Assam: The politics of eviction

On a September morning, Waqil Hussain sits on the financial institution of a small stream of the Brahmaputra river. It’s a scorcher of a day and the mild breeze fails to carry reduction to the 18-year-old who rests underneath a tree, consumed by the information on Assamese information channels taking part in on his smartphone as he tries to make sense of the occasions of the previous week. Hussain, a carpenter’s assistant, is among the many many in Dholpur village within the Sipajhar space of Assam’s Darrang district who misplaced their houses in an eviction drive began by the state authorities on September 20.

Dholpur, a sandbar sandwiched between two streams of the Brahmaputra, lies 70 km northeast of Guwahati. Hussain’s house was simply 100 metres away from the place he sits now. And although he and his fellow villagers are, as instructed, tenting in non permanent tin buildings simply throughout the stream, {the teenager} typically crosses over to spend time close to his misplaced “home”. There was little resistance from Dholpur’s residents on the time of eviction, which is why Hussain scours the information, determined to know what went fallacious on September 23—the fourth day of the eviction—when the police opened hearth, killing two villagers, together with a 12-year-old boy.Hussain is just not alone. As a stunning video of policemen and a government-appointed photographer mercilessly thrashing a person after he was shot down went viral, the nation took to social media in outrage. The man, Moinul Haque, refusing to adjust to the eviction orders, had charged on the group of policemen with a bamboo stick. The police not solely shot him, however continued to kick him even whereas his corpse was being dragged away.Critics have deemed it a mirrored image of a systemic spiritual persecution initiated by the chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma-led BJP authorities—the Dholpur evictees have been Bangla-speaking Muslims of immigrant origin. The authorities, although, has alleged involvement of third events, together with the Popular Front of India (PFI), a controversial militant Muslim organisation, in instigating locals and derailing the eviction course of. The fact, nonetheless, lies within the advanced historical past of land encroachment in Assam, additional sophisticated by unlawful immigration and erosion by rivers.A History Of EncroachmentAccording to the state authorities, 6,652 sq. km (double the dimensions of Goa) of presidency land and 22 per cent or 3,878.8 sq. km (nearly thrice the dimensions of Delhi) of Assam’s whole forest land of 17,393 sq. km is underneath encroachment. Assam’s downside of land encroachment has develop into a political difficulty since it’s typically intertwined with the matter of unlawful immigration from Bangladesh. In truth, Assam’s six-year-long agitation towards unlawful immigration was triggered by the detection of 45,000 unlawful names within the electoral rolls of the Mangaldoi Lok Sabha constituency the place Dholpur, the epicentre of the present battle, is situated. The agitation had resulted in 1985 with the Assam Accord, which acknowledged that those that had come to Assam from Bangladesh earlier than 1971 can be thought of authorized Indian residents. Though many of those Bangla-speaking immigrants have lived in Assam for generations, the extensively held notion throughout the state is that encroachment in Assam has been pushed by post-1971 immigrants. This notion received an official stamp in 2017, when an interim report of a six-member committee for the safety of land rights of Assam’s indigenous individuals acknowledged that unlawful Bangladeshi immigrants dominated in as many as 15 of the state’s 33 districts. ‘Illegal Bangladeshis descend on the land like an army of marauding invaders…set up illegal villages, mostly on the char lands overnight…with the tacit, if not active, connivance and encouragement of corrupt government officers as also with abetment of communal political leaders,’ learn the report. It added that the id of as many as 18 Satras (Vaishnavite monasteries) was underneath risk following large-scale encroachment by unlawful Bangladeshi migrants.Even the up to date National Register of Citizens (NRC) of 2019 did not resolve the difficulty. “That all encroachers are illegal immigrants is a flawed notion,” says Akhil Ranjan Dutta, head of the political science division at Gauhati University. “However, encroachment is a reality and all necessary action should be taken with a humanitarian and pragmatic approach.” When INDIA TODAY visited Dholpur, a number of evictees flaunted their Aadhaar and voter ID playing cards as proof of everlasting residency, however admitted that a few of them had been excluded from the NRC. Others whipped out land paperwork claiming they’d purchased land and paid income taxes, however the papers have been really of penalties imposed by the administration for illegally utilizing government-owned skilled grazing reserves (PGR), the place they’ve settled. “I don’t understand these official documents. All I can say is that I bought land in Dholpur for Rs 10,000 in 2005,” says Ashraf, 55. The day by day wage earner claims to have migrated from Aparia, a sandbar 10 km away.While most immigrants typically settle in sandbars alongside rivers, what complicates the difficulty additional is that they typically lose their land to erosion and floods and shift elsewhere. As per authorities information, Assam has misplaced 4,200 sq. km of land to erosion since Independence.The occupation of grazing land led a number of dairy cooperative societies to complain. When an RTI response discovered that state-owned village grazing reserve (VGR) and PGR over 77,420 bigha, situated within the villages of Phuhuratoli, Dholpur, Kuruwa, Kholihoi and Baznapathar underneath Sipajhar income circle, had been encroached upon, indigenous inhabitants, principally Assamese-speaking Hindus, Muslims and Nepalis, have been enraged. Two years later, Kobad Ali, president, Dakhsin Mangaldai Gowala Santha, an organisation of milk producers, filed a case within the Mangaldai district court docket looking for eviction of the unlawful occupants. Similarly, in 2019, the Dakshin Kamrup Siyalmara Dugdha Samabay Committee, a cooperative physique of dairy farmers, complained that unlawful settlers had encroached upon 900 bigha of land in Mohmardiya char, underneath Kamrup district’s Palashbari income circle. A authorities probe discovered that round 400 bigha of PGR land was underneath unlawful cultivation by encroachers.Locals have additionally complained of elevated legal actions due to encroachers. In 2017, the homicide of Ananda Das of Kuruwa village close to Dholpur by suspected encroachers led to the eviction of 60 households. Another particular person, Lalit Das, from the identical village, went lacking in 2020. “We lost grazing lands. They steal our buffaloes. Our daughters cannot move around freely for fear of abduction and sexual assault by encroachers,” says Jeherul Islam, 52, a dairy farmer in Sanowa village, adjoining to Dholpur.Assam recorded 26 circumstances of gangrape and murders in 2020 (the third highest within the nation) and police sources declare that every one 26 circumstances occurred in districts with an unusually excessive progress fee of Muslims. Over 95 per cent of Assam’s Muslim inhabitants is of immigrant origin and most stay in abject poverty and on the margins of society. “Socio-economic backwardness, coupled with external factors like political patronage, breed criminality in certain areas populated by Muslims of immigrant origin,” says Dr Joyanta Borbora, professor of sociology in Dibrugarh University, who specialises in criminology. “The solution is not just in legal action but in providing development and creating an atmosphere of assimilation.”Dholpur falls in Darrang district, one of many 9 Muslim majority districts in Assam which have proven the next annual inhabitants progress than the state’s common 1.7 per cent. High inhabitants progress and erosion haven’t solely trapped them in a vicious cycle of poverty but in addition resulted in a starvation for land, typically concentrating on forest areas and vacant land of non secular establishments. This breeds battle with the natives. For occasion, the 2012 ethnic violence in Kokrajhar, which killed practically 100 individuals, was triggered by an try to make use of a reserved forest as graveyard, which the Bodo tribal individuals resented.In 2012, a PIL was filed demanding the eviction of “illegal immigrants” from Kaziranga. There was additionally a requirement to free the land belonging to the Batadrava than (Vaishnavite monastery) in Nagaon, the birthplace of Srimanta Sankardeva, the sixteenth century ascetic of non secular, cultural and social significance to the Assamese. However, the earlier governments, principally run by the Congress, barely took any motion.The BJP, sensing the anger among the many indigenous communities, made eviction of encroachers a ballot promise—to guard jati (group), mati (land) and bheti (house). As the primary BJP authorities