[The grisly killing of a villager during a campaign to evict hundreds of Muslim families from government land in India’s Assam — captured on a cellphone video used to identify the perpetrators — sparked national outrage. A former police chief described it as a “horrific crime,” and asked that the officers be tried for murder.]
By Niha Masih and Sadiq
Naqvi
The grisly killing of a villager
during a campaign to evict hundreds of Muslim families from government land in
India’s Assam — captured on a cellphone video used to identify the perpetrators
— sparked national outrage. A former police chief described it as a “horrific
crime,” and asked that the officers be tried for murder.
“There was only one man with a
bamboo stick in the midst of so many policemen. They could have caught him,”
said Ainuddin, the brother of the deceased villager, Maynul Haque. He said he
was shocked to see the civilian photographer attack his brother.
“Are we not humans?” asked
23-year-old Ainuddin, who goes by one name.
The incident laid bare seething
tensions over the issue of immigration in Assam, a small state in northeastern
India that shares a porous border with Bangladesh. In recent days, a drive to
free government land from people officials describe as “encroachers” has
targeted thousands of Muslim villagers.
The violent police action has
deepened tensions between the state’s ethnic Assamese and Bengali-descent Muslims,
who say they increasingly feel targeted by the government. Many were born in
India and have lived here for generations.
Days after the incident, Himanta
Biswa Sarma, the state chief minister, said “illegal
settlers” planned to capture power by encroaching on government land,
in a nod to long-held fears of Assamese speakers that the influx of
Bengali-speaking migrants is altering the state’s demography and culture.
Assam has long been home to
anti-immigrant sentiment, toward both Hindu and Muslim migrants from what is
now Bangladesh, a response to decades of migration that began in the colonial
era.
In recent years, the state
government sought to identify undocumented migrants by requiring all 33 million
residents to provide decades-old documents and proof of relation to their
parents for entry into a citizenship registry. The government defines citizens
in Assam as those who can provide proof of being in India before March 25,
1971.
At the end of the nearly four-year
exercise, 1.9 million people were excluded from the registry,
though the final result is pending a government-demanded reverification. They
remain at risk of becoming stateless.
In anticipation of removing those
deemed noncitizens when the registry is finalized, a massive detention camp and
quasi-judicial tribunals are being set up.
The Modi factor
The migrant issue has galvanized
support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party. Critics say the
government has capitalized on it to attempt to
criminalize and reduce India’s 200 million Muslims to second-class
citizens.
Amit Shah, Modi’s close aide and the
country’s home minister, has referred to such migrants
as “termites” whom he promised to remove from electoral rolls, earning
a mention in the U.S. State Department’s human
rights report in 2018.
Shah has also said there are plans to take the citizenship registry nationwide,
deepening concerns among India’s Muslim minority. These apprehensions were born
out when the central government introduced a citizenship law that will provide
relief to Hindus left out of the Assam registry, establishing a fast-track path
to citizenship for members of six minority faiths in neighboring countries. The
law excludes Muslims.
One of the sites for this contested
battle over Modi’s vision for a new India is Assam.
Sanjib Baruah, a professor of
political studies at Bard College in New York, said Assam is “becoming a
frontier” for India’s post-partition citizenship questions.
“For decades, the foreigner issue
in Assam was playing out independently from the rest of the country,” said
Baruah, who has written extensively on the region. “Now, the BJP and
Hindu nationalism has appropriated it.”
After coming to power in May, the
local BJP government passed a law restricting
the sale of beef in areas surrounding temples and those predominantly
inhabited by Hindus. It also promised to bring in a two-child policy and a law
to tackle interfaith
marriages based on a baseless claim that views them as a tool for
conversions.
“If I have done something to save
my culture, my identity, it is not to target anybody,” said Pijush Hazarika, a
minister and a spokesman for the Assam government. He
blamed “left-liberals” for indulging in petty politics.
Shrinking land
The state of Assam is
cleaved in two by a mighty, temperamental river called the Brahmaputra,
overflows from which have flooded and eroded the ever-shrinking land around it.
Many of the state’s most vulnerable populations live on islands,
hemmed in by the river’s tributaries.
Dhalpur, the area where the
eviction drive turned violent, is part of a 7,000-acre river island. The
villagers say they came to settle here decades ago, when the river swallowed up
their homes in other parts of the state.
The conditions of life on the
islands are severe. Reaching the villages involves two thin riverine crossings
on rickety boats and at least an hour’s walk on dirt tracks. Infrastructure and
public services are nonexistent.
Now the government seeks their
homes, temporary bamboo hutments with tin roofs. While encroachment of
government land is a widespread issue across Assam, data from the state
assembly shows that a majority of the evictions over the past few years have
taken place in predominantly Muslim districts.
Those swept up in the eviction
drives include people who were included in the citizen registry.
[In
India, a debate over population control turns explosive]
Days before the violence unfolded
in late September, police officials evicted nearly 4,000 people from one part
of the island. But when they came to evict hundreds of more families, they ran
into resistance.
Locals said their anger against the
drive escalated when the notices to vacate were served at midnight
demanding that they leave the next day. When the administration arrived with
police, they were met with protests, even as many had bundled together their
meager belongings.
In a video from the day, the local
police official issued a warning: The eviction would continue even
if the “world turned upside-down.” Soon after, chaos ensued when police
officers began to burn people’s belongings, witnesses recalled.
Locals clashed with the police
using bamboo sticks and stones, ending in the death of Haque, the 28-year-old
laborer, caught on camera. A 12-year-old boy, Sheikh Farid, who had left his
home to go to the post office also died. At least three others suffered gunshot
wounds. Ten officers were injured.
Sushanta Biswa Sarma, the local
police officer at the site, said the police action was in self-defense. “We did
our duty,” said Sarma, who is the brother of the state chief minister. “It’s
unfortunate. Sometimes, it happens.”
The government has promised to
continue evictions and blamed an Islamic group for instigating the violence.
The police have arrested three villagers for the violence, including one who
was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to his leg.
A judicial probe has been ordered
into the incident. But for villagers like the family of Haque, this is only the
start of another difficult chapter.
“We are devastated without him,”
Ainuddin said. “His kids are very young. The family is as good as dead without
him.”
Read more:
A crackdown in India on suspected illegal immigrants could
leave millions stateless
In a corner of India, 2 million risk becoming stateless after
release of final citizenship list
India cast millions of Muslims as illegal immigrants. Their
legal battles are just beginning.
