‘ Migration’ rather than ‘illegal immigration’ is largely responsible for demographic transformation[[ [1]]].The Migration of Bengali Muslims peasants from East Bengal into Assam has certainly transformed the demography of the latter, more noticeably in some districts, but to claim all of it happened due to illegal immigration from Bangladesh is not only historically incorrect, but wilful distortion of facts.The claim of massive and continuing migration transforming the demographic profile of Assam is most commonly sought to be proven by citing the high decadal population growth rate of Assam since 1951, as per the Census of India.
Percentage Decadal Variation in Population since 1951 in India and Assam-
India- 21.64%(1951-61), 24.80%(1961-71), 54.41%(1971-91), 21.54%(1991-01), 17.64%(01-2011) Assam- 34.98%(1951-61), 34.95%(1961-71), 53.26%(1971-91), 18.92%(1991-01), 16.93%(01-2011) Dhubri- 43.74%(1951-61), 43.26%(1961-71), 45.65%(1971-91), 22.97%(1991-01), 24.40%(01-2011) Dhemaji- 75.21%(1951-61), 103.42%(1961-71), 107.50%(1971-91), 19.45%(1991-01), 20.30%(01-2011) Karbi Anglong- 79.21%(1951-61), 68.28%(1961-71), 74.72%(1971-91), 22.72%(1991-01), 18.69%(01-2011)
The above figures of decadal growth rates of population and their comparisons really irrefutable evidence of influx of illegal Bangladeshi Immigrants into Assam.It would be pertinent to point out right that this high population growth rate in Assam has declined since 1971 and has remained lower than that of India, categorically refuting assumptions of continuing illegal immigration from Bangladesh. Through the Assam Accord of 1985, only those who have entered Assam later than 25 March 1971 are considered illegal immigrants. The influx occurred before 1971 and as such cannot be considered Illegal immigration.
After compairing the decadal growth rates of population in two other districts of Assam like Dhemaji and Karbi Anglong, we will see that their growth rates in comparison have been more than twice that of Assam and substantially higher than even the ‘ Muslim’ majority ‘ border’ district of Dhubri. Yet, the Muslim population in Dhemaji and Karbi Anglong is minuscule. The Hindu population in these two districts is 95.94% and 82.39% respectively; Scheduled Tribes constitute 47.29% and 55.69% of their population respectively. Muslims constitute merely 1.84% and 2.22% respectively of their total populations, in spite of having consistent high decadal growth rates – Dhemaji touching 103.42% between 1961-71 and Karbi Anglong having a similar high of 79.21% between 1951-61. This should be testimony enough that there could be reasons apart from Illegal immigration or having a Muslim population behind a high decadal growth rate of population.The above categorically reveals that selective citing of census data claiming ‘abnormally high’ decadal growth rate of population cannot be conclusive evidence of Illegal immigration from Bangladesh. Furthermore, against Assam having just three districts bordering Bangladesh, Meghalaya has five, which have shown higher decadal growth rates of population than the districts of Assam yet have an insignificant Muslim population negating any suspicion that they could have been swamped by illegal Bangladeshis. This also negates the presumption that merely bordering Bangladesh would make a district vulnerable to illegal immigration.
What is the reality then?
The migration of Bengali Muslims peasants from erstwhile East Bengal began in the 1800s after the British annexed Assam in 1826, with the Treaty of Yandaboo after defeating the Burmese in the First Anglo Burmese War. ‘Malevolent’ colonial policies of the British in Bengal, such as the Permanent Settlement, had already wreaked Bengal’s economy and pauperized its artisans and peasantry. Severe exploitation under its zamindari system added to the woes of the peasantry. In the geographically contiguous province of Assam, population density was low, land was abundant and there was no zamindari system. It was just a matter of time before an impoverished and harassed Bengali Muslim peasantry began migrating in a trickle which became a deluge, encouraged by the British. It served their purpose to settle large numbers of Bengali Muslim on vacant land to increase land revenue, as well as have readily available cheap labour in a labour-deficient province. Initially, the immigrants were welcomed by even the Assamese landed gentry for the cheap labour.
By the second decade of the 20th century, however, this incessant influx became a cause for alarm and a ‘Line System’ was introduced in the affected districts of Nagaon and Kamrup in 1920, restricting immigrants from settling beyond certain limits on land over which natives claimed rights. That is how vast tracts of land in the then undivided Nagaon, Kamrup and Goalpara districts came to be settled by immigrant Bengali Muslim peasants in the decades before Partition, and independence.
With each successive group of immigrants, and with restrictions imposed barring their indiscriminate spread, the quality of land they found to settle themselves on, became progressively degraded. Many were left to settle on marshy wastelands and the shifting sandbars of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries called chars or chaporis in the vast floodplains of the valley. This is where a substantial percentage of their descendants still live after nearly a century. At the mercy of annual floods, shifting of the chars regularly and incessant Erosion of their lands by the Brahmaputra and its tributaries, a large percentage of the Muslim population of immigrant origin in these districts is rendered homeless regularly. To eke out a living, they often migrate to the towns and cities as construction labourers, vegetable vendors or rickshaw pullers, living in ghettoized shanty towns, raising the spectre of illegal Bangladeshis in minds of a hostile urban elite with little sympathy or insight into realities of life about the areas they have migrated from.
by the time of India’s Partition and independence, there was a substantial Bengali Muslim population of immigrant origin noticeably concentrated in areas of Nagaon, Kamrup and Goalpara districts. Owing to their socio-economic condition and cultural practices, it is entirely believable that their population growth rate have remained substantially higher and what is reflected in the decadal growth rate of Muslim population in these districts, or the ones curved out of them later, their numbers need not necessarily be owed to continuous illegal immigration from Bangladesh.
There is another compelling reason to view with scepticism the claim of illegal immigrants ‘hiding’ among their co-religionists in the Muslim majority districts in Assam as even at the time of independence, population density in these districts were considerably higher making competition for land and the meagre opportunities of livelihood inevitably more intense. Today, conflict and litigation among immigrants over land is rampant. Why would they encourage, let alone facilitate, continuous illegal immigration that would put their own economic survival at peril?
The concentration of Muslims in the areas where the Bengali Muslim immigrants have traditionally settled, underscores the reality that they are mostly likely to be the descendants of those immigrants, and hence legitimate Indian citizens, and not illegal immigrants who have allegedly continued to arrive till now. This will be further evident if we look at the percentage of Assamese language speakers in these areas as revealed by the census data as cited in Table 2.
At the time of Partition, a substantial Bengali Muslim immigrant population chose to stay back in Assam as Indian citizens. Having decided their future, there was a conscious effort on their part to progressively assimilate into the culture and soil of their adopted home, beginning with adopting the Assamese language, the primary marker. Over successive generations, having been educated in Assamese-medium schools, most have genuinely adopted Assamese as their language and this is reflected in the census data. For instance, Dhubri with a Muslim population of 74.29% has 70.07% Assamese speakers. This is in stark contrast to the Barak valley districts like Karimganj and Hailakandi where Bengali has remained the predominant linguistic identity among both Hindus and Muslims. During the same period, many native tribal communities which once used to enumerate as ‘Assamese’ in successive censuses took to distinguish their ethnic and linguistic identity apart from the Assamese and started enumerating themselves as per their mother tongue.
It is thus simplistic to assume that rampant illegal Bangladeshi immigration continues even today by taking note of census figures selectively without having the intimate insights into the complex historical processes at work leading to the demographic transformation that is underway.
In perhaps the most incisive analysis of the Assam Movement, Prof. Monirul Hussain in his seminal work, The Assam Movement: Class, Ideology, Identity (1994) has convincingly explained that while the expulsion of illegal Bangldeshi immigrants was the ostensible ‘visible’ motive of the movement, its real covert motive was to polarize the constituents of the new political alignment that was emerging as an alternative to the ones which represented the Assamese middle-class elite.
This was progressively accomplished effectively by first creating a powerful narrative which demonised ‘Bangladeshi immigrants’ by conjuring them up as being part of a diabolic design to reduce the native Assamese to a minority, and then dispossessing them of their rights and property. It was cleverly alluded to that the community of immigrant Muslims of East Bengal origin who had by now been living in Assam legitimately for decades, and were certainly not illegal immigrants, was colluding with their co-religionists from across the border in furthering this nefarious design. A section of the vernacular media, representing and owned by the same Assamese middle class elite, played an immensely partisan role in strengthening and spreading this flawed perception, playing to the gallery.
Not everyone was convinced, but those who raised inconvenient questions were sought to be stifled by violence. The myth of how ‘democratic’ the movement was would be swiftly dispelled by the sheer number of violent incidents that mark the period of the Assam Agitation from 1979 to 1985. One of the most visible and horrific incidents precipitated by this narrative of demonising immigrants was the Nellie massacre of 18 February 1983 in the undivided Nagaon district. More than 2,000 Muslims of immigrant origin were massacred to death, most of them women and children. Even though the massacre was sought to be passed off as a spontaneous act of violence by the exasperated native Tiwa community, that they were cunningly instigated and it was a premeditated act is beyond reasonable doubt. None came to be indicted for the horrific act.
