Image: Indian Express

On May 25, 2018, the State Coordinator of the NRC issued another order stating that, “With reference to the subject cited above and in continuation with the letter under reference, it is hereby clarified that recording of decision as ‘Hold’ by Local Registrar of Citizen Registration (LRCRs) for any such person, namely , brothers , sisters and other family members of Declared Foreigners (DF) will be taken only after receipt of information from respective SP(Border) that reference has been made of such person to the Foreigners Tribunals.”
The entire order may be viewed here:

 
While in some way this tweaking of the earlier May 2, 2018 order is welcome, the constant shifting of the goal post (a regular and questionable practice over the past months), has again generated confusion. The NRC, under Supreme Court supervision has been entrusted with responsibility of finalising the list of citizens of nearly 3.29 crores people of Assam. But this constant and almost arbitrary change of stands has added to confusion and fear psychosis among the people. On the ground the Superintendent of Police (Border) in some districts have already started collecting names of siblings and family members of Declared Foreigners without any investigation whatsoever.
 

Immediate Background

On May 2, 2018 the State Coordinator of the NRC issued an order to all Deputy Commissioners in all districts of Assam asking to keep the names of brothers, sisters and other family members of Declared Foreigners (DF) ‘pending’. This order (that may be read here) issued by the State Coordinator of NRC to all Deputy Commissioner and District Registrar of Citizen Registration (DRCR) of all districts states that,
 

“As per this Judgement, the Superintendent of Police (B) are required to make references of such persons, namely, brothers, sisters and other family members of Declared Foreigners (DF) to the Foreigners Tribunals and their names are accordingly not be included in the NRC until finalisation of such references. LRCRs will have to keep eligibility status of all such persons pending till decision on their Indian Citizenship is confirmed by the concerned Foreigners Tribunal similar to the procedure for D-voters. As such LRCRs will have to record their decisions as “Hold” with LRCR Remarks recorded as “DFS”. DFS will mean Siblings and other Family Members of Declared Foreigners (DFs).”
 

In plain words, this order, that misrepresents the efforts underway, means that if one person from a family has been declared a “foreigner” by a Foreigners Tribunal, the names of his siblings and other family members will not feature in the NRC!

A three Judge bench of Hon’ble Gauhati High Court had earlier issued  guidelines on how to send Reference cases to the Foreigners Tribunal. The High Court in the State of Assam vs Moslem Mondal ha specified that,
 

“Fair investigation and fair trial being the basic fundamental/human right of a person, which are concomitant to preservation of the fundamental right of a person under Article 21 of the Constitution, there has to be a fair and proper investigation by the investigating agency before making a reference to the Tribunal. In such investigation the attempt has to be made to find out the person against whom the investigation is made, so that the person concerned is given the opportunity to demonstrate at that stage itself that he is not a foreigner.”
 

The Gauhati High Court’s Order further states that,
 

“The reference by the referral authority also cannot be mechanical. The referral authority has to apply his mind on the materials collected by the investigating officer during investigation and make the reference on being satisfied that there are grounds for making such reference. The referral authority, however, need not pass a detailed order recording his satisfaction. An order agreeing with the investigation would suffice. The referral authority also, while making the reference, shall produce all the materials collected during investigation before the Tribunal, as the Tribunal is required prima facie to satisfy itself about the existence of the main grounds before issuing the notice to the proceedee.”
 

The Superintendent of Police (B) comes under the Home Ministry and presently is under the BJP-ruled government of Assam.  This is a government which rode to power spewing venom against Muslims, even stating during the election campaign, that 35 constituencies are dominated by Bangladeshi Muslims!

The prevailing fear among the minorities  is that this government –disregarding Supreme Court directives, even subverting them — will pressurise all local administrative authorities presently under them to bend the rule, disregard the above mentioned judgement of the  Gauhati High Court and send more cases under ‘Reference Cases’ without any investigation whatsoever. That is exactly what is happening right now.

There is a fear and awful chance that all siblings and family members of declared foreigners against whom fresh References are being sent will not find their names in the NRC following directions of the Order dated May 25, 2018.
 
