Hunting Muslims in Assam

Assam has long been a testing ground for Hindutva in northeast India. This trend began in 2016, when the first BJP government came to power under Sarbananda Sonowal. The politics of hate that flourished under the umbrella of the central government, with anti-Muslim sentiment as its hallmark, gained momentum in 2021 when Himanta Biswa Sarma became the chief minister. Himanta was a member of the Congress till ten years ago and held various posts in the Assam state government. In 2014, when Narendra Modi became the prime minister, Himanta’s politics also changed drastically. In 2015, he officially joined the BJP, won the state elections the following year and became a member of Sonowal’s cabinet. Since then, Himanta has been in the news for his hate speeches that included strong rhetoric. As a result, when the BJP won its second term in Assam, Himanta was appointed as the Chief Minister. Currently he is busy implementing the hateful plans of the Sangh Parivar. News of evictions from the Muslim majority areas of Assam is coming every day.

Also read: Assam BJP govt bulldozes 1080 homes in Muslim majority area!

The Himanta Biswa government is displacing thousands of Muslims from their villages, branding them as encroachers and infiltrators. Nationalmedia have reported that n the past month, more than 4,000 houses have been demolished in the state. Apart from houses, madrasas, mosques, and Eidgahs have also been razed to the ground. Although the justification for the mission is to remove illegal immigrants, no procedure has been followed, including the mandatory issuing of notices to the parties 15 days in advance. The Muslim minority communities in the state are suffering from the bulldozer operation that Himanta Biswa is carrying out in Goalpara, Dhubri, and Lakhimpur districts. In Goalpara district alone, 1,100 families were evicted on Monday. More than 2,000 families were evicted in the special operation held in Dhubri on July 8. This move, including ignoring the court orders to provide temporary shelter for the displaced, is being seen as a clear sign of ethnic cleansing. Himanta’s statements in recent days confirm this. He sees Muslims of Bengali origin as infiltrators from Bangladesh; they, in turn, should be expelled from the country. Himanta argues that the illegal encroachments are part of a deliberate jihad by these people. It should be remembered that Himanta is insulting citizens who have been living there for decades and have voting rights. It was a few months ago that he said that Assam would become a Muslim-majority state by 2041. It is undeniable that efforts are currently underway to alienate a section by spreading Islamophobia through conspiracy theories about the explosion of the Muslim population. This is an operation that began less than a month after he took oath, by demolishing several madrasas in Assam. It is still continuing in various forms.

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There are historical reasons for Assam becoming a testing ground for Hindutva. In a country where religion has been made a criterion for citizenship, Assam is the first to suffer its consequences; it is also a state where, even before the Citizenship Amendment Act, the citizenship of minorities was a major issue. Lakhs of people are still in court over the Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC). The second NRC, released on July 30, 2018, classified 40 lakh people as ‘illegal’ immigrants. Even when the list was revised after considering appeals the following year, about 20 lakh people were left out. They will have to go to the Foreigners’ Tribunal and other courts to prove their citizenship and engage in legal proceedings until their death. It is also based on this ‘model’ from Assam that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has been the subject of nationwide protests since its introduction in Parliament. Now, Himanta’s announcement is that the CAA will provide exemptions to Hindus who are excluded from the NRC. In other words, Muslims who do not have a place in the NRC will have to spend the rest of their lives in prisons, or they will be deported, or they will be forced to fight a legal battle for the rest of their lives. Himanta has added to the complications related to the NRC through the ongoing eviction process. That is why this bulldozer drive is not just an eviction plan but an extermination plan. There must be strong interventions against this extermination plan that is starting in Assam and aimed to spread throughout the country.

Also read: India should follow ‘secularism’ from Bhagwat Gita: Himanta Sarma