(Nilim Dutta is executive director of the Strategic Research and Analysis Organisation, Guwahati.)
In Kokrajhar the decadal growth rate of population between 1991-01 and 2001-11 have just been 14.49% and 5.19% respectively. Its population density stood at 266 and 280 for the same periods, among the lowest in Assam. It would be hard to accept from these figures that any cataclysmic demographic pressure on land has evolved at all.As per the Census of India 2001, Hindus constituted 65.60%, Muslims 20.36% and Christians 13.72% of Kokrajhar’s population. A large number of the Bodos would be Hindus, but some would be Christians too. The Adivasis would be overwhelmingly Christian and the Muslims would be of migrated Bengali Muslims from land eroded Char area. The data on language from the Census further reveals that Bodos constituted 32.37%, Bengalis 21.06%, Assamese 20.28% and Santhalis 16.70% of Kokrajhar’s population, if we look at the ethnic break up linguistically. In 2001, there certainly aren’t any alarming indicators of natives about to be marginalised by illegal immigrants, and certainly not by illegal ‘ Bengali Muslims immigrants from Bangladesh. The decadal growth rate of Kokrajhar between 2001 and 2011 has been among the lowest, at just 5.19%. This low population growth is also substantiated by the increase in population density by just 5.26%, from 266 to 280 persons per square kilometre. Thus, between 2001 and 2011 there couldn’t have been any alarming change in demography of the district. To cut a long story short, it appears extremely unlikely that rapacious ‘invasion’ of illegal immigrants could be a reason for widespread violent native-immigrant conflict here. We have to look for the real reasons elsewhere.
The most immediate instigation was the spate of attacks carried out against the Bengali Muslim community from around June 2012. Resentment against ex-militants was already brewing for some time because of rampant extortion and even kidnappings for ransom in the district and there have been allegations against the state administration for turning a blind eye. The select assassinations of immigrant Muslim slowly ratcheted up the tension. On 6 July 2012 unidentified assailants opened fire in a Muslim village, killing two and injuring three. Again on 19 July, two former office bearers of the All Assam Minorities Students Union (AAMSU) were fired upon and critically injured. On 20 July, the first day of the month of Ramzan, four former BLT militants riding on two bikes through a Muslim village called Joypore, on the outskirts of Kokrajhar, stumbled on to a crowd of Muslims congregating for Salat/namaz in the evening. Fearing that the crowd was about to attack, the four Bodo youths allegedly fired in the air with their automatic weapons to make good their escape. Already jittery by the spate of recent attacks, the Muslim villagers assumed this to be an attack and swarmed the youths and lynched them. By the time police arrived, they were all dead.The next day, the bodies of the four Bodo youths, who were reported to be former BLT militants, were taken in a procession through Kokrajhar for cremation. All the local satellite news channels incessantly broadcasted the visuals. Was anything more needed to rouse the Bodos against Muslims in Kokrahar?This has a chilling parallel to the bodies of the victims of the Godhra carnage being allowed to be brought back to Ahmedabad and paraded, that set the ground for the horrific 2002 Gujarat riots against Muslims. Retaliatory attacks against Muslims began that very night and at least four were gunned down. It didn’t take long from there for the situation to escalate. Precious time was lost in bringing the army to control the situation, as Ministry of Defence dithered over ‘procedural’ issues. As rumours and violence spread, lakhs of Bodos and Muslims alike fled their villages and relocated in make-shift relief camps in schools and public buildings. Time was ripe for leaders of all hues to parachute in and start fishing in troubled waters by offering their own ‘explosive’ version of events that suited their political interests. What was undoubtedly a series of localised events, inextricably intertwined with local political undercurrents, thus became a ‘national security’ issue, Lal Krishna Advani of the BJP, who turned it into an existential crisis for natives in the face of a relentless onslaught of Bangladeshis.
To understand the recent violence that saw Bodos pitted against Bengali Muslims, it would be pertinent to point out that the Adivasis have faced similar ethnic violence in Kokrajhar since the 1990s. They weren’t illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh but descendents of those exiled by the British for the uprising in 1855 that history refers to as the Santhal Rebellion. Neither did they rapaciously usurp land on which the Bodos had claims nor were their numbers growing so fast so as to pose a threat to the numerical significance of the Bodos. Why, then, were they victims of repeated spates of ethnic violence, because of which some 32,613 families are living in relief camps for 20 years now? Wouldn’t it then be reasonable to look for the roots of conflict elsewhere and not within the simplistic explanation of ‘illegal immigrants versus natives’ sought to be perpetuated by the political dispensations whose designs are served by such a narrative?
There is a constant stream of landless migrants, Bengali Muslims from char areas, to towns and cities to eke out a living. It wouldn’t be surprising to find a sizable percentage of such internally displaced persons encroaching on community land, reserved forests etc. But they are not alone in this. For instance, many Assamese Hindus displaced by constant erosion in the Palashbari area just west of Guwahati relocated to Rani nearby, a ‘tribal belt’ and settled on forest land. The point that needs to be underscored is that no widespread and meticulous cadastral surveys have been carried out expressly to assess, first, the scale of ‘native’ land being usurped by illegal immigrants and, second, what is the scale of ‘native’ land passing on to the hands of ‘immigrants’ by legitimate transfers to claim, with any certainty, as to how and in what scale natives are being dispossessed of their land.
It would thus be reasonable to carefully examine the claim that the violence was a result of the ‘illegal Bangladeshi immigrants’ rapaciously encroaching upon land belonging to the native communities, inevitably inviting spontaneous retaliation by exasperated natives.
NCM Report on clashes between Bodos and Bengali Muslims
NCM(the National Commission for Minorities)[ [1]] Chairperson Wajahat Habibullah said [ [2]] that the Commission has sent the report on the clashes to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and had personally taken up the matter with him during the Iftar party hosted by him on Thursday, Aug 16, 2012.
"The Prime Minister told me that he has received the report," Habibullah said.
The team comprising Member Planning Commission, Syeda Hameed, Advisor G B Panda, and NCP Member NCM, Keki N Daruwalla visited Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD) and Kokrajhar, Gossaigaon and Dhubri district between July 11 and July 12.
The violence in Assam was a result of clashes between Bodos and "resident Bengali Muslims" and not Bangladeshi immigrants, the National Commission for Minorities has said while recommending setting up of an SIT to probe major incidents of violence in the state."The idea of investigating major incidents by setting up SIT needs to be considered. This will restore confidence in the justice delivery system," it said.
The panel said the conflict this time "was not between some exodus of Bangladeshi immigrants and the Bodos, but between Bodos and the resident Bengali Muslims of the BTAD". There has been no sudden influx from Bangladesh to trigger off such a major conflict, it said, pointing out that "when Muslims abandoned their villages, their houses were looted and gutted (which) might indicate a design to see that they do not return to their own villages."
Administration and the police especially have to deal with recalcitrants forcefully," the panel said. On the role of the police, the Commission members said they were left with the distinct impression that the lower rungs of the police were afraid of taking action against the Bodos, possibly because of the armaments they possessed and the fact that they ruled the area.
"The police must be more forceful with both Bodos and Muslim criminals," they said in the report, adding had strong action been taken by the police after the small incidents earlier, this conflict could have been avoided.
The Commission says the state needs to provide intermediate shelters to the victims in Assam such as those provided to Tsunami victims in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The Commission also recommended that the issuance of ID cards should be legitimised to promote transparency in giving entitlements.
The panel said that most people feel that this strife is caused because Bodos think that "driving out other ethnic people is in their interest. The Bodo population is near the 30 percent mark in the area. They feel that if their population goes up to 50 percent and more they will be able to demand statehood for Bodo Land".
Though the panel felt it was "possibly a fallacious premise", it said," there is a big rumour that Bodos will strongly oppose the return of those Muslim refugees who have left the BTAD. This would mean all those in camps in Dhubri district (which is not a part of the BTAD) may find it difficult to go back to their villages.
Recommending that any such obstruction by the Bodos needs to be stoutly resisted by the administration, the Commission also felt that some "political dialogue" with Bodos and Hagrama Mohilary, the Chief Executive of the BTAD was absolutely essential.
"The Bodos need to be told firmly that they cannot under any circumstances engineer a mass exodus of non-Bodos. Nor would they ever get statehood this way. The Chief Minister was requested to kindly consider taking up the matter himself with the Bodo Council," the report said.
Accusing the administration of failing to stop the first round of violent clashes between Muslims and Bodos in the BTAD areas, the delegation told the Chief Minister to instruct the police to be “more forceful with both Bodos and Muslim criminals.”