Aman Wadud is a lawyer based in Guwahati
 

About the NRC

The National Register for Citizens (NRC), a record of ‘legitimate’ Indian citizens living in Assam, is being updated for the first time since 1951. The ostensible objective is to weed out ‘Illegal Bangladeshi immigrants’. However, the numbers tell a chilling story… one of a conspiracy of ‘othering’ and exclusion. 3.29 crore people from 68.27 lakh families in Assam have submitted over 6.5 crore documents with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to prove their Indian citizenship. But the NRC recently published a list of only 1.9 crores as legal citizens.

A huge number of 1.39 crore Assamese, almost all Muslim, are under threat of having their legitimate citizenship revoked. CJP believes this is discriminatory. Join us and raise your voice against this injustice. Sign our Petition NOW!

Related:

Fear grips Assam as lakhs of Indians could be dropped from NRC
Over 2 million Indians could be excluded from NRC in Assam
What is it like to be stateless?
NRC leads to ‘othering’ of minorities in Assam
 

The post Confusion in Assam: Border Police prepare list of “foreigner’s” families despite NRC clarification appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In a particularly dangerous twist to the citizenship controversy in Assam, lakhs of Indians could lose their legitimate citizenship when their names are excluded from the National Register of Citizens (NRC). A new order issued by the NRC authorities could lead to the exclusion of even legitimate Indian citizens from the NRC if they are related to people designated as Declared Foreigners (DF). An estimated 2 million stand to be affected by this order alone! Aman Wadud a Guwahati based lawyer, pens this exclusive blog for us.

On May 2, 2018 the State Coordinator of the NRC issued an order to all Deputy Commissioners of respective districts of Assam asking to keep the names of brothers, sisters and other family members of Declared Foreigners (DF) pending. If the NRC State Coordinator’s order dated May 2, 2017 is followed in letter and spirit, it will ensure more than two million names of Indian citizens are dropped from the NRC. The order issued by the State Coordinator of NRC to all Deputy Commissioners and DRCR of all districts states that,
 

“As per this Judgement, the Superintendent of Police (B) are required to make references of such persons, namely, brothers, sisters and other family members of Declared Foreigners (DF) to the Foreigners Tribunals and their names are accordingly not be included in the NRC until finalisation of such references. LRCRs will have to keep eligibility status of all such persons pending till decision on their Indian Citizenship is confirmed by the concerned Foreigners Tribunal similar to the procedure for D-voters. As such LRCRs will have to record their decisions as “Hold” with LRCR Remarks recorded as “DFS”. DFS will mean Siblings  and other Family Members of Declared Foreigners (DFs).”

In other words if one person from a family has been declared a “foreigner” by a Foreigners Tribunal, the names of his siblings and other family members will not feature in the NRC.
The Order may be read here:

A judgement of the Hon’ble Gauhati Court dated a year ago, May 2, 2017 doubted citizenship of siblings and other family members of a person already declared as “foreigner” by the Foreigners Tribunal. The Hon’ble Gauhati High Court in WP(C) 360/2017 stated that,
 

“Once a proceedee is declared to be a foreigner it would only be a logical corollary to such declaration that his brothers, sisters and other family members would also b e foreigners. Therefore, it becomes the duty of the jurisdictional Superintendent of Police (B) to cause enquiry in respect of the brothers, sisters and other family members of the declared foreigners and thereafter, to make a reference to the competent Foreigners’ Tribunal against such brothers, sisters and other family members. As a matter of fact, State may issue general direction to all the Superintendents of Police (Border) to initiate follow up steps as above.”

No where in this judgement did the Hon’ble High Court direct the State Coordinator of NRC to drop names of brothers, sisters and other family members of the declared foreigners from the NRC.

This Order of the High Court may be read here. 
 

NRC is a process created to differentiate between citizens & foreigners, so why can’t NRC give everyone a fair chance to prove their citizenship through its very stringent and scientific process? Or does the NRC not trust its own system?

Since 1985, around one lakh (1,00,000) people have been declared as foreigners. Approximately 20,000 orders of Tribunal (mostly ex parte, that is issued without hearing both sides) have been set aside by different judicial forums. However, there are still 80 thousand declared “foreigners”. Let’s assume, on an average a so-called “foreigner” has 4 siblings. That makes a total of three lakh twenty thousand (3,20,000) siblings. Along with the declared “foreigners”, this makes up a total of four lakh (4,00,000) people. The family members of those 4 lakh people will include their children and grandchildren. On an average at least 6 family members of each person (very liberal estimate considering higher fertility rate among poor and illiterate people who have been declared as“foreigners”) thus it makes over two million people!
 

