Assamese people dispute over the definition of Assamese people, in general; the people belonging to the state of Assam are referred as Assamese people. The lack of a definition has put stumbling blocks in implementing "clause 6" of the Assam Accord, an agreement signed by the activists of the Assam Movement and the Government of India in 1985. Since a legal definition is important to provide "constitutional, legislative and cultural" safeguards to the Assamese people, the Government of Assam had formed a ministerial committee to finalize the definition in March 2007. To address the "clause 6" issue, AASU had announced a definition
Assamese people on April 10, 2000 which was based on residency with a temporal limit: "All those whose names appeared in the 1951 National Register of Citizens and their progenies should be considered as Assamese. " Difficulty in definition is rooted in the heterogeneous nature of inhabitants of the Assam State. According to 2011 census, Out of (13,257,272) Assamese people, majority of (10,013,013) or (75.52%) Assamese people are Hindus, largest minority of (2,830,072) or (21.34%) Assamese people are Muslims, and very few (414,187) or (3.14%) Assamese people are Christians and Sikhs by religion. The first usage of the English word "Assamese" is