“We were also left with the distinct impression that the lower rungs of the police were afraid of taking action against the Bodos, possibly because of the armaments they possessed and the fact that they ruled the area,” observed the delegation[ [3]].
While visiting the camps of the Bodo and Bengali Muslim victims who fled after their homes were gutted down and looted by arsonists, the delegation expressed concern at the “pathetic condition of the camps where Muslims were housed’’ and noted that overcrowding was a major problem.
Describing the condition at the Grahampur high school camp in Gossaigaon, the report said: “This was a horrendous camp with 6,569 inmates from 31 villages.”
Suffering of Bengali Muslims
The minorities ( Bengali Muslims) in the Bodos’ tribal areas had been agitating for job opportunities and security, which were being denied to them[ [4]]. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/26/world/asia/26-Assam-burns-IndiaInk/26-Assam-burns-IndiaInk-blog480.jpg Flames erupt from huts built on the banks of river Gourang, during ethnic violence in Kokrajhar district in Assam, July 24, 2012.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/26/world/asia/26-Assam-Muslims-IndiaInk/26-Assam-Muslims-IndiaInk-blog480.jpg Muslim families, victims of ethnic violence, at a relief camp in Bhot Gaon village in Kokrajhar district, Assam, July 25, 2012.
In 1983, when more than 3,000 men, women and children were massacred overnight by mobs[ [5]].
Just before noon, the Rabhas started attacking Muslim villages. "At Bekipul near Krishnai, the Rabha people burned down an entire village of Muslims and Bengali-speaking Hindus," a source said[ [6]].
Around 100 houses, mostly belonging to non-tribals, were torched in some parts of the district on Tuesday. Gogoi said the violence was slowly taking an ethnic line. The non-tribals, mostly Bengali Muslims and Bengali Hindus besides Assamese, are in majority in the district. Official sources said those affected in the incidents of arson and clashes had been sheltered in relief camps.
Bengali Muslims residing at Char area
" Char" (that is, 'River Island') or 'Sand-bars' or 'Sandy-shore' (locally called - Balur-char) is the common phenomenon of nature that is found farming here and there in the lower course of the river Brahmaputra [ [7]]. It is not possible to ascertain the actual chars in the eastern Indian State - Assam, for a large number of them are semi-permanent. However, according to the estimate or of Indian Assam State Intelligence Bureau Report of 1993-1994, a lot of riverine basins have sprung up between the river Brahmaputra and it's tributaries. These chars exist from Sadia in Upper Assam's Dibrugarh district to South-Salmara in Lower Assam's Dhubri district of North-East Indian State, Assam, while according to the estimate of Char Area Development Authority, Government of Assam State ( India) - CADAGAS(I), in 1985, there were 1,256 Char on the river Brahmaputra.
According to the Indian Military Intelligence Report, "Of total number of 2,089 chars, lie under 14 Districts, 23 Sub-divisions and 59 Development Blocks with 2,251 villages in 299 Gaon Panchayat (village Panchayat) in the whole Assam state. Over 24.90 lakhs people (of them 12.72 lakhs male and 12.18 lakhs females, comprising 4.35 lakhs families of which 2.95 lakhs are very needy, that is, live below the poverty line) reside in the chars of the river Brahmaputra and it's tributaries and the density of population per square kilometer in char areas is 690, while 3,068 square kilometers area belongs to char areas in the Eastern Indian State, Assam. Most of the people are of 'Bengali Muslim Community' (specially indicate the 'Religious Minority Muslim People, who reside in basically western part of the State and are basically needy and migrated from Bangladesh from time-to-time in search of food, clothing and shelter) and 70% to 75% live below the poverty line.
Another report says that the total population of the char region is 24.90 lakhs. Of this, 22.9 lakhs is 'Muslim' (that is, 'Religious Minority') and 1.5 lakh to 2 lakh is 'Kalita-Nepali', 'Mising-Ahom' and 'Koch-Rajbongshi' (that is, 'Non-Muslim') and others. Apart from this, more than 70% to 75% of char-village population is 'Immigrant Muslim' and the rest live in the town and other places permanently. This vast tract of char-land from Sadia to Dhubri is largely inhabited by Muslim community, which according to the Government report is 80% and the rest 20% is the people of 'Non-Muslim' community.
Apart from these, the Government report has also disclosed that the people of immigrant Bengali Muslims section largely populate the char-lands. There are 90% Muslim community in the districts like Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Kamrup, Nalbari, Darrang, Sonitpur, Nagaon and Morigaon and Sonitpur, (Mangaldoi) Darrang of Eastern Indian State, Assam are the noted riverine char-villages, where various sections of people like 'Nepali', 'Boro', 'Bengali-Hindu', 'Fisherman' (locally known as : Kaibarta) et cetera live together.
The largest chars are found in the Eastern Indian state, Assam's districts like Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Kamrup and Nagaon respectively. There are more than 2,100 such sandy-shore in the Brahmaputra river, which are created from Sadia (upper course of the river) to Dhubri (lower course of the river).
There are some dwelling-places in the sandy-shores of the Brahmaputra riverine area but these are very barren places, locally known as Chapari-gaon (char-village). These char-villages come to exist, when the river and its tributaries change their own course and flow, which take 10 to 20 years. There are approximately 400 to 500 char-villages created in the entire river basin every year. The Indian State Government, Assam, does not register most of them.
The people living in the chars are locally called Bhatia, means people, who are living in the lower course of this river, especially inhabitants of Lower Assam, while the people in the upper course of this river, inhabitants of Upper Assam, are called Ujani.
They toil hard to keep alive. Most of them are born tough. They work 10 hours to 12 hours at a stretch. But, despite all these things, they are perpetual 'outsiders' in civilized society
The inhabitants of the chars represent 25% of the total population of Assam. Only 13.6% people of the doomed chars are literate and more than 80% are farmers, 20% daily labourers, 10% fishermen, 10% vegetable-sellers, 5% fish-sellers, 10% Hand-barrow-pullers, 20% Rickshaw-pullers, 5% others. The people of the char region live a very pain-stricken odious life in the river-islands full of hot as well as cold sand, muddy water and uneven land. Most of these people are half-fed ill-clothed and shelter-less. They loiter with empty bellies and beg food. They have cultivable land, but they fail to yield crops.
The cultivators of the char region nurse a hope to reap a good harvest. But, hope perishes, when the flood of sand washes away everything. The waters destroy houses and shelters dash to the ground, cattle die for want of fodder. This sand dune is so terrifying that in some places it is 7 to 8 feet high. It seems the entire char has turned in to a small 'desert' because the soil of the chars are sandy.
In fact, they have remained cut off from the mainstream of life for a long time. The living conditions of these people is sub-human. One can see numerous small and large char-lands during a journey by boat, particularly in autumn along the river Brahmaputra at any place in the lower part of Assam. Poverty is so prevalent that men, woman and minors toil all day in the fields to ensure one square mile a day. All that most families own are a thatched bamboo house 200 to 300 square feet, straw beds, earthen utensils and a piece of cultivable land, which is also temporary due to the erosion. People are forced to lead a 'semi-nomadic' life because the inundation and formation of new chars is very common in the lower course of the river Brahmaputra.
Sometimes, when the chars sink under flood water (flooded in the monsoon seasons), the inhabitants of these chars wait and pass their terrified sleepless nights for days and months in their small and big boats on the shore of the new char and begin life anew. However, these riverine or riparian basins are not found in the Barak Valley in Southern Assam sector. A huge number of people live in these Char areas.
The land of the island is not permanent for they appear and disappear with the appearance and disappearance of the flood. This is why there is no reliable estimate of char-land. The Government also fails to survey char land properly and as such Government cannot receive necessary revenue from this unsettled land because, the flood makes the char-land unstable every year. The floods create and destroy this char-land every one or two years. Sometimes, these chars are unfit to dwell on.
According to the Government officials, this unstableness of the char-land has created a bar to carry on a casual survey work here. There are different problems about the distribution of these char-lands. In the state of Assam's 'Brahmaputra-Valley' and the Revenue Department (RD) has been empowered this task of distribution.
The Char Area Development Authority, Government of Assam State (India) - CADAGAS(I) was established in the year, 1983/1984 to strengthen the status of the people living in char areas as a Special Area Programme. Subsequently in the year, 1995/1996, this authority has been converted to a full-fledged Directorate of Char Areas Development, Government of Assam State, (India), shortly says - DCADGAS(I).
In fact, there are two parallel authorities (the RD and the landlord, known as Dewani or Matabbar, or Village-Headman) operate in the char areas. These landlords are also very powerful and have unauthorized right to live in a particular tract of land along with the members of their family without any payment of revenue. In some cases, this rate of revenue is just nominal. These landlords sometimes are helpful and in some cases, they are harassers. They become the main arbiters both in case of the settlement of their disputes and also their land area, which is not under patta or is yet to be surveyed.
The char occupants and the squatters occupy newly formed char-land but pay nothing for the same for they have no patta. These plots of land are transformed by the char people into a periodic-patta.