Timing of the Order

Now let us examine the timing of the order. On May 2, 2018, exactly a year after the High Court Order, the State Coordinator of the NRC asked the executing authorities to keep the names of siblings and other family members of a declared “foreigner” as pending. The State coordinator of NRC passed this order at a time when the complete list is scheduled to be made public in a few days. Was the order passed at the final moment to ensure no one can approach Supreme Court challenging the order dated May 2, 2018 before the NRC authorities comes up with its finalised list? Moreover, the Supreme Court’s summer vacation started on May 18, 2018. It was on May 8, 2018 that the bench of the Supreme Court (SC) monitoring the NRC heard the matter. Although the State coordinator of NRC normally always remains present before the SC when the bench sits for monitoring the NRC process, the State coordinator of NRC didn’t make any mention about his order dated 02-05-2018 before the Supreme Court monitoring bench. Shouldn’t the State Coordinator of NRC inform the Supreme Court Bench about his order, which will arbitrarily drop names of lakhs of genuine Indian citizens from the final NRC?

The present BJP government in Assam has been cornered and on the defensive around the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016, which promises to grant citizenship to ‘illegal’ immigrants based on religion. The leadership of the party in power had no answers to the mounting protests around the Bill. Soon after the May 2, 2018 order came to light however, state leaders of the BJP have begun confidently stating that ‘Assam will know real enemy after NRC list comes out.’ BJP govt also stated that they will express their views only after the NRC is out. Majority people declared as “foreigner” are poor Muslims,  the BJP leaders are aware that this arbitrary order will affect mostly Muslim families, post the order dated May 2, 2018 the confidence of BJP has soared like never before, as if they have succeeded in punching the blow they always wanted. A free and fair NRC would have left the BJP and other vested interested parties no place to hide their face; since the decade-long propaganda of the party would stand exposed.

The NRC is being updated as per provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and other Rules. The last order dated May 2, 2018 is completely contradictory to Citizenship Act 1955. Sec 3 (1)(a) of the Citizenship Act states that every person born in India on or after the 26th day of January, 1950, but before the 1st day of July, 1987 shall be a citizen of India by birth. Now even if a person is declared as “foreigner”, his siblings might have born in India before the 1st day of July, 1987, which makes them a citizen of India by birth. Moreover, say a person actually illegally infiltrated in to India post March 25, 1971 and finally declared a “foreigner” by Tribunal, his siblings might have entered before the cut-off date as per sec 6A of the Citizenship Act,1955, that does not make them a foreigner. There are many cases where one member of a family is declared as “foreigner” and the same Tribunal has declared their siblings as Indian citizens. So keeping the names of siblings of so-called “foreigners” pending in the NRC is illegal and contradictory to relevant statutes. This will only ensure unimaginable harassment of Indian citizens and make them stateless without any prior investigation whatsoever.

The Gauhati High Court vide order judgement May 2, 2017 has asked the jurisdictional Superintendent of Police (B) to enquire into the status of the brothers, sisters and other family members of the declared foreigners and thereafter, to make a reference to the competent Foreigners’ Tribunal. It is only logical that a trial should be preceded by a fair investigation. The Supreme Court and even the Gauhati High Court in a catena of judgements have stated that fair investigation is part and parcel of fundamental rights. The May 2, 2017 judgement of the Hon’ble Gauhati High Court mentions about an enquiry by jurisdictional Superintendent of Police (B) before sending references to the Tribunal. If the jurisdictional Superintendent of Police (B) has already made an enquiry and the case is before the Foreigners Tribunal it would have been logical on the part of the State coordinator NRC to ask its executing authorities to keep those names pending till the reference is disposed off by the Foreigners’ Tribunal. But here the jurisdictional Superintendent of Police (B) did not even initiate any enquiry against siblings and other family members of a “foreigner”, thus without any enquiry and reference to Foreigners Tribunal, their names will not feature in the NRC till their citizenship is not confirmed by the Tribunal. Where is the fundamental right to a fair investigation before sending the cases to Foreigners Tribunal for a fair trial?

