Guwahati: The Assam Tea Tribe Students' Association (ATTSA) will organise a mass convention in March to define who are "indigenous" people of the state.
ATTSA general secretary Paban Bedia said the decision to hold the convention was taken following the refusal of Khilonjiya Mancha, Asom, an organisation led by pro-talks Ulfa leader Anup Chetia, to acknowledge the 80-lakh stro-ng tea garden community as indigenous people of the state.
The convention will be held in Dibrugarh in Upper Assam on March 23.
The Mancha had said those who resided in Assam before the 1826 Treaty of Yandaboo (when Assam was annexed to the British empire) were indigenous people. Those who settled in the state thereafter and accepted Assamese culture as their own were accepted as Assamese but were not indigenous people. This definition was supported by Ulfa (Independent).
ATTSA leaders, in a meeting on Sunday, flayed the Manch definition and decided to unite all apolitical organisations of tea garden communities to take the issue forward.