Sometimes, periodic-patta is granted to one, who has influence or intimacy with the so-called landlords of this char region without or with revenue. The non-payment of revenue sometime creates a number of problems. It may lead to the cancellation of such a patta. In some places, there is no proper land tenure system and this in turn allows exploitation of the poor char people by the rich and powerful landlords or Dewanis.
They distribute the char land to one, who is dearer to them and who pays them Najrana (that is, gift). These landlords or Dewanis or Matabbars occupy the char with the help of followers, who use conventional arms like sticks in hand (known as Lathial), which often are newly formed or created by force and then sell them to others at a high price. Sometimes, fierce struggles take place between two or more landlords, over the newly emerged islands, that later on leads to murder or 'bloodshed'. This is often noticed among the landless farmers, who have been evicted due to repeated river erosions.
Sometimes, again, it is found that the 'third party' has gone to occupy that newly formed char as and when the original owner fails to capture it in due time. But, this is not done peacefully, except against some killing, say some char inhabitants. Sometimes, more than a few landlords get together to claim a piece of char-land and this leads to clashes, injuries and murder. Of course, if a landlord enters into a clash the other parties do not sit idle but get involved in it. There may be a 'triangular-fight' between the original-settlers, new-settlers and the char-landlords or Dewanis.
According to a noted advocate of the Lower Assam's Undivided Goalpara District (presently - Dhubri, Goalpara, Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon districts) the cases, which lie at the disposal of the honourable 'Court' are related to the tussle or bloodshed or murder occurring in the chars for occupation of char-land.
The followers or retainers of these powerful landlords play a role in occupying 'new-char' or distributing discovered land among their favourites. The landlords are always in search of newly emerged chars. When they find them, they occupy them before the original occupants make a bid that has neither money nor muscle power. But, the most astonishing fact is that the char people, who in spite of all these disparagements, often fall victims of those so-called village-headmen or leaders who leave no stone unturned to exploit them. These men, when fail to convince, call them 'Bangladeshi'. They have no documents of landed property and so are harassed off and on.
In fact, Dewanis are the kings of the char areas. Everybody acts according to the advice of Dewani. His word is Law. The Dewanis judge the cases related to murder, looting, plundering, rape, kidnapping, unauthorized occupation of land et cetera. Nobody is allowed to oppose the judgments dispensed by the Dewanis. His order is final. It is a feudal administration.
Therefore, everybody has to bear the pang of oppression and repression of the Dewanis. The char peoples have to give half of the produce to the Dewanis as a kind of revenue or 'forced-tax'. The Dewanis receive it without rendering any labour. The char people cultivate the desert-like char-land by the sweat of their brow and produce crops, vegetables, and fruits. The Dewanis enjoy a major share without any labour.
The char inhabitants get punishment if and when they try to disobey their orders or deny paying their share. Sometimes, the Dewanis evacuate them. They have no right to protest against extortion made by the Dewanis. At the root of these 'Dewani-tantra', there is strong support by some political parties, who regulate their activities behind the screen.
On the other hand, the original land-settlers, who lost their permanent lands due to heavy flood and erosion et cetera think that is nothing but to accept that land lost forever and to send family members, specially young men to towns or semi-cities or cities for any work as daily-wage-earner, daily-labour, vegetable-seller or fish-seller, pull-carter, rickshaw-puller, rag-picker, et cetera.
Whatever the reason for this, it will be better to say that the way of resource capture is taking place in the chars. Further, unequal distributions of land along with natural calamities intensify cries related to population et cetera. If anybody of inquisitive nature intends to pay a visit to the Brahmaputra River Island of Eastern Indian State, Assam, he or she would be astonished to see that on one side of the river Brahmaputra, a few half-naked people anchored their boats and have been fishing for hours, while on the other side a few people are found working for 10 to 12 hours in the muddy fields along with their cows and bulls.
The mystery does not end here. Mystery again miraculously appears, when the visitor comes across hundreds and hundreds of huts made of straw or bamboo sheets measuring 250 to 300 square feet, where thousands and thousands poor and hunger stricken skeletons are passing their lives day after day or year after year. These sheds, where these creatures are compelled to live are not only unhygienic and unhealthy but also like the dens of dead or even a piggery.
The people have no permanent shelter and hence live a sort of nomadic life. The clothes they wear are torn and the food they take has no nutritious value, far below the calories needed. The sheds they are allowed to live in are pathetic. Some of them have a roof and some have not. Therefore, during rainy season, water pours from their roofs, which drenched them severely during heavy shower. They lack the means to light up their shelters and so they are plunged into darkness when night advances. Many of them have to pass their lives in their country-boats. These boats help them to save their possessions during rainy season, when almost all around them is submerged in flood. It is a pathetic life and they have to live it until the flood subsides and new char land emerges from the havoc of ubiquitous flood and devastation.
During the floods, when all the char areas are submerged, it is at this time, it seems that life is on the verge of extinction for the inhabitants of the boats are then found saying to each other, 'Mian amago keyamater din aisha gechhe' (our last days of destruction are approaching).
The misery of these people intensifies, when at daytime, the scorching rays of the sun pour upon them to burn them. This again becomes unbearable, when an unruly storm accompanied by thunder and lightning fall upon them to destroy all they have. The Char families, numbering 10 to 12 have an uncertain and chaotic life, when the monsoon breaks the banks and changes the course of the river.
The distress of these riverine Char people does not end here. It begins with diversified problems, when the flood subsides and water of the riverine islands reaches the knee-deep level. During this period, they cannot rest, because sand, mud and water are all a problem. Neither farming nor fishing is possible for these unfortunate living beings during this period. Added to this, diseases of various kinds threaten them. In some places the situation turns very serious, when the watery land turns almost desert. Scarcity of food, clothing and shelter haunt these half-fed, naked skeletons.
The people of the river islands never dream of living a peaceful life. Natural and unnatural forces all harass them. The ceaseless rainfall during the rainy season, land Erosion, unpredictable lashing of the climate limited socio-economic resources and untamable growth of population always make the life of these people vicious.
The fortunes of char dwellers never smile and even when they dare to smile, it hints at some unforeseen calamity to beset them soon. They struggle from the beginning of the season to the end. During rain, their shelters are devastated, crops are damaged and domestic animals are washed away. During the off-season, when drought appears, it is difficult to meet the daily necessities, which keep their life oiled. They fall prey to hunger and hypocrisy. The inhabitants of the riverine islands are primarily involved in agriculture. Along with farming, they have small businesses in their own homes. During the off-season, they work as day labourers commonly known as Kamla.
Poverty is a common feature of life here, but they do not show a cold shoulder to their natural festivals. They observe Eid, Muharram, and others. During leisure time, they hear and enjoy Television (TV) and Radio - mostly from Bangladesh. Bengali and Bhatiali (ethnic lingual) songs of the former East-Bengal, now called Puraba Banga, dances and other sorts of ethnic entertainment is also part of their cultural life.
"... they aren't politically indifferent and so they live far from the political turmoil of life. This is because they have no time to spare for this hobby except now and then. This also happens, when political demagogues inveigle them ...", said an eminent Muslim scholar in Assam.
The people of char areas lack of literacy and leadership and so they are often harassed, reproached and even suffer sentences for breaking laws, when they fail to convince corrupt Government officials.
"... there are hundreds and hundreds of chars in our state. We visit these areas either frequently or half-yearly; but, the fact is that it is too difficult for anybody to visit these char areas at a time and to meet up their demands we have to work within the time bound routine. But, it is true that the char people have been living in hardship (like animals) on deserted embankments ...", claims an Assam Government official.
The real fact is that these untold miseries and the exploitation by the Dewanis are the constant companions of these destitute char people. In fact, the people of the char region have to fight constantly with natural calamities as well as Government indifference. In a word, neither the guardians nor the children of these people have any future of their own. The lack of schools and colleges has forced them to live a life of dump and driven cattle. Malnutrition often makes them weak and unfit to work properly and this compels them to surrender themselves to the mercy of fate.
The people of char areas live a sub-human life, because, the Road and Transport System is paralyzed, tottering condition of the Health System, failure of the Drinking Water System, Poor-Education System, there is no Electrification System, bad Sanitary System, lack of Post and Telecommunication or Telegraph System, no job opportunities, poverty, natural calamities, et cetera, which ruins the life-lines of char people.
They neither get any help from the people, Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) nor from the Government. The Government has a scheme for the development of char people. But it is only written on paper and is not implemented. The inhabitants of the char never have any opportunity to see and enjoy a better life. A class of leaders devours all in the name of the CADAGAS(I), which was created between 1985 to 1986 by the Government of Assam State in the name of char area development.
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^ Vij, Shivam (AUGUST 16, 2012).
"The Myth of the Bangladeshi and Violence in Assam: Nilim Dutta". Retrieved 14 February 2013.