The order dated May 2, 2018 also equates the siblings and family members of declared “foreigners” with D-voters aka “doubtful voters”. The Election commission of India in 1997 launched a scrutiny of voters’ list. If the Commission came across any voter whose citizenship documents appeared to be inadequate, the Commission marked them as ‘D’ voter or ‘Doubtful’ voter. Although the entire process is arbitrary but at least the Election Commission shows that there has been an investigation before marking a person as doubtful voter. How can NRC equate doubtful voters with siblings and family members of a declared “foreigner” against whom no enquiry has been done ?

If names of hundreds of thousands of citizens are actually dropped after the May 2, 2018 order of the State coordinator NRC, they will have to go through trial to prove their citizenship before Foreigners Tribunal. Earlier only cases “investigated” by the Election Commission and Assam border police were ever referred to the Foreigners Tribunal. It is no surprise why authorities want to send these hundreds of thousands of cases for trial before the Tribunal.
 

Who are these “foreigners”?

The Assam Border Police Organisation has its presence in all Police stations of Assam. Ideally its job is to survey areas under its jurisdiction. If they come across any “illegal immigrant” the Border Police is expected to ask for citizenship documents and give reasonable time to submit such documents. If such people cannot provide citizenship documents, the Border Police is empowered to refer such cases (similar to a Charge sheet) to the Foreigners’ Tribunal. But very often the Border Police randomly picks names of people from voters’ list and frames them as “illegal immigrants” without any investigation. They just record that they approached the concerned person and he failed to show any citizenship document. In many cases the Border Police approach poor and illiterate citizens, mostly daily wage labourers, rickshawallas , and even beggars; take their thumb impression on blank paper, prepare a case alleging such people to be “illegal immigrants” and refer the case to the Foreigners’ Tribunal.

The Election commission of India in 1997 launched a scrutiny of voters’ list. If the Commission came across any voter whose citizenship documents appeared to be inadequate, the Commission marked them as ‘D’ voter or ‘Doubtful’ voter. The ‘D’ voters cannot vote; they are disenfranchised. They were also deprived of benefits of the Public Distribution System. But significantly, the Election Commission framed citizens as ‘doubtful’ voters arbitrarily and randomly without meeting them and without any investigation whatsoever!

The ‘D’ from the voters’ list can be removed if the Foreigners Tribunal hold such people as Indian citizens after a full-fledged trial. The Election Commission sends such ‘D’ voter cases to the Superintendent of Police (Border) of respective districts, who refer the cases to the Foreigners Tribunal for its opinion on status of citizenship of the so called ‘D’ voter. The Foreigners Tribunal send notice to the concerned person to appear before it with citizenship documents and prove his citizenship. Earlier most people who appeared before the Foreigners’ Tribunal have been held as Indian citizens. But after BJP came to power there is surprising change in the trend.

The Foreigners Tribunals frequently hold people as “foreigners” because of minor anomalies of name and age in voters’ lists and other citizenship documents, or for not mentioning certain facts in their written statement etc. Mostly people have been held “foreigners” on technical grounds and because they did not have competent legal support. In many cases multiple notices are sent to members of same family. There are cases of different members of the same family getting declared as Indian citizen and ‘foreigner’ based on the same set of documents. Many people, who have proved their citizenship once, have received notices again from Foreigners Tribunal to prove their citizenship. Even people from UP and Bihar are also being held as “foreigners” or “Bangladeshis”!

Till December 2016, 80,194 people were declared foreigners, out of which 26,026 people were declared “foreigners” by ex parte order as under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, the burden of proof is on the accused to prove citizenship. The hard truth remains- just because a person is declared as “foreigner” by the Foreigners’ Tribunal doesn’t necessarily mean they illegally entered India after March 25, 1971. It only means they have failed to prove citizenship because the Foreigners’ Tribunal declare a person a “foreigner” because of discrepancy, often minor, of age and spelling errors in their name or name in the documents of parents or grand parents through whom they claim citizenship, and also for not mentioning certain facts in the pleadings. At the end of the day Indian citizens are being declared as “foreigner” on hyper technical grounds.

After the BJP came to power, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal met all Foreigners’ Tribunal members and said that the Tribunal members had got a golden opportunity to work for a national cause and they should not let go of such an opportunity, though the Chief Minister meeting members of a judicial body is ultra vires to Article 50 of the Constitution of India.

