accepts Assamese as his/her mother tongue or either his/her second or third language is an Assamese. The Sabha, however, today said it as a "broad outline" to help the state government to form a proper definition.

"It is already getting late. We demand the Assam government to immediately define Assamese and make it public within the current budget session," said Dhruba Jyoti Borah, president of the Sabha.

Dispur set up a committee of ministers in 2005 under Bhumidhar Barman (now Assam Accord implementation minister) to define who is an Assamese. Several attempts have been made in the past to define the term but no acceptable definition could be arrived at. The committee held over six meetings but of late it has been "dormant".

Barman recently told the Assam Assembly that the state government had entrusted Asam Sahitya Sabha to define Assamese but the latter remained silent. Borah today said his predecessors did receive the government's request but "rightly" remained silent as it was the government's duty to come out with a definition.

Barman's comment that the state government was yet to finalise the definition of Assamese people raked up a controversy. Some criticised the government for its failure while others accused it of playing politics.

On the other hand, a three-member team of All Assam Students' Union today had a meeting with Assembly Speaker Pranab Gogoi on providing constitutional safeguard to "indigenous people" of the state.

AASU told Gogoi that indigenous people required constitutional safeguards to protect themselves from migration of Bangladeshis. They also told Gogoi that by creating the debate (about definition of Assamese) the state government was trying to create confusion to derail the process of updating the National Register of Citizens.

Asomiya Sahitya Sanmiloni, another literary organisation, also yesterday accused Dispur of creating the issue for some purposes.