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‘ Migration’ rather than ‘illegal immigration’ is largely responsible for demographic transformation[[ [1]]].The Migration of Bengali Muslims peasants from East Bengal into Assam has certainly transformed the demography of the latter, more noticeably in some districts, but to claim all of it happened due to illegal immigration from Bangladesh is not only historically incorrect, but wilful distortion of facts.The claim of massive and continuing migration transforming the demographic profile of Assam is most commonly sought to be proven by citing the high decadal population growth rate of Assam since 1951, as per the Census of India.
Percentage Decadal Variation in Population since 1951 in India and Assam-
India- 21.64%(1951-61), 24.80%(1961-71), 54.41%(1971-91), 21.54%(1991-01), 17.64%(01-2011) Assam- 34.98%(1951-61), 34.95%(1961-71), 53.26%(1971-91), 18.92%(1991-01), 16.93%(01-2011) Dhubri- 43.74%(1951-61), 43.26%(1961-71), 45.65%(1971-91), 22.97%(1991-01), 24.40%(01-2011) Dhemaji- 75.21%(1951-61), 103.42%(1961-71), 107.50%(1971-91), 19.45%(1991-01), 20.30%(01-2011) Karbi Anglong- 79.21%(1951-61), 68.28%(1961-71), 74.72%(1971-91), 22.72%(1991-01), 18.69%(01-2011)
The above figures of decadal growth rates of population and their comparisons really irrefutable evidence of influx of illegal Bangladeshi Immigrants into Assam.It would be pertinent to point out right that this high population growth rate in Assam has declined since 1971 and has remained lower than that of India, categorically refuting assumptions of continuing illegal immigration from Bangladesh. Through the Assam Accord of 1985, only those who have entered Assam later than 25 March 1971 are considered illegal immigrants. The influx occurred before 1971 and as such cannot be considered Illegal immigration.
After compairing the decadal growth rates of population in two other districts of Assam like Dhemaji and Karbi Anglong, we will see that their growth rates in comparison have been more than twice that of Assam and substantially higher than even the ‘ Muslim’ majority ‘ border’ district of Dhubri. Yet, the Muslim population in Dhemaji and Karbi Anglong is minuscule. The Hindu population in these two districts is 95.94% and 82.39% respectively; Scheduled Tribes constitute 47.29% and 55.69% of their population respectively. Muslims constitute merely 1.84% and 2.22% respectively of their total populations, in spite of having consistent high decadal growth rates – Dhemaji touching 103.42% between 1961-71 and Karbi Anglong having a similar high of 79.21% between 1951-61. This should be testimony enough that there could be reasons apart from Illegal immigration or having a Muslim population behind a high decadal growth rate of population.The above categorically reveals that selective citing of census data claiming ‘abnormally high’ decadal growth rate of population cannot be conclusive evidence of Illegal immigration from Bangladesh. Furthermore, against Assam having just three districts bordering Bangladesh, Meghalaya has five, which have shown higher decadal growth rates of population than the districts of Assam yet have an insignificant Muslim population negating any suspicion that they could have been swamped by illegal Bangladeshis. This also negates the presumption that merely bordering Bangladesh would make a district vulnerable to illegal immigration.
What is the reality then?
The migration of Bengali Muslims peasants from erstwhile East Bengal began in the 1800s after the British annexed Assam in 1826, with the Treaty of Yandaboo after defeating the Burmese in the First Anglo Burmese War. ‘Malevolent’ colonial policies of the British in Bengal, such as the Permanent Settlement, had already wreaked Bengal’s economy and pauperized its artisans and peasantry. Severe exploitation under its zamindari system added to the woes of the peasantry. In the geographically contiguous province of Assam, population density was low, land was abundant and there was no zamindari system. It was just a matter of time before an impoverished and harassed Bengali Muslim peasantry began migrating in a trickle which became a deluge, encouraged by the British. It served their purpose to settle large numbers of Bengali Muslim on vacant land to increase land revenue, as well as have readily available cheap labour in a labour-deficient province. Initially, the immigrants were welcomed by even the Assamese landed gentry for the cheap labour.
By the second decade of the 20th century, however, this incessant influx became a cause for alarm and a ‘Line System’ was introduced in the affected districts of Nagaon and Kamrup in 1920, restricting immigrants from settling beyond certain limits on land over which natives claimed rights. That is how vast tracts of land in the then undivided Nagaon, Kamrup and Goalpara districts came to be settled by immigrant Bengali Muslim peasants in the decades before Partition, and independence.
With each successive group of immigrants, and with restrictions imposed barring their indiscriminate spread, the quality of land they found to settle themselves on, became progressively degraded. Many were left to settle on marshy wastelands and the shifting sandbars of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries called chars or chaporis in the vast floodplains of the valley. This is where a substantial percentage of their descendants still live after nearly a century. At the mercy of annual floods, shifting of the chars regularly and incessant Erosion of their lands by the Brahmaputra and its tributaries, a large percentage of the Muslim population of immigrant origin in these districts is rendered homeless regularly. To eke out a living, they often migrate to the towns and cities as construction labourers, vegetable vendors or rickshaw pullers, living in ghettoized shanty towns, raising the spectre of illegal Bangladeshis in minds of a hostile urban elite with little sympathy or insight into realities of life about the areas they have migrated from.
by the time of India’s Partition and independence, there was a substantial Bengali Muslim population of immigrant origin noticeably concentrated in areas of Nagaon, Kamrup and Goalpara districts. Owing to their socio-economic condition and cultural practices, it is entirely believable that their population growth rate have remained substantially higher and what is reflected in the decadal growth rate of Muslim population in these districts, or the ones curved out of them later, their numbers need not necessarily be owed to continuous illegal immigration from Bangladesh.
There is another compelling reason to view with scepticism the claim of illegal immigrants ‘hiding’ among their co-religionists in the Muslim majority districts in Assam as even at the time of independence, population density in these districts were considerably higher making competition for land and the meagre opportunities of livelihood inevitably more intense. Today, conflict and litigation among immigrants over land is rampant. Why would they encourage, let alone facilitate, continuous illegal immigration that would put their own economic survival at peril?
The concentration of Muslims in the areas where the Bengali Muslim immigrants have traditionally settled, underscores the reality that they are mostly likely to be the descendants of those immigrants, and hence legitimate Indian citizens, and not illegal immigrants who have allegedly continued to arrive till now. This will be further evident if we look at the percentage of Assamese language speakers in these areas as revealed by the census data as cited in Table 2.
At the time of Partition, a substantial Bengali Muslim immigrant population chose to stay back in Assam as Indian citizens. Having decided their future, there was a conscious effort on their part to progressively assimilate into the culture and soil of their adopted home, beginning with adopting the Assamese language, the primary marker. Over successive generations, having been educated in Assamese-medium schools, most have genuinely adopted Assamese as their language and this is reflected in the census data. For instance, Dhubri with a Muslim population of 74.29% has 70.07% Assamese speakers. This is in stark contrast to the Barak valley districts like Karimganj and Hailakandi where Bengali has remained the predominant linguistic identity among both Hindus and Muslims. During the same period, many native tribal communities which once used to enumerate as ‘Assamese’ in successive censuses took to distinguish their ethnic and linguistic identity apart from the Assamese and started enumerating themselves as per their mother tongue.
It is thus simplistic to assume that rampant illegal Bangladeshi immigration continues even today by taking note of census figures selectively without having the intimate insights into the complex historical processes at work leading to the demographic transformation that is underway.
In perhaps the most incisive analysis of the Assam Movement, Prof. Monirul Hussain in his seminal work, The Assam Movement: Class, Ideology, Identity (1994) has convincingly explained that while the expulsion of illegal Bangldeshi immigrants was the ostensible ‘visible’ motive of the movement, its real covert motive was to polarize the constituents of the new political alignment that was emerging as an alternative to the ones which represented the Assamese middle-class elite.
This was progressively accomplished effectively by first creating a powerful narrative which demonised ‘Bangladeshi immigrants’ by conjuring them up as being part of a diabolic design to reduce the native Assamese to a minority, and then dispossessing them of their rights and property. It was cleverly alluded to that the community of immigrant Muslims of East Bengal origin who had by now been living in Assam legitimately for decades, and were certainly not illegal immigrants, was colluding with their co-religionists from across the border in furthering this nefarious design. A section of the vernacular media, representing and owned by the same Assamese middle class elite, played an immensely partisan role in strengthening and spreading this flawed perception, playing to the gallery.
Not everyone was convinced, but those who raised inconvenient questions were sought to be stifled by violence. The myth of how ‘democratic’ the movement was would be swiftly dispelled by the sheer number of violent incidents that mark the period of the Assam Agitation from 1979 to 1985. One of the most visible and horrific incidents precipitated by this narrative of demonising immigrants was the Nellie massacre of 18 February 1983 in the undivided Nagaon district. More than 2,000 Muslims of immigrant origin were massacred to death, most of them women and children. Even though the massacre was sought to be passed off as a spontaneous act of violence by the exasperated native Tiwa community, that they were cunningly instigated and it was a premeditated act is beyond reasonable doubt. None came to be indicted for the horrific act.
