Assam’s identity crisis: history, fear and the politics of exclusion

Assam, one of India’s most beautiful and bounteous states, is today troubled and in turmoil. The reason for this is deep-rooted anxiety among the indigenous Assamese of being swamped by ‘outsiders’, mainly Bengali Muslims — often automatically branded Bangladeshis. The problem is, however, more complex. 

Ahoms integrated the Brahmaputra valley and ruled from 1228-1826. They were migrants of Thai (Tai) origin — from Guizhou in South China who entered via Thailand and Shan lands of Burma. They retained their ‘foreign’ pride and religion for almost three centuries before assimilating into Hinduism.

The question of who is a foreigner and who is not, therefore, depends largely on one’s viewpoint. Ironically, while we celebrate their victories — like Lachit Borphukan’s famous defeat of the Mughals in 1671 — we overlook the fact that the Mughal general was Raja Ram Singh of Ajmer, a Hindu.

The turning point came in 1826 when the British drove away the Burmese who had occupied ‘Assam’, defeated the remnants of the Ahoms and annexed new lands and people like the Kacharis and Jaintiyas. Soon thereafter, the British put in place a deliberate policy of settling ‘mainland’ (central) Indians to exploit the land and resources of this region.

Assam, part of the mammoth Bengal Presidency, soon saw educated Bengali babus fill teaching and administrative posts while Bengali peasants expanded cultivation. In 1874, Sylhet, one of the densely populated eastern districts of Bengal, was merged with Assam to form one integrated Chief Commissioner's Province with Shillong as its capital. 

Neither the Sylheti-Bengalis (largely Muslims) nor the Assamese, mainly Hindus, liked this but both had to swallow it. Obviously, movement and settlement within this ‘joint province’ was totally unhindered and the century-old settlers get hyper when the ‘outsider’ question is raised.

With British tea plantations flourishing, oil being found at Digboi in 1889, and new coal mines and other resources opening up, the British got in truckloads of migrant labour from Bihar, central India and Nepal to Assam’s tea plantations and coal mines, severely neglecting the local Assamese. A famine in Nagaon saw their numbers fall further. Today’s tensions are rooted in these colonial misdeeds.

Post-Independence and post-Partition, Sylhet went to East Bengal (later Bangladesh), but there was no let-up in the flow of refugees into Assam. In 1950, Parliament passed the Immigration (Expulsion from Assam) Act to assuage the concerns of the Assamese. India’s first NRC (National Register of Citizens) was created in Assam on the basis of the 1951 Census. But every time riots took place in East Pakistan, religious persecution mobilised Hindu Bengalis in droves towards Assam, West Bengal and Tripura, while poverty brought Muslims from East Pakistan into these states.

The problem of so many layers of non-Assamese-speakers and their occupation of fertile lands and paying jobs just could not go on. Local demonstrations against them became quite common in the 1970s — with occasional violence spearheaded by the All Assam Students Union and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad. Their demand: detect and expel illegal immigrants — both Hindus and Muslims.

In 1979, a militant offshoot — the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) — emerged to “liberate Assam from India”. Violence peaked in February 1983, with the infamous Nellie massacre in which some 2,000 people, mainly Bengali Muslims, were killed in one of independent India’s worst pogroms.

The popularity of the Assam agitation led by AASU and AAGSP continued unabated until then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi brokered the Assam Accord in August 1985. AASU and AAGSP leaders would soon form governments and take official steps to weed out ‘foreigners’. However, ULFA continued to be defiant and violent, and moved operations to foreign soil. 

Even in 1991, when I was posted in Barpeta and Nalbari as Election Commission observer, ULFA slogans were plastered all over — screaming ‘Indians Get Out’ and using other derogatory terms. So overwhelming was the security, that not a step could be taken without being ringed by gun-toting guards. In a few years, batches of armed ULFA cadres started surrendering, with a major faction led by Arabinda Rajkhowa making complete peace recently.

The more aggressive Paresh Barua-led ULFA army still operates from China, with the sole aim of cutting Assam away from India.

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Movements notwithstanding, the central fear persisted: that Assamese might become a minority in their own state. We have not even touched upon the issue of Bodos and many tribal groups demanding their own ‘land’ carved out of or within Assam — free from Assamese. The Assamese were getting increasingly frustrated at the slow progress of identifying ‘foreigners’ and occasional outbursts took place — keeping the cauldron boiling.

In 2013, the Supreme Court stepped in and ordered an immediate update of the NRC of Assam overseen and monitored strictly by Justice Ranjan Gogoi (an Assamese) and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman.

The BJP, with an aggressive Hindu agenda, came to power at the Centre in 2014 and accused Congress governments of soft-pedalling the foreigners issue. The BJP’s state unit in Assam rode on the back of this belligerence and seized power in 2016.

The entire NRC process dragged on for six years, under intense scrutiny and amid allegations of bias and mass confusion. The final updated NRC for Assam was published on 31 August 2019, but satisfied no one. It certified some 3.1 crore people as genuine citizens in a population of 3.3 crore. What was a surprise for many was that of the 19 lakh suspected foreigners, there were more Bengali Hindus than Muslims. Most Assamese people did not accept this list compiled after a long-drawn process costing Rs 1,603 crore till March 2022.

The governments of India and Assam were left flummoxed by the findings. Soon, the soft-spoken Sarbanand Sonowal was replaced in 2021 by hardliner Himanta Biswa Sarma — a former Congress stalwart turned Hindutva champion. It is under his tenure that high-handedness is the rule where ‘Miyas’ (Bengali Muslims) are especially targeted.

From 2021, he started an aggressive campaign to 'free' government or forest land of 'encroachments', and records will prove that almost all such ruthless evictions have been against Bengali-speaking Muslims. He claims to have freed 1.5 lakh bighas and is ramping up the scale ahead of Assembly elections due next year. There is no doubt that he wishes to play the communal card, and any violence, devastation or death is but collateral damage.

But there is another side to Sarma’s plan — his alleged collusion in ‘handing over’ government and even constitutionally protected tribal lands to friendly industrialists. During a recent hearing, Gauhati High Court expressed shock and dismay at Sarma’s allotment of 3,000 bighas (around 4 sq. km) of tribal land to a private company in Dima Hasao district.

A group of tribals from this area met the People’s Tribunal team (comprising Harsh Mander, Prashant Bhushan, Wajahat Habibullah, Syeda Hamid, myself and others) during our recent visit — to explain how blatantly illegal this action was.

Some of us visited Barduar village in Kamrup district, where Rabha tribals spoke to us of eviction to make way for some ‘township’ project. In Goalpara, the government imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of (old) CrPC to block our visit but Mander and Habibullah defied the order and visited affected villages like Rakhyasini, Hasila Beel and Ashudubi and heard harrowing tales of how authorities had bulldozed and evicted hundreds of Muslims.

On 27 August, the CM issued shoot-at-sight orders to the police in adjoining Dhubri district — to intimidate the populous minority community there and protect “Sanatan Dharma that is under threat”.

This is the Assam of Himanta Biswa Sarma, that arrests Pawan Khera at will and where police issue coercive warrants against journalists Siddharth Vardarajan and Karan Thapar — until the Supreme Court intervenes. It is a dubious honour that Sarma took time out to brand our visit as “Jamaat-inspired” and heaped choicest invectives on us for allegedly trying to disrupt Assam.

Welcome to the India of Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath and their very able competitor, Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Jawhar Sircar is a retired IAS officer and former Rajya Sabha MP