26 aug 2012
Kokrajhar: Just when it seems that the troubled parts of lower Assam would finally get back its normal routine, hopes are belied. Last evening, when a group of people were returning to their village, they were waylaid and five people lost their lives. The local administration went by the easiest option in a bureaucrat's rulebook and imposed "indefinite curfew."
People once again worrying, from the confined safety of their homes, how long will their rations last? Or the promised peace?
Two days back, I ventured out in Kokrajhar to ask the same question to Hagrama Mohillary, the chief of the Bodo Territorial Council. "Whatever Ajmal has said is not true. What happened in Chirang and Kokrajhar is the fight against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. We have no fight with our original Muslim brothers. It's not a fight between Bodos and Muslims. It is a foreigner's issue," says the reclusive chief of the Bodo Territorial Council, trying to dispel the impression that Kokrajhar witnessed communal clashes.
Bodo leaders claim the fight is between indigenous
people and migrants who have may have sneaked in from Bangladesh and
settled on government land.
To furnish their claims, the Bodo leadership is now preparing a dossier that they will submit to the Home Ministry on Monday. The document talks of encroachment of the government land in the Bodo districts.
The dossier, accessed by NDTV, says about 78,000 hectares have been encroached out of a total of 2.5 lakh hectares of land in the Bodo areas.
This is an allegation that's outrightly rejected by settlers.
35-year-old P R Ali, an inmate the Bhotgaon relief camp in Kokrajhar, says they can prove their citizenship. "We have all permanent documents. Our forefathers have lived here for generations. All this talk of Ajmal is false."
Their family, claims Ali, has been in Assam for over 5 generations.
Historically, farmers from Mymensingh district of erstwhile East Bengal use to come as cultivators and share-croppers. Large-scale migration happened during British rule in 1930s under the 'Grow More Food' campaign. Farmers from East Bengal, now Bangladesh, were considered experts in wet paddy cultivation.
Even now, economic activity drives settlement. In 2003, Bodos got themselves a territorial council and the power to build roads, schools, hospitals and other developmental work.
All this meant a sudden surge in the demand for labour and a huge supply gap, a gap that was met by the Bengali-speaking settlers who had already proven themselves as efficient daily wage labourers, masons, carpenters, rickshaw pullers apart from vegetable growers.
With increasing economic prosperity comes political status. The settlers have now started demanding better political status, an idea that's made minority leader Badruddin Ajmal, an important rallying point.
Muqaddas Abdul Bhuiyan had come to visit his in-laws but got caught in the web of violence and displacement. Many of us including me view the current conflict through fixed stereotypes: ethnic clash with communal overtones, anti-foreigner movement and so on.
"This is not about Hindu-Muslim sir. We hear that our numbers have gone up and the Bodos are coming down. That's why we are being targeted. And they are making this a foreigner issue to take along the other communities like Rabha, Santhals, Assamese," says Bhuiyan.
His explanation made perfect sense to me: Bodos got their territorial council under the 6th schedule of the constitution. Except police, they control all major developmental rights including land rights in the Bodoland Territorial Administered Districts (BTAD).And the basis for BTAD was their dominance, both political as well as numerical.
But according to the estimates of the Bodo leadership, these numbers are changing. A Bodo leader of the ruling party, Bodo People's Front, showed me an estimate that he claims has been drawn up by the local police. "Bengali-speaking settlers have increased from 15 per cent to 25 per cent between 2001 and 2012. And for the same period, Bodos have come down from 40 per cent to 30 per cent," said the leader who did not want to be quoted.
I had no way of verifying these figures but knew that such a discourse will certainly add to the angst and fear among locals that there has been a silent invasion. Some though still can't believe the hostility.
Gopinath Basumatary, a farmer in Bamungaon village near the Dhubri, Ajmal's constituency, says: "We never thought we would be attacked. We used to live in great harmony."
But as attacks and counter attacks go on in these troubled parts, once again the state is witnessing revival of migration politics. For nearly 40 years, the dominant theme in Assam politics has been illegal immigration. The late 70s and early 80s saw the Assam agitation and the anti-foreigner movement resulting in the Assam Accord of 1985. Many believe though that the core issue has not yet been addressed. Now, the recent events have rekindled the debate.