(Nilim Dutta is executive director of the Strategic Research and Analysis Organisation, Guwahati.)
In Kokrajhar the decadal growth rate of population between 1991-01 and 2001-11 have just been 14.49% and 5.19% respectively. Its population density stood at 266 and 280 for the same periods, among the lowest in Assam. It would be hard to accept from these figures that any cataclysmic demographic pressure on land has evolved at all.As per the Census of India 2001, Hindus constituted 65.60%, Muslims 20.36% and Christians 13.72% of Kokrajhar’s population. A large number of the Bodos would be Hindus, but some would be Christians too. The Adivasis would be overwhelmingly Christian and the Muslims would be of migrated Bengali Muslims from land eroded Char area. The data on language from the Census further reveals that Bodos constituted 32.37%, Bengalis 21.06%, Assamese 20.28% and Santhalis 16.70% of Kokrajhar’s population, if we look at the ethnic break up linguistically. In 2001, there certainly aren’t any alarming indicators of natives about to be marginalised by illegal immigrants, and certainly not by illegal ‘ Bengali Muslims immigrants from Bangladesh. The decadal growth rate of Kokrajhar between 2001 and 2011 has been among the lowest, at just 5.19%. This low population growth is also substantiated by the increase in population density by just 5.26%, from 266 to 280 persons per square kilometre. Thus, between 2001 and 2011 there couldn’t have been any alarming change in demography of the district. To cut a long story short, it appears extremely unlikely that rapacious ‘invasion’ of illegal immigrants could be a reason for widespread violent native-immigrant conflict here. We have to look for the real reasons elsewhere.
The most immediate instigation was the spate of attacks carried out against the Bengali Muslim community from around June 2012. Resentment against ex-militants was already brewing for some time because of rampant extortion and even kidnappings for ransom in the district and there have been allegations against the state administration for turning a blind eye. The select assassinations of immigrant Muslim slowly ratcheted up the tension. On 6 July 2012 unidentified assailants opened fire in a Muslim village, killing two and injuring three. Again on 19 July, two former office bearers of the All Assam Minorities Students Union (AAMSU) were fired upon and critically injured. On 20 July, the first day of the month of Ramzan, four former BLT militants riding on two bikes through a Muslim village called Joypore, on the outskirts of Kokrajhar, stumbled on to a crowd of Muslims congregating for Salat/namaz in the evening. Fearing that the crowd was about to attack, the four Bodo youths allegedly fired in the air with their automatic weapons to make good their escape. Already jittery by the spate of recent attacks, the Muslim villagers assumed this to be an attack and swarmed the youths and lynched them. By the time police arrived, they were all dead.The next day, the bodies of the four Bodo youths, who were reported to be former BLT militants, were taken in a procession through Kokrajhar for cremation. All the local satellite news channels incessantly broadcasted the visuals. Was anything more needed to rouse the Bodos against Muslims in Kokrahar?This has a chilling parallel to the bodies of the victims of the Godhra carnage being allowed to be brought back to Ahmedabad and paraded, that set the ground for the horrific 2002 Gujarat riots against Muslims. Retaliatory attacks against Muslims began that very night and at least four were gunned down. It didn’t take long from there for the situation to escalate. Precious time was lost in bringing the army to control the situation, as Ministry of Defence dithered over ‘procedural’ issues. As rumours and violence spread, lakhs of Bodos and Muslims alike fled their villages and relocated in make-shift relief camps in schools and public buildings. Time was ripe for leaders of all hues to parachute in and start fishing in troubled waters by offering their own ‘explosive’ version of events that suited their political interests. What was undoubtedly a series of localised events, inextricably intertwined with local political undercurrents, thus became a ‘national security’ issue, Lal Krishna Advani of the BJP, who turned it into an existential crisis for natives in the face of a relentless onslaught of Bangladeshis.
To understand the recent violence that saw Bodos pitted against Bengali Muslims, it would be pertinent to point out that the Adivasis have faced similar ethnic violence in Kokrajhar since the 1990s. They weren’t illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh but descendents of those exiled by the British for the uprising in 1855 that history refers to as the Santhal Rebellion. Neither did they rapaciously usurp land on which the Bodos had claims nor were their numbers growing so fast so as to pose a threat to the numerical significance of the Bodos. Why, then, were they victims of repeated spates of ethnic violence, because of which some 32,613 families are living in relief camps for 20 years now? Wouldn’t it then be reasonable to look for the roots of conflict elsewhere and not within the simplistic explanation of ‘illegal immigrants versus natives’ sought to be perpetuated by the political dispensations whose designs are served by such a narrative?
There is a constant stream of landless migrants, Bengali Muslims from char areas, to towns and cities to eke out a living. It wouldn’t be surprising to find a sizable percentage of such internally displaced persons encroaching on community land, reserved forests etc. But they are not alone in this. For instance, many Assamese Hindus displaced by constant erosion in the Palashbari area just west of Guwahati relocated to Rani nearby, a ‘tribal belt’ and settled on forest land. The point that needs to be underscored is that no widespread and meticulous cadastral surveys have been carried out expressly to assess, first, the scale of ‘native’ land being usurped by illegal immigrants and, second, what is the scale of ‘native’ land passing on to the hands of ‘immigrants’ by legitimate transfers to claim, with any certainty, as to how and in what scale natives are being dispossessed of their land.
It would thus be reasonable to carefully examine the claim that the violence was a result of the ‘illegal Bangladeshi immigrants’ rapaciously encroaching upon land belonging to the native communities, inevitably inviting spontaneous retaliation by exasperated natives.
NCM Report on clashes between Bodos and Bengali Muslims
NCM(the National Commission for Minorities)[ [1]] Chairperson Wajahat Habibullah said [ [2]] that the Commission has sent the report on the clashes to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and had personally taken up the matter with him during the Iftar party hosted by him on Thursday, Aug 16, 2012.
"The Prime Minister told me that he has received the report," Habibullah said.
The team comprising Member Planning Commission, Syeda Hameed, Advisor G B Panda, and NCP Member NCM, Keki N Daruwalla visited Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD) and Kokrajhar, Gossaigaon and Dhubri district between July 11 and July 12.
The violence in Assam was a result of clashes between Bodos and "resident Bengali Muslims" and not Bangladeshi immigrants, the National Commission for Minorities has said while recommending setting up of an SIT to probe major incidents of violence in the state."The idea of investigating major incidents by setting up SIT needs to be considered. This will restore confidence in the justice delivery system," it said.
The panel said the conflict this time "was not between some exodus of Bangladeshi immigrants and the Bodos, but between Bodos and the resident Bengali Muslims of the BTAD". There has been no sudden influx from Bangladesh to trigger off such a major conflict, it said, pointing out that "when Muslims abandoned their villages, their houses were looted and gutted (which) might indicate a design to see that they do not return to their own villages."
Administration and the police especially have to deal with recalcitrants forcefully," the panel said. On the role of the police, the Commission members said they were left with the distinct impression that the lower rungs of the police were afraid of taking action against the Bodos, possibly because of the armaments they possessed and the fact that they ruled the area.
"The police must be more forceful with both Bodos and Muslim criminals," they said in the report, adding had strong action been taken by the police after the small incidents earlier, this conflict could have been avoided.
The Commission says the state needs to provide intermediate shelters to the victims in Assam such as those provided to Tsunami victims in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The Commission also recommended that the issuance of ID cards should be legitimised to promote transparency in giving entitlements.
The panel said that most people feel that this strife is caused because Bodos think that "driving out other ethnic people is in their interest. The Bodo population is near the 30 percent mark in the area. They feel that if their population goes up to 50 percent and more they will be able to demand statehood for Bodo Land".
Though the panel felt it was "possibly a fallacious premise", it said," there is a big rumour that Bodos will strongly oppose the return of those Muslim refugees who have left the BTAD. This would mean all those in camps in Dhubri district (which is not a part of the BTAD) may find it difficult to go back to their villages.
Recommending that any such obstruction by the Bodos needs to be stoutly resisted by the administration, the Commission also felt that some "political dialogue" with Bodos and Hagrama Mohilary, the Chief Executive of the BTAD was absolutely essential.
"The Bodos need to be told firmly that they cannot under any circumstances engineer a mass exodus of non-Bodos. Nor would they ever get statehood this way. The Chief Minister was requested to kindly consider taking up the matter himself with the Bodo Council," the report said.
Accusing the administration of failing to stop the first round of violent clashes between Muslims and Bodos in the BTAD areas, the delegation told the Chief Minister to instruct the police to be “more forceful with both Bodos and Muslim criminals.”
