Miya Muslims Of Assam: Under Constant Pressure To Prove 'Indigeneity'

When the eviction officials arrived in Kochutoli village of Sonarpur circle of Kamrup district in Assam on September 9, Makbul Hussain was concerned but not afraid. After all, his house was not in the 250-odd bighas of land in the region that the officials claimed was under the “tribal belt” where land ownership is reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. On that day, about 250 houses were demolished in Kochutoli, inhabited mostly by Bengali-speaking Muslims, many of whom have been living in the area for nearly 50 years. The officials, nevertheless, returned on September 12 for further evictions and this time, the locals resisted. It was amid the ensuing clashes between police and locals that Hussain’s 17-year-old son Haidar Ali was killed, hit by a stray bullet when the police opened fire on locals. “He was not protesting. He drives an e-rickshaw and he was just returning home from work. My son was innocent and killed in cold blood,” Hussain said over the phone. Haidar was killed along with another teenager, 18-year-old Jubahir Ali, who was also part of the crowd. Juhabir had gone out to join the agitation of locals who were gathering in the village to protest against the eviction. 

About 700 Miyan Muslim families reside in the Kochutoli-1 and 2 villages. Despite showing documents and land deeds or pattas, some of which date back to 1923, many of the displaced residents claim that authorities did not hesitate to demolish their homes, calling them encroachers. Hussain narrates how the police and the authorities ill-treated the locals, abused them and called them “Bangladeshi”, asking them to “go back”. He also adds that the police had caused damage to the belongings of locals and also the community well. Over 30 people have been left injured in the firing including women, many with bullet wounds. 

“Some of these families have been living here for the last 40-50 years, and some even older. These people purchased the land from the tribal communities indigenous to this region at some point. Now, these people are being asked to leave their ancestral land,” says Barpeta-based activist Alamin Ahmed of the Satra Mukti Sangram Samiti. He adds that the evictions and firing are part of the larger pattern of targeted attacks against Miyan Muslim community across Upper Assam and other parts of the state, which has been witnessing a spike in communal tensions since August this year.

On August 22, several Assamese ethno-nationalist groups such as the Tai Ahom, All Tai Ahom Students’ Union, Bir Lachit Sena Asom, among others, gave calls for driving out Bengali-speaking Muslims, known as Miya, out of Upper Assam. Members of these groups demanded the expulsion of the migrant community from Upper Assam, giving them an ultimatum and a week’s time to leave the region. “Open threats were issued on social media by right wing Hindu outfits and indigenous Assamese groups,” Ahmed informs. He adds that a majority of the Muslims living in these regions including Shibsagar, Barpeta etc are working class daily wagers and climate migrants displaced from their sandbar villages due to soil erosion. 

Noted poet, academic and president of the Char Chapori Sahitya Parishad, Dr Hafiz Ahmed explains that there are more than 20 lakh riverbed erosion induced Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Assam. Most of these people belong to the Miya community. “Whenever they get any land from anybody, they purchase it. They have purchased some land from some other communities in tribal belts also. These are a very poor poole, they are farmers. They do not know if these purchases are legal or illegal. They have been living there for many decades with no attempts to evict them previously,” he says.

A Rape & Hundreds Displaced

Between August 25 and August 31, though the exact numbers remain unknown, activists like Alamin Ahmed estimate that at least 1,000 Bengali-origin Muslims fled from eastern districts of Assam including Sivasagar, Jorhat, Charaideo, and Tinsukia (known collectively as Upper Assam locally) and went to the Muslim-majority central and western districts of the hill state. While authorities in Shivsagar region have been denying any evictions, local Muslim bodies like the Upper Assam United Muslim Council (representing interests of non-Miya Muslims in Assam) have acknowledged the mass exodus from Upper Assam, which is dominated primarily by ethnic Assamese communities. However, the incident that triggered the expulsion calls happened far away in the Nagaon district where a 14-year-old Hindu girl was allegedly raped by a Miya Muslim boy in Dhing village on August 22. 

The news spread like wildfire on social media, leading to instant violence and propaganda against Miya Muslims, with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and other ministers calling it an “attack on the indigenous” people of Assam. One of the three accused arrested by Assam Police in the rape case, 24-year-old Tofazzal Islam, was found dead in a pond on August 24, allegedly killed in a police encounter. Islam, who had been arrested on August 23, was being taken by police to the location where the minor had been gang-raped, when the incident happened. While Assam Police claimed Islam died as due to drowning after jumping into a deep pond while trying to escape from police custody, Guwahati High Court has since confirmed that the deceased was not an accused and that his arrest was a case of mistaken identity. It has sent a notice to Nagaon DGP, the OC and the Principle Secretary to produce a report on the incident. Dhing locals including Islam’s family claim that the pond is not deep enough for anyone to drown in. 