Ground Zero report: In Kokrajhar, the foreigner debate revisited?
Kokrajhar: Just when it seems that the troubled parts of lower Assam would finally get back its normal routine, hopes are belied. Last evening, when a group of people were returning to their village, they were waylaid and five people lost their lives. The local administration went by the easiest option in a bureaucrat's rulebook and imposed "indefinite curfew."
People once again worrying, from the confined safety of their homes, how long will their rations last? Or the promised peace?
Two days back, I ventured out in Kokrajhar to ask the same question to Hagrama Mohillary, the chief of the Bodo Territorial Council. "Whatever Ajmal has said is not true. What happened in Chirang and Kokrajhar is the fight against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. We have no fight with our original Muslim brothers. It's not a fight between Bodos and Muslims. It is a foreigner's issue," says the reclusive chief of the Bodo Territorial Council, trying to dispel the impression that Kokrajhar witnessed communal clashes.
To furnish their claims, the Bodo leadership is now preparing a dossier that they will submit to the Home Ministry on Monday. The document talks of encroachment of the government land in the Bodo districts.
The dossier, accessed by NDTV, says about 78,000 hectares have been encroached out of a total of 2.5 lakh hectares of land in the Bodo areas.
This is an allegation that's outrightly rejected by settlers.
35-year-old P R Ali, an inmate the Bhotgaon relief camp in Kokrajhar, says they can prove their citizenship. "We have all permanent documents. Our forefathers have lived here for generations. All this talk of Ajmal is false."
Their family, claims Ali, has been in Assam for over 5 generations.
Historically, farmers from Mymensingh district of erstwhile East Bengal use to come as cultivators and share-croppers. Large-scale migration happened during British rule in 1930s under the 'Grow More Food' campaign. Farmers from East Bengal, now Bangladesh, were considered experts in wet paddy cultivation.
Even now, economic activity drives settlement. In 2003, Bodos got themselves a territorial council and the power to build roads, schools, hospitals and other developmental work.
All this meant a sudden surge in the demand for labour and a huge supply gap, a gap that was met by the Bengali-speaking settlers who had already proven themselves as efficient daily wage labourers, masons, carpenters, rickshaw pullers apart from vegetable growers.
With increasing economic prosperity comes political status. The settlers have now started demanding better political status, an idea that's made minority leader Badruddin Ajmal, an important rallying point.
Muqaddas Abdul Bhuiyan had come to visit his in-laws but got caught in the web of violence and displacement. Many of us including me view the current conflict through fixed stereotypes: ethnic clash with communal overtones, anti-foreigner movement and so on.
"This is not about Hindu-Muslim sir. We hear that our numbers have gone up and the Bodos are coming down. That's why we are being targeted. And they are making this a foreigner issue to take along the other communities like Rabha, Santhals, Assamese," says Bhuiyan.
His explanation made perfect sense to me: Bodos got their territorial council under the 6th schedule of the constitution. Except police, they control all major developmental rights including land rights in the Bodoland Territorial Administered Districts (BTAD).And the basis for BTAD was their dominance, both political as well as numerical.
But according to the estimates of the Bodo leadership, these numbers are changing. A Bodo leader of the ruling party, Bodo People's Front, showed me an estimate that he claims has been drawn up by the local police. "Bengali-speaking settlers have increased from 15 per cent to 25 per cent between 2001 and 2012. And for the same period, Bodos have come down from 40 per cent to 30 per cent," said the leader who did not want to be quoted.
I had no way of verifying these figures but knew that such a discourse will certainly add to the angst and fear among locals that there has been a silent invasion. Some though still can't believe the hostility.
Gopinath Basumatary, a farmer in Bamungaon village near the Dhubri, Ajmal's constituency, says: "We never thought we would be attacked. We used to live in great harmony."
But as attacks and counter attacks go on in these troubled parts, once again the state is witnessing revival of migration politics. For nearly 40 years, the dominant theme in Assam politics has been illegal immigration. The late 70s and early 80s saw the Assam agitation and the anti-foreigner movement resulting in the Assam Accord of 1985. Many believe though that the core issue has not yet been addressed. Now, the recent events have rekindled the debate.
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