“We were also left with the distinct impression that the lower rungs of the police were afraid of taking action against the Bodos, possibly because of the armaments they possessed and the fact that they ruled the area,” observed the delegation[ [3]].
While visiting the camps of the Bodo and Bengali Muslim victims who fled after their homes were gutted down and looted by arsonists, the delegation expressed concern at the “pathetic condition of the camps where Muslims were housed’’ and noted that overcrowding was a major problem.
Describing the condition at the Grahampur high school camp in Gossaigaon, the report said: “This was a horrendous camp with 6,569 inmates from 31 villages.”
Suffering of Bengali Muslims
The minorities ( Bengali Muslims) in the Bodos’ tribal areas had been agitating for job opportunities and security, which were being denied to them[ [4]]. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/26/world/asia/26-Assam-burns-IndiaInk/26-Assam-burns-IndiaInk-blog480.jpg Flames erupt from huts built on the banks of river Gourang, during ethnic violence in Kokrajhar district in Assam, July 24, 2012.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/26/world/asia/26-Assam-Muslims-IndiaInk/26-Assam-Muslims-IndiaInk-blog480.jpg Muslim families, victims of ethnic violence, at a relief camp in Bhot Gaon village in Kokrajhar district, Assam, July 25, 2012.
In 1983, when more than 3,000 men, women and children were massacred overnight by mobs[ [5]].
Just before noon, the Rabhas started attacking Muslim villages. "At Bekipul near Krishnai, the Rabha people burned down an entire village of Muslims and Bengali-speaking Hindus," a source said[ [6]].
Around 100 houses, mostly belonging to non-tribals, were torched in some parts of the district on Tuesday. Gogoi said the violence was slowly taking an ethnic line. The non-tribals, mostly Bengali Muslims and Bengali Hindus besides Assamese, are in majority in the district. Official sources said those affected in the incidents of arson and clashes had been sheltered in relief camps.
Bengali Muslims residing at Char area
" Char" (that is, 'River Island') or 'Sand-bars' or 'Sandy-shore' (locally called - Balur-char) is the common phenomenon of nature that is found farming here and there in the lower course of the river Brahmaputra [ [7]]. It is not possible to ascertain the actual chars in the eastern Indian State - Assam, for a large number of them are semi-permanent. However, according to the estimate or of Indian Assam State Intelligence Bureau Report of 1993-1994, a lot of riverine basins have sprung up between the river Brahmaputra and it's tributaries. These chars exist from Sadia in Upper Assam's Dibrugarh district to South-Salmara in Lower Assam's Dhubri district of North-East Indian State, Assam, while according to the estimate of Char Area Development Authority, Government of Assam State ( India) - CADAGAS(I), in 1985, there were 1,256 Char on the river Brahmaputra.
According to the Indian Military Intelligence Report, "Of total number of 2,089 chars, lie under 14 Districts, 23 Sub-divisions and 59 Development Blocks with 2,251 villages in 299 Gaon Panchayat (village Panchayat) in the whole Assam state. Over 24.90 lakhs people (of them 12.72 lakhs male and 12.18 lakhs females, comprising 4.35 lakhs families of which 2.95 lakhs are very needy, that is, live below the poverty line) reside in the chars of the river Brahmaputra and it's tributaries and the density of population per square kilometer in char areas is 690, while 3,068 square kilometers area belongs to char areas in the Eastern Indian State, Assam. Most of the people are of 'Bengali Muslim Community' (specially indicate the 'Religious Minority Muslim People, who reside in basically western part of the State and are basically needy and migrated from Bangladesh from time-to-time in search of food, clothing and shelter) and 70% to 75% live below the poverty line.
Another report says that the total population of the char region is 24.90 lakhs. Of this, 22.9 lakhs is 'Muslim' (that is, 'Religious Minority') and 1.5 lakh to 2 lakh is 'Kalita-Nepali', 'Mising-Ahom' and 'Koch-Rajbongshi' (that is, 'Non-Muslim') and others. Apart from this, more than 70% to 75% of char-village population is 'Immigrant Muslim' and the rest live in the town and other places permanently. This vast tract of char-land from Sadia to Dhubri is largely inhabited by Muslim community, which according to the Government report is 80% and the rest 20% is the people of 'Non-Muslim' community.
Apart from these, the Government report has also disclosed that the people of immigrant Bengali Muslims section largely populate the char-lands. There are 90% Muslim community in the districts like Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Kamrup, Nalbari, Darrang, Sonitpur, Nagaon and Morigaon and Sonitpur, (Mangaldoi) Darrang of Eastern Indian State, Assam are the noted riverine char-villages, where various sections of people like 'Nepali', 'Boro', 'Bengali-Hindu', 'Fisherman' (locally known as : Kaibarta) et cetera live together.
The largest chars are found in the Eastern Indian state, Assam's districts like Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Kamrup and Nagaon respectively. There are more than 2,100 such sandy-shore in the Brahmaputra river, which are created from Sadia (upper course of the river) to Dhubri (lower course of the river).
There are some dwelling-places in the sandy-shores of the Brahmaputra riverine area but these are very barren places, locally known as Chapari-gaon (char-village). These char-villages come to exist, when the river and its tributaries change their own course and flow, which take 10 to 20 years. There are approximately 400 to 500 char-villages created in the entire river basin every year. The Indian State Government, Assam, does not register most of them.
The people living in the chars are locally called Bhatia, means people, who are living in the lower course of this river, especially inhabitants of Lower Assam, while the people in the upper course of this river, inhabitants of Upper Assam, are called Ujani.
They toil hard to keep alive. Most of them are born tough. They work 10 hours to 12 hours at a stretch. But, despite all these things, they are perpetual 'outsiders' in civilized society
The inhabitants of the chars represent 25% of the total population of Assam. Only 13.6% people of the doomed chars are literate and more than 80% are farmers, 20% daily labourers, 10% fishermen, 10% vegetable-sellers, 5% fish-sellers, 10% Hand-barrow-pullers, 20% Rickshaw-pullers, 5% others. The people of the char region live a very pain-stricken odious life in the river-islands full of hot as well as cold sand, muddy water and uneven land. Most of these people are half-fed ill-clothed and shelter-less. They loiter with empty bellies and beg food. They have cultivable land, but they fail to yield crops.
The cultivators of the char region nurse a hope to reap a good harvest. But, hope perishes, when the flood of sand washes away everything. The waters destroy houses and shelters dash to the ground, cattle die for want of fodder. This sand dune is so terrifying that in some places it is 7 to 8 feet high. It seems the entire char has turned in to a small 'desert' because the soil of the chars are sandy.
In fact, they have remained cut off from the mainstream of life for a long time. The living conditions of these people is sub-human. One can see numerous small and large char-lands during a journey by boat, particularly in autumn along the river Brahmaputra at any place in the lower part of Assam. Poverty is so prevalent that men, woman and minors toil all day in the fields to ensure one square mile a day. All that most families own are a thatched bamboo house 200 to 300 square feet, straw beds, earthen utensils and a piece of cultivable land, which is also temporary due to the erosion. People are forced to lead a 'semi-nomadic' life because the inundation and formation of new chars is very common in the lower course of the river Brahmaputra.
Sometimes, when the chars sink under flood water (flooded in the monsoon seasons), the inhabitants of these chars wait and pass their terrified sleepless nights for days and months in their small and big boats on the shore of the new char and begin life anew. However, these riverine or riparian basins are not found in the Barak Valley in Southern Assam sector. A huge number of people live in these Char areas.
The land of the island is not permanent for they appear and disappear with the appearance and disappearance of the flood. This is why there is no reliable estimate of char-land. The Government also fails to survey char land properly and as such Government cannot receive necessary revenue from this unsettled land because, the flood makes the char-land unstable every year. The floods create and destroy this char-land every one or two years. Sometimes, these chars are unfit to dwell on.
According to the Government officials, this unstableness of the char-land has created a bar to carry on a casual survey work here. There are different problems about the distribution of these char-lands. In the state of Assam's 'Brahmaputra-Valley' and the Revenue Department (RD) has been empowered this task of distribution.
The Char Area Development Authority, Government of Assam State (India) - CADAGAS(I) was established in the year, 1983/1984 to strengthen the status of the people living in char areas as a Special Area Programme. Subsequently in the year, 1995/1996, this authority has been converted to a full-fledged Directorate of Char Areas Development, Government of Assam State, (India), shortly says - DCADGAS(I).
In fact, there are two parallel authorities (the RD and the landlord, known as Dewani or Matabbar, or Village-Headman) operate in the char areas. These landlords are also very powerful and have unauthorized right to live in a particular tract of land along with the members of their family without any payment of revenue. In some cases, this rate of revenue is just nominal. These landlords sometimes are helpful and in some cases, they are harassers. They become the main arbiters both in case of the settlement of their disputes and also their land area, which is not under patta or is yet to be surveyed.
The char occupants and the squatters occupy newly formed char-land but pay nothing for the same for they have no patta. These plots of land are transformed by the char people into a periodic-patta.