The services of these judicial officers are on contractual basis for two years or are extended from time to time on need and performance basis. On June 21, 2017, the state government showed the door to 19 members of the Foreigners Tribunals for their “under-performance” over the last two years. Further, the home department has also issued strict warning to 15 more members of the Foreigners’ Tribunal asking them to improve their efficacy. The 19 Tribunal members approached the Hon’ble Gauhati High Court. By its judgment dated October 22, 2017, the  Gauhati High Court has set aside the termination and stated that the assessment of the performance can not be done by the government and the Gauhati Court should asses the performance of the members of the Foreigners Tribunal. Lawyers who regularly appeared before these 19 members say that they were judicious in their approach and were holding people as Indian citizens if they had proper documents. So, basically the BJP government was annoyed with the fact that these 19 Tribunal members were not declaring Indian citizens to be “foreigners”. Under the BJP rule, results of Foreigners Tribunal have seen a surprising change. Till December 2016, 80,194 people had been declared as foreigners since 1985, but the number increased to 93,628 by November 2017. In just eleven months, 13,434 people have been declared as “foreigners”. To date, the number must have crossed one lakh.

Ask any lawyer who appears before Foreigners Tribunal regularly, and they will tell you how the attitude of the Tribunal has changed over the past one year. The pressure on the Tribunal members has become very apparent. There are one hundred Tribunals across Assam. The Hon’ble Supreme Court has increased the number of Tribunal from 36 to 100 to detect foreigners and not to declare Indian citizens as foreigners. Most tragically, many Indian citizens are being declared as foreigners making them stateless. The people whose names do not appear in the NRC will have to get their name cleared from Foreigners’ Tribunal after a full fledged trial. If people are continued to be declared as “foreigner” for ridiculously minor and common anomalies in their documents, most of the people will fail the acid test to prove their citizenship.

All this while, people had great hope because the updating of the NRC is being monitored by the Hon’ble Supreme Court. The process of updating the NRC is not faulty. If a free and fair NRC is published, following Supreme Court’s orders and judgment by letter and spirit, no Indian citizen’s name will be dropped. But the May 2, 2018 order by the State Coordinator of NRC will deprive free and fair chance to the siblings and other family members of a declared “foreigner” to prove their citizenship through NRC. The result will be humanitarian crisis of massive proportions. This will only create more problems than it solves.
 

About the NRC

The National Register for Citizens (NRC), a record of ‘legitimate’ Indian citizens living in Assam, is being updated for the first time since 1951. The ostensible objective is to weed out ‘Illegal Bangladeshi immigrants’. However, the numbers tell a chilling story… one of a conspiracy of ‘othering’ and exclusion. 3.29 crore people from 68.27 lakh families in Assam have submitted over 6.5 crore documents with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to prove their Indian citizenship. But the NRC recently published a list of only 1.9 crores as legal citizens.

A huge number of 1.39 crore Assamese, almost all Muslim, are under threat of having their legitimate citizenship revoked. CJP believes this is discriminatory. Join us and raise your voice against this injustice. Sign our Petition NOW!

Aman Wadud is a Lawyer based in Guwahati 

Also Read:

What is it like to be stateless?
NRC leads to ‘othering’ of minorities in Assam
Brahma Committee redefines ‘indigenous’ people in Assam
 

The post Over 2 million Indians could be excluded from NRC in Assam! appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The special NIA court, Guwahati, on July 8, 2016, sentenced Pradip Brahma for life imprisonment in the Balapara mass murder case. On May 1, 2014, 7 Muslims were gunned down by allegedly terrorists belonging to the NDFB (National Democratic Front of Bodoland) at Balapara under Gossaigaon Police Station, Kokrajhar.  The Special NIA Court, Guwahati set a precedent on July 8,  2016 by convicting Pradip Brahma to life imprisonment. This is the first time in history of Assam that murderer of mass violence has been punished for killing Muslims. There were as many as 25 other accused in the case, however.

 
The FIR (FIR No 155 of 2014, Gossaigaon Police Station) filed by Md. Sayed Ali and two others alleged that 20-25 Bodo miscreants equipped with sophisticated arms entered the house of Batchu Saikh and complainant Mohammed Sayed Ali and resorted to indiscriminate firing killing seven persons. The victims were mainly women and children.
 
