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The raging violence in Assam’s Bodo Territorial Autonomous
Districts, Khokrajhar and Chirang (July 2012) has shaken the
conscience of the nation. The Prime Minister has rushed to the
area and called it as a Kalank, a shame for the nation. He also
reprimanded the Chief Minister from his own party for the
violence. There was some inexcusable delay in deploying the army
in the area, which resulted in worsening of the issue. In this
case of violence while on one side there is a great loss to the
lives of people, still the larger tragedy is that lakhs of people
have been displaced from their areas, home and hearth, just around
the sowing season. The refugee camps housing them are grossly
inadequate and not having enough facilities so far. Still at
another level this violence has been presented to be one between Bodos and ‘illegal Bangala Deshi infiltrators’ majority of whom
happen to be Muslims.
While this is not the first time that such violence has hit Assam,
impact wise, this violence is one of the major tragedies of the
area. The strife between ethnic groups and Muslim minority, that
are labeled as ‘Bangala Deshi Infiltrators’ has been going on from
last many decades. The local issues have been given the color as
if the problems are due to the illegal migrations. It is
propagated that the time bomb is ticking. Such a propaganda is
accompanied by the slogan ‘Assam for Assamese’, this is very
similar to the one floated by the parochial Shiv Sena in
Maharashtra, which has been doing violence on the slogan of
‘Maharashtra for Marathis’. The roots of this Assam conflict have
been in the society, which have been ignored by the state and
central governments.
The first major catastrophe in this direction occurred when All
Assam Students Union started the agitation on the issue of
electoral rolls, to exclude the ‘Bangla Deshi infiltrators’ from
the lists. This was backed up by BJP through and through. During
this time a massive violence was unleashed against the minorities,
the Nellie massacre, when over three thousand Muslims were done to
death within a matter of few hours. In the wake of these; two
things happened. One, All Assam Students Union AASU, now Assam
Gana Parishad, came to power, and two and inquiry commission in to
Nellie massacre, Tribhuban Das Tiwary Commission was instituted.
AGP, after coming to power dropped all the criminal cases against
the culprits of Nellie massacre and the report of Tiwary
Commission was not made public.
A decade later, series of violence took place, the victims of
which are still living a pathetic life in the refugee camps.
During early part of first decade of this century, the demand of
Bodos was met with the formation of Bodo Territorial Autonomous
Districts after the treaty with Bodos. The districts covered in
this territory are Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalgiri. As per
agreement the Bodo militants were to surrender their arms which
they did not do, with the result many of them continued
intimidating others. The percentage of Bodos in these districts
varies from 22 to 29% according to different estimates. The others
are the Santhals, Rajbangshis, Adibashis and Muslims. Despite
being in the minority, with full powers in the region, the Bodos
initiated policies where by non Bodos have been neglected in
different aspects of their lives. The condition of these groups is
very bad and they are against the formation of Bodo Territorial
Council. In this area, the present carnage was preceded by the
rumor that people from Bangla Desh have come with large number of
armaments. This got triggered into violence leading to the present
tragedy. The Chief Minister of Assam has denied any such ‘foreign
hand’. The real issue has been the pressure on land and jobs due
to the natural rise in population over a period of time. This
pressure has been deflected by saying that it’s all due to the
Bangla Deshi infiltrators, a phrase very popular all over the
country and more so in Assam. True, the overall lopsided
development has caused the pressures on employment all over the
country. In a place like Mumbai, this got presented as being due
to immigration of non Marathis into Maharashtra. While in Assam
the added part of parallel politics is that the problem is
projected on to the foreigners. Is that true?
The Bengali speaking people in Assam are a sizeable part of the
population. Amongst these also the majority are Muslims. Have they
come recently or have they come to infiltrate for political
motive? Have they come during last few decades? The myth of Bangla
deshi immigrants has been the major plank of communalists all the
time. It has become a sort of ‘social common sense’ all over the
country. This pet theme of Bangla Deshi immigrant is quite a myth
to a large extent. While some immigration of Bengalis into Assam
began in last quarter of 19th century, the seeds of this issue
were sown by the British in the first decade of twentieth century.
That was the time when neighboring Bengal was over populated and
politically a very aware state. Famines were one of the symptoms
of overpopulation of Bengal. Assam was grossly under populated not
giving much revenue to British. The British resorted to ‘Human
plantation program’, where by the people from Bengal were
encouraged to migrate to Assam, with lots of incentives. British
also wanted to pursue their core policy of Divide and rule here’
so they allowed this migration with a ‘line system’, where by the
immigrants and the natives were kept in separate areas. This
migration of Bengali speaking Muslims went on for quite some time
and by 1930s a good chunk of Assamese population was constituted
by these Muslims. In post independence India the Muslim population
of Assam has shown decadal growths which match with other states
of India. (Source: ‘Muslims in India by S.U.Ahmed’, based on
analysis of Census data)
One is very clear about the census figures of Assam and the number
of Muslims during that period. During the Pakistan army atrocities
in East Pakistan many a Bangla Deshi did emigrate. After that also
the economic migration might be going on as is the case in most of
the regions. The question is how this immigration is looked at.
For example the immigration to India by huge number of people from
Nepal is never looked down or demonized. Even the Hindus’ coming
from Bangla Desh were treated as immigrants, while Muslims coming
from Bangla Desh were seen as infiltrators, threat to security of
India and what not. In whole of North Eastern states trade is by
and large controlled by Marwaris from Rajasthan. There are good
numbers of Biharis also in Assam.
The BJP associates’ propaganda about the ‘infiltrators’ is based
on political calculations, not on reality. As in other parts of
the country they have used medieval history to demonize minorities
here they are using the Bangladeshi factor. The worst part of the
scenario is that even National Council of Churches in India
spokesperson has also been so taken in by this propaganda that he
went on to say the Bangal Deshi infiltrators are occupying 10000
square kilometers of land in Assam! From the time of India’s
partition Assam had a good deal of Muslim population. Later of
course some migration did take place from Bangla Desh for economic
reasons, it sounds to be large as after the carving out of other
six states from Assam, the majority of Muslims remained in Assam,
so percentage wise it sounds larger.
The propaganda by communal forces about so call infiltration by
Bangle Deshis has assumed huge proportions. It has become the part
of the mind set in India; it was also at the backdrop of many
agitations in Assam. Surely the basic issue of lack of development
in Assam has been deflected by political groups including communal
groups as being the issue of displacement of locals from their
lands by infiltrators. Case of Assam has a mix of Mumbai’s Shiv
Sena politics, mixed with ‘communal-foreigner’ tones. The issue
has also been the one related to Adibashis, the ethnic component
has also been a part of the whole thing. Crucially right from
Nellie to the present violence, in which displacement is the most
dominant factor, the infiltrator propaganda has prepared the
ground for carnage.
What is required today is to disarm those having arms of various
types, to rehabilitate the refugees and to ensure that they are
able to go back to their own areas to catch up with the sowing
season. If this is not met, surely a bigger disaster of food
deprivation is baying for all the year. What is also needed is
that the myth of infiltrators is to be debunked for good by
scholars and activists who have observed the pattern of population
profile during last one century. The communal forces have misused
this very word of Bangla Deshi infiltrator. And lastly the wounded
psyche of communities needs to be healed by a process of dialogue
and justice.
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