Nevertheless, as news of the rape spread, open calls started being given social media against Miyas, portraying them as rapists and criminal interlopers. Several groups including Hindu and ingenuous organisations gave out deadlines and ultimatums to Miya Muslims, asking them to leave by August 31.

Assault & Evictions

On August 24, in Charaideo district, 15 Miya Muslim labourers who had been working as contractual labourers at a construction site were severely assaulted and abused by local goons and forced to flee. According to the victims, their contractor is BJP district president Mayur Borgohain who owes them Rs 15 lakh in wages. Accusing him of orchestrating the attacks, one of the victims who hails from Barpeta, claimed, “It is just a ploy to get away without paying us a penny. We are scared to go back.” The victims narrate how a group of armed men with faces covered with masks arrived at their lodging at the end of the day’s work and made the workers kneel on the floor. “We were beaten with sticks, pipes and stabbed at with daggers. They also had guns,” one of the victims narrated. 

Alamin Ahmed, who has been handling the workers’ case legally, says that the perpetrators were likely to be members of All Assam Tai Ahom Students’ Union (AATASU), a student body of the Ahom community in Assam. “They were made to chant ‘aatasu zindabad, joi aai ahom’ while kneeling down,” he said. Though an FIR was filed in Mathurapur Police Station (case No. 29/2024 under section 190/191(2)/115(1)/196(1)/351(2) of Bhartiya Nyay Samhita), no action has yet been taken. The FIR also accuses Borhogaim of playing a role in the violence. 

Activists claim that the attacks were exacerbated by the statements made by CM and other ministers to vilify the Miya community, which faces regular verbal attacks from the state government and other ethno-nationalist factions. Amidst accusations of bias by opposition parties, Himanta Biswa Sarma declared he would not allow 'Miya' Muslims to take over the state. Such statements reinforce the “outsider” image of Miyas, Ahmed claims.

He also suggested inside the Assam Assembly that “during this sensitive time, don't forcefully go where people don't want you (Miya) to. If you go against the will of the people of upper Assam, there will be no security there”.

On September 4, 28 Miya Muslim persons including nine women, were declared “non-citizens” by the quasi judicial Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) and deported to a “detention camp”. The SP office Barpeta forwarded the alleged “doubtful citizens” to Matia Detention Camp in Goalpara, even though they were not declared foreigners. “In most cases, the authorities show no proof or basis for their claims against some person other than the fact that they are Muslim,” Ahmed adds.

Who is indigenous in Assam? 

The northeastern state of Assam is a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and multi-religious society with a 34 per cent Muslim population (Census 2011), the second highest after the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. Of these Muslims, the largest section is the Miya people (alternatively identified as Na-Asamiya or neo-Assamese by themselves), referring to the descendants of Bengali Muslim migrants originating from the contemporary Mymensingh, Rangpur, and Rajshahi Divisions of Assam. 

The community settled down in the Brahmaputra Valley during the 19th-20th century when Assam was under British colonial rule and are also called ‘Char Chapori’ Muslims (referring to the sandbar islands called char chapori that these people settled in). The British government actively promoted migration of the community from the Bengal Province, with the migration continuing well into 1947.

It is this community that has become the biggest target of the FTs. 

Established under the Foreigners’ (Tribunal) Order of 1964, the FTs adjudicate cases of individuals suspected to be “foreigners” in Assam. The FTs work with the Border wing of Assam Police that helps identify suspected “foreigners” who are then referred to the FTs. Following the notification of Citizenship Amendment Act in March this year, the Assam government in July asked the state’s border police to not directly refer citizenship cases of ‘Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian’ people who entered India before 2014 to FTs. 

Incidentally, the BJP in Assam has also tried to woo Muslim communities other than Miya. In July 2022, the Assam government decided to give ‘indigenous’ status to five Muslim groups. These groups--Goria, Moria, Jolah/Julha (only the ones living in tea gardens), Desi and Assamese-speaking Syed communities--have been categorised as native Assamese Muslims, with no history of migration from erstwhile East Pakistan and now Bangladesh. The Miya community Muslims were not part of the list. 

Earlier this year, Sarma had said that if Miya community wanted to be recognised as indigenous people of the state, "they should stop having more than two children and practising polygamy as it is not the culture of Assamese people. If they want to become indigenous, they cannot marry off their minor daughters."