Four women, two children and one male became victims of unprovoked targeted killing. The NIA filed charge sheet against Pradip Brahma under sections 120B, 121, 121A, 302, 307, 386 r/w Sec 34 of IPC and Sec 16, 17, 18 and 20 of UA (P) Act. The NIA press release can be read here.
 
Since 1983 Assam has seen a spate of massacres of the minorities with bouts of mass violence against both Muslims and Adivasis having become part of a cyclical pattern. Successive governments have been indifferent towards this suffering and slaughter.
 
On February 14, 1983 around 500 Muslims were massacred in Chaolkhuwa, and four days later independent India saw its most brutal mass killing when, on February 18,1983 more than 3000 Indian Muslims, mostly women and children were slaughtered in a span of just over six hours.
 
The victims were branded as Bangladeshis as if that justified the massacre. As many as 688 cases were filed in connection with the Nellie massacre; the Police submitted charge sheets in only 310. The remaining 378 cases were closed after a final (closure) report said there was no evidence against those accused.
 
Finally, all cases were dropped when the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) came to power under the chief ministership of Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. Hence the impunity against perpetrators continued as not even a single person responsible for the killings was punished despite these being mass killings of the minorities, read Muslims.
 
A one member Tiwary Commission was constituted by the then Congress government after the Nellie killings to investigate the cause of massacre. The Commission submitted a 600 pages report, but no government has had the commitment to transparency and accountability to make the report public.
 
Post Nellie, Assam saw a chain of targeted violence in the now BTAD (Bodoland Territorial Areas Districts) area. In 1993 more than 100 Muslims were massacred in Kokrajhar, the survivors, today, 23 years later, still live in relief camps. A majority of the victims have been denied any compensation whatsoever.
 
A year later, around 100 Muslims were massacred in Bashbari, now in Baksa District. In 1996 in the districts of Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon more than 200 Adivasis were massacred and around 2 lakhs were displaced, and many victims from the Adivasis communities still live a life of deprivation and suffering in relief camps.
 
In 1998, around 50 Adivasis were killed, leaving around 80000 homeless. In 2008 Muslims were targeted again, this time in Udalguri around 70 innocent Muslims were massacred.
 
In 2012 in the districts of Kokrajhar and Chirang more than 100 Muslims were killed and more than five lakhs were left homeless. The targeted violence did not stop there. On  May 1, 2014, 7 Muslims were gunned down by NDFB terrorist at Balapara under Gossaigaon Police Station, Kokrajhar.
 
On May 2, 2014 in a small village NK Khagrabari,  forest guards and terrorists, allegedly affilitated to the dreaded NDFB, mercilessly slaughtered 38 innocents Muslims, 22 were children. On May 7, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi declared that the case will be investigated by National Investigation Agency (NIA), but the case was handed over to NIA after as many as 83 days.. In December 2014 around 70 Adivasis were again murdered all over Assam on the same day.
 
In this long list of targeted violence against Muslims and Adivasis one thing is common-  not even a single perpetrator has been e punished in any case of mass murder except one.
 
Therefore, when on July 8, 2016, when a special NIA court at Guwahati sentenced Pradip Brahma to life imprisonment in the Balapara, this cycle of immunity appears to have, for the moment at least, been punctured.
 
Before this conviction all murderers right from the Chalokhuwa and Nellie massacre had enjoyed an absolute impunity. Every time either Muslims or Adivasis became victims of massacres, the perpetrators were let-off. This impunity only encouraged another massacre, that’s how mass violence became part of a cynical cyclical pattern in Assam.
 
Had murderers of Nellie been punished, had due process of law been followed, hundreds of innocent people would not have been killed with such impunity. In the Balapara massacre case the victims bravely deposed before the court against the terrorist. They are the real heroes behind this historic verdict. We hope their tribe grows.

References:
1. Hate Speech by Law Keepers: NCM Issues Notice to CS Assam
2. Wrong on History and Facts: NDTV’s Battleground Assam
3. When Law keepers trade in Hate: Complaint for Dismissal of DSP Anjan Bora, Assam

The post NIA Court Convicts One for Life in 2014 Mass Killing of Muslims, Assam appeared first on SabrangIndia.

सन 1671 में महान अहोम साम्राज्य के लाचित बोड़फुकन ने मुगलों को हