Guwahati: Assam’s cabinet has designated five Assamese-speaking Muslim communities – Goria, Moria, Desi, Jula and Sayyid – as “swadeshi”, a move that has been criticized. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attempted to emphasize their “Assamese” identity and separate them from the large population of “migrant” Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced the decision in a tweet on Tuesday and said it would ensure development in health, cultural identity, education, financial inclusion, skill development and empowerment of women for these groups.
in our weekly #Assam cabinetWe took several decisions related to dismantling old vehicles, identifying 5 indigenous Muslim groups, exempting ex-servicemen and their widows from property tax, promoting renewable energy, improving data access, etc. pic.twitter.com/3a56XLQfd7
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) 5 July 2022
According to the 2011 census, 34.22% of Assam’s population of 3.12 crore were Muslims.
Azizul Rahman, general secretary of a community organization that claims to represent some of these groups, told ThePrint that the Assamese Muslim community “constitutes 40 lakh. [projected] 1.35 lakh Muslims” in the state.
Just before the assembly elections in Assam last year, Sarma – then the state’s health, education and finance minister – had said that the BJP did not do so. need Votes from the “Bengali origin” Muslim community, known as “Mias”.
He had said, “These so called Mia people are very, very communal and fundamental and they are involved in many activities to distort Assamese culture and Assamese language.”
last JulyAssam government constituted The subcommittees to prepare a roadmap for “empowerment of the native Muslim population of the state”, said the chief minister, would be implemented over a period of five years.
in May this yearChief Minister cited a report One subcommittee to Say That the indigenous Muslim population does not want to “mix up” with the migrant Muslims in the state.
Discussing the party-political dimensions of the decision, editor of Sushant Talukdar Nezin The Congress and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) – an online magazine that focuses on India’s northeast – told ThePrint, “The Congress and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) have a strong support base among Muslims of East Bengal origin. There are some organizations among the Muslims of Assam who want this separation, so the BJP is using this as an opportunity.”
Some opposition parties alleged that the move would pit Muslims against each other.
“The BJP was talking about religion and caste for so long; Now they want to create division among Muslims,” said Aminul Islam, MLA of Badruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF – third largest Political parties after Congress and BJP in the state – told ThePrint.
He said that the BJP is trying to woo five Muslim groups, and added, “There is no established definition of ‘swadeshi’ in Assam, or indeed in India.”
However, Assam BJP president Bhabesh Kalita rejected the criticism and said, “It is the Congress which was thinking in terms of vote bank,” he said. “they [the five Muslim groups] Upliftment is needed. More infiltration in Assam; We need to protect indigenous Muslims.”
‘Separate identity as indigenous people’
Rehman said that all the five Muslim communities – Goria, Moria, Desi, Syed and Julha – had demanded a separate census after facing persecution in the past.
“Sometimes in our community, Goria, Moria, Desi, Syed and Julha are wrongly declared as foreigners. That’s why there is a lot of torture…but we are swadeshi.”
He said that these communities live in small villages across Assam and are politically disadvantaged.
“So, our demand was a separate census and separate identity as indigenous people,” he said.
Akhil Ranjan Dutta, head of the Department of Political Science at Gauhati University, said Assamese Muslims are a much smaller community than the Muslims of erstwhile East Bengal.
“So the trend is that they don’t want to be hostile to any government in power.”
“It was the same in Congress times also” [and it’s] Not necessarily because of differences between communities,” he said, but acknowledged that there were class differences between Assamese and Bengali Muslims.
“Indigenous Muslims or Assamese Muslims belong to an elite class, if you look at the Muslims of Upper Assam, they are educated, wealthy people,” Dutta said. [the state’s] migrants and the working class. ,
anti-immigrant discourse
Anti-immigrant discourse in Assam, which has its roots in the Assam Movement – an anti immigrant Movement in the state that lasted from 1979-85 – generally targeting Bengali speakers.
According to Talukdar, the Assamese nationalist identity was earlier primarily a linguistic identity, but the BJP is now trying to add a religious dimension to it.
“They are creating these different camps, so there is Hindu versus Muslim, Assamese versus non-Assamese. But it may also raise concerns among Bengali Hindus, where the BJP has a strong support base.”
“The bigger plan,” he said, “is to say that Bengali Muslims are posing a threat to Assamese identity.”
All Assam Minority Students’ Union (AAMSU) president Rejaul Karim Sarkar declined to comment, saying the organization would take a decision at a meeting to be held in Guwahati on Thursday.
Like AIUDF, AAMSU has strong opposition Government’s decision to recognize these groups as Swadeshi.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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