Dr Hafiz Ahmed says that the term “indigenous” is a controversial one in Assam, where the “insider-outsider” debate has been central to the state’s political fabric. Much of its contemporary political rhetoric has revolved around the questions of ‘who is an outsider’. “After independence, there was an attempt to define who the indigenous people of Assam were,” he explains. The AASU said that the base year should be 1951 and all those present in the census of the 1951 would be considered indigenous. “We agreed. But because there were riots in 1950, many people who had been forced to flee Assam and hadn’t been able to return in time for the 1951 Census, which has been called the NRC, were left out. These people were nevertheless counted in 1961 Census which also noted that that many hilly areas had not been included in the census of the 1951 and were included in 1961. So what would happen to those people who were not included in 1951 NRC but were recorded in 1961?” Dr Ahmed asks.

He further questions the credentials and ulterior motives of the people deciding on questions of indigeneity. “We are as much Assamese as any other ‘indigenous’ community. This is just a ploy to politically divide Muslims and segregate the Miya community, which form a larger chunk of the state’s Muslim population. But this country is as much ours as anyone else’s,” Dr Ahmed states. The academic further adds that there should be political benchmarks for deciding questions of ingeneity.

“India got independence in 1947, the Constitution came into effect in 1952. Why can that not be the cut off?,” he asks. 

Political analyst and researcher Nazimuddin Siddiqui also points out that the term “Bengali-speaking Muslim” itself is a misnomer. “There is nothing called a Bengali-speaking Muslim. It is a term that the ethno-nationalists use to reinforce the ‘outsider’ image of the Assamese Muslims. Most of these communities that are called Bengali do not speak original Bengali. All communities in Assam, including Miyas, have accepted Assamese as their mother tongue,” he states.

Moreover, the divisions between the Muslim communities are politically fraught and on ground, the condition of one minority community is no better than any other. Ultimately, the discriminatory agenda of the ruling party across the country works in Assam as well and also against these communities that are termed indigenous, says Siddique. “For instance, beef ban would affect all Muslims, including indigenous. So will laws against ‘love jihad’. Will they allow indigenous Muslims to marry Hindus? No. Now they have issued a new policy which prevents Muslims from purchasing land from Hindus. Islamophobia affects all Muslim communities, irrespective of whether they have an ‘indigenous’ tag,” he says.

Culture wars

Once a term used as a derogatory moniker to denote the people, the Miya community’s efforts – especially those of poets, artists, musicians and writers – have allowed the community to reclaim the word ‘Miya’. Incidentally, On August 31, a 31-year-old Bengali-speaking Muslim singer, Altaf Hussain, was arrested for allegedly inciting hatred against the state’s ethnic communities through a protest song he released last month. The ‘Miya Bihu’ protest song resembles a Bangladeshi protest song, asking, “Desh ta tomar baper naki? (Is this country owned by your father?). The arrest is the latest salvo in the Sarma government’s ongoing “culture wars” against the marginalised minority.

In 2022, the government had sealed a private museum in Assam’s Goalpara dedicated to showcasing the culture of the Miya community. Three persons associated with the exhibition were also arrested on terror charges. In 2019, several Miya poets including Dr Hafiz Ahmed were booked for their poetry. Dr Ahmed’s poem “Write Down I Am A Miya,” after Mahmoud Darwish's “Identity Card”, became viral on social media at the time, highlighting the injustices and discrimination faced by Miya Muslims of Assam and the valiant reclamation of a pejorative term once intended to stigmatise the community as a badge of honour.

The Miyas are a very distinct type of Muslims, he explains. The community has ritualistic similarities with rural Bangladesh and since their ancestors had converted to Islam from  Rajbongshi, Koch, Kaibarta, Namasudra and other castes and tribes, they retain some of the socio-cultural and even religious practices of the Hindu and tribal communities. He gave the example of Alpana (designs drawn on the floor with rice milk on Bengali Hindu festivals) which may not have a place in Islam, but among the Miyas, it is an important motif and drawn with zeal on festivals like Gasshi, celebrated by the community. 

Dr Ahmed claims that this time, the dominant Hindu communities of Assam have been supporting the Miya Muslims. In August, press bodies in Assam including the Journalists’ Union of Assam and the Gauhati Press Club slammed Sarma for making personal attacks on a journalist based on his religion in response to a question about hill cutting, leading to floods. The CM had initially been attacking the construction of a university, owned by a Bengali-Muslim man, as the cause for the floods, calling it “flood jihad”. 

Cases of deportation and violence against Miya Muslims nevertheless continues quietly in Upper Assam. “We have no faith in police or state. We are on our own,” one of the labourers assaulted in Charaideo said.