got here to energy in 2016, the then chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal performed a number of eviction drives on the Kaziranga National Park, Manas National Park, Mayong in Morigaon district, Batadrava than, and Sipajhar. It’s a unique matter that the evictions have been necessitated by a Gauhati High Court order in October 9, 2015, in response to the PIL in 2012.Since Sarma took oath in May, greater than 300 households—all Bangla-speaking Muslims—have been evicted from areas like Lanka in Hojai district, Jamugurihat in Sonitpur district and Patharkandi in Karimganj district.What Went Wrong In Dholpur?Dholpur has been the positioning of the biggest eviction drive, involving 77,420 bighas of land. Critics really feel Dholur had simply what the BJP wanted to mix Assam’s anger towards unlawful immigration with Hindu nationalism—a Shiva temple. “The government’s intention is to persecute the Muslims and take political mileage from it,” says Ainuddin Ahmed, advisor, All Assam Minority Students’ Union.In June, Sarma supervised the eviction of 49 households illegally settled on 180 bighas of land belonging to the Dholpur Shiva Temple. In July, the state finances earmarked Rs 9.6 crore for an “agriculture project” to advertise afforestation and agriculture actions within the 77,420 bighas of the encroached land. On the request of the agriculture division, the district administration declared the realm “community agricultural land”. Over 1,000 households have been evicted from round 10,000 bighas of presidency land in Dholpur.While opposition events, together with the Congress and the All-India United Democratic Front, and social teams declare the police brutalities of September 23 resulted from the BJP’s coverage of persecution of Muslims, Sarma hints on the position of exterior forces behind the violence. “On September 22, in the name of food for evicted families, the PFI visited the site,” Sarma stated. While asserting a judicial probe into the incident, he claimed a bunch of individuals raised Rs 28 lakh from the villagers promising them safety from eviction and named six people, together with a university trainer. Two of them have been arrested.Police officers concerned within the operation declare the villagers attacked them with machetes, bricks and sticks, forming a “bow-like” constellation. When the police fired teargas shells, the villagers set heaps of jute on hearth to neutralise its results. “These actions cannot be of the villagers. They were taught by external elements,” says Sushanta Biswa Sarma, Darrang SP.“We cut bamboos to make various things, so we often have a machete in our hand. That doesn’t mean we were attacking them,” says Rustom Ali, 26, who claims his grandfather got here to Dholpur 70 years in the past, however doesn’t have any paperwork to substantiate the declare. While talking to INDIA TODAY, a number of villagers admitted that a few of them had reacted aggressively to policemen who had assaulted a 16-year-old lady unprovoked, breaking her left arm. Some others, like Tajimuddin, 48, and Sukman Ali, 60, accepted they have been requested to donate to “fight for protection of their land and home”. Many others denied paying cash to anybody.What Happens Next?A per the Prabajan Virodhi Manch, an anti-influx discussion board led by SC advocate Upamanyu Hazarika, eviction drives have occurred earlier than in Dholpur, however encroachers both return or seize land in different areas. Even after the latest drive, encroachers have merely been moved throughout the stream, an space that’s a part of the 77,420 bighas of presidency land. However, a number of officers say that as a result of erosion, the overall space has shrunk to 35,000 bighas, so although the ten,000 bighas has been cleared, 25,000 bighas stay open to encroachment.Sarma has introduced that his authorities will present six bighas every to the genuinely landless evictees. “Many of them own massive tracts of land in areas such as Barpeta and Dhubri,” says Sarma. To streamline land information, introduce digital interface and rid the income division of unlawful land dealings, his authorities has launched an formidable ‘Mission Basundhara’ scheme, beginning October 2. In September, greater than 500 land brokers have been arrested in a clean-up train.While the ultimate rehabilitation may even see some procedural delay, Hussain has one other query: Why can’t his father domesticate the identical land the place government-backed tilling started merely two days after they have been thrown out? Nobody is grazing cattle there anymore.