Sometimes, periodic-patta is granted to one, who has influence or intimacy with the so-called landlords of this char region without or with revenue. The non-payment of revenue sometime creates a number of problems. It may lead to the cancellation of such a patta. In some places, there is no proper land tenure system and this in turn allows exploitation of the poor char people by the rich and powerful landlords or Dewanis.
They distribute the char land to one, who is dearer to them and who pays them Najrana (that is, gift). These landlords or Dewanis or Matabbars occupy the char with the help of followers, who use conventional arms like sticks in hand (known as Lathial), which often are newly formed or created by force and then sell them to others at a high price. Sometimes, fierce struggles take place between two or more landlords, over the newly emerged islands, that later on leads to murder or 'bloodshed'. This is often noticed among the landless farmers, who have been evicted due to repeated river erosions.
Sometimes, again, it is found that the 'third party' has gone to occupy that newly formed char as and when the original owner fails to capture it in due time. But, this is not done peacefully, except against some killing, say some char inhabitants. Sometimes, more than a few landlords get together to claim a piece of char-land and this leads to clashes, injuries and murder. Of course, if a landlord enters into a clash the other parties do not sit idle but get involved in it. There may be a 'triangular-fight' between the original-settlers, new-settlers and the char-landlords or Dewanis.
According to a noted advocate of the Lower Assam's Undivided Goalpara District (presently - Dhubri, Goalpara, Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon districts) the cases, which lie at the disposal of the honourable 'Court' are related to the tussle or bloodshed or murder occurring in the chars for occupation of char-land.
The followers or retainers of these powerful landlords play a role in occupying 'new-char' or distributing discovered land among their favourites. The landlords are always in search of newly emerged chars. When they find them, they occupy them before the original occupants make a bid that has neither money nor muscle power. But, the most astonishing fact is that the char people, who in spite of all these disparagements, often fall victims of those so-called village-headmen or leaders who leave no stone unturned to exploit them. These men, when fail to convince, call them 'Bangladeshi'. They have no documents of landed property and so are harassed off and on.
In fact, Dewanis are the kings of the char areas. Everybody acts according to the advice of Dewani. His word is Law. The Dewanis judge the cases related to murder, looting, plundering, rape, kidnapping, unauthorized occupation of land et cetera. Nobody is allowed to oppose the judgments dispensed by the Dewanis. His order is final. It is a feudal administration.
Therefore, everybody has to bear the pang of oppression and repression of the Dewanis. The char peoples have to give half of the produce to the Dewanis as a kind of revenue or 'forced-tax'. The Dewanis receive it without rendering any labour. The char people cultivate the desert-like char-land by the sweat of their brow and produce crops, vegetables, and fruits. The Dewanis enjoy a major share without any labour.
The char inhabitants get punishment if and when they try to disobey their orders or deny paying their share. Sometimes, the Dewanis evacuate them. They have no right to protest against extortion made by the Dewanis. At the root of these 'Dewani-tantra', there is strong support by some political parties, who regulate their activities behind the screen.
On the other hand, the original land-settlers, who lost their permanent lands due to heavy flood and erosion et cetera think that is nothing but to accept that land lost forever and to send family members, specially young men to towns or semi-cities or cities for any work as daily-wage-earner, daily-labour, vegetable-seller or fish-seller, pull-carter, rickshaw-puller, rag-picker, et cetera.
Whatever the reason for this, it will be better to say that the way of resource capture is taking place in the chars. Further, unequal distributions of land along with natural calamities intensify cries related to population et cetera. If anybody of inquisitive nature intends to pay a visit to the Brahmaputra River Island of Eastern Indian State, Assam, he or she would be astonished to see that on one side of the river Brahmaputra, a few half-naked people anchored their boats and have been fishing for hours, while on the other side a few people are found working for 10 to 12 hours in the muddy fields along with their cows and bulls.
The mystery does not end here. Mystery again miraculously appears, when the visitor comes across hundreds and hundreds of huts made of straw or bamboo sheets measuring 250 to 300 square feet, where thousands and thousands poor and hunger stricken skeletons are passing their lives day after day or year after year. These sheds, where these creatures are compelled to live are not only unhygienic and unhealthy but also like the dens of dead or even a piggery.
The people have no permanent shelter and hence live a sort of nomadic life. The clothes they wear are torn and the food they take has no nutritious value, far below the calories needed. The sheds they are allowed to live in are pathetic. Some of them have a roof and some have not. Therefore, during rainy season, water pours from their roofs, which drenched them severely during heavy shower. They lack the means to light up their shelters and so they are plunged into darkness when night advances. Many of them have to pass their lives in their country-boats. These boats help them to save their possessions during rainy season, when almost all around them is submerged in flood. It is a pathetic life and they have to live it until the flood subsides and new char land emerges from the havoc of ubiquitous flood and devastation.
During the floods, when all the char areas are submerged, it is at this time, it seems that life is on the verge of extinction for the inhabitants of the boats are then found saying to each other, 'Mian amago keyamater din aisha gechhe' (our last days of destruction are approaching).
The misery of these people intensifies, when at daytime, the scorching rays of the sun pour upon them to burn them. This again becomes unbearable, when an unruly storm accompanied by thunder and lightning fall upon them to destroy all they have. The Char families, numbering 10 to 12 have an uncertain and chaotic life, when the monsoon breaks the banks and changes the course of the river.
The distress of these riverine Char people does not end here. It begins with diversified problems, when the flood subsides and water of the riverine islands reaches the knee-deep level. During this period, they cannot rest, because sand, mud and water are all a problem. Neither farming nor fishing is possible for these unfortunate living beings during this period. Added to this, diseases of various kinds threaten them. In some places the situation turns very serious, when the watery land turns almost desert. Scarcity of food, clothing and shelter haunt these half-fed, naked skeletons.
The people of the river islands never dream of living a peaceful life. Natural and unnatural forces all harass them. The ceaseless rainfall during the rainy season, land Erosion, unpredictable lashing of the climate limited socio-economic resources and untamable growth of population always make the life of these people vicious.
The fortunes of char dwellers never smile and even when they dare to smile, it hints at some unforeseen calamity to beset them soon. They struggle from the beginning of the season to the end. During rain, their shelters are devastated, crops are damaged and domestic animals are washed away. During the off-season, when drought appears, it is difficult to meet the daily necessities, which keep their life oiled. They fall prey to hunger and hypocrisy. The inhabitants of the riverine islands are primarily involved in agriculture. Along with farming, they have small businesses in their own homes. During the off-season, they work as day labourers commonly known as Kamla.
Poverty is a common feature of life here, but they do not show a cold shoulder to their natural festivals. They observe Eid, Muharram, and others. During leisure time, they hear and enjoy Television (TV) and Radio - mostly from Bangladesh. Bengali and Bhatiali (ethnic lingual) songs of the former East-Bengal, now called Puraba Banga, dances and other sorts of ethnic entertainment is also part of their cultural life.
"... they aren't politically indifferent and so they live far from the political turmoil of life. This is because they have no time to spare for this hobby except now and then. This also happens, when political demagogues inveigle them ...", said an eminent Muslim scholar in Assam.
The people of char areas lack of literacy and leadership and so they are often harassed, reproached and even suffer sentences for breaking laws, when they fail to convince corrupt Government officials.
"... there are hundreds and hundreds of chars in our state. We visit these areas either frequently or half-yearly; but, the fact is that it is too difficult for anybody to visit these char areas at a time and to meet up their demands we have to work within the time bound routine. But, it is true that the char people have been living in hardship (like animals) on deserted embankments ...", claims an Assam Government official.
The real fact is that these untold miseries and the exploitation by the Dewanis are the constant companions of these destitute char people. In fact, the people of the char region have to fight constantly with natural calamities as well as Government indifference. In a word, neither the guardians nor the children of these people have any future of their own. The lack of schools and colleges has forced them to live a life of dump and driven cattle. Malnutrition often makes them weak and unfit to work properly and this compels them to surrender themselves to the mercy of fate.
The people of char areas live a sub-human life, because, the Road and Transport System is paralyzed, tottering condition of the Health System, failure of the Drinking Water System, Poor-Education System, there is no Electrification System, bad Sanitary System, lack of Post and Telecommunication or Telegraph System, no job opportunities, poverty, natural calamities, et cetera, which ruins the life-lines of char people.
They neither get any help from the people, Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) nor from the Government. The Government has a scheme for the development of char people. But it is only written on paper and is not implemented. The inhabitants of the char never have any opportunity to see and enjoy a better life. A class of leaders devours all in the name of the CADAGAS(I), which was created between 1985 to 1986 by the Government of Assam State in the name of char area development.
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^ Vij, Shivam (AUGUST 16, 2012).
"The Myth of the Bangladeshi and Violence in Assam: Nilim Dutta". Retrieved 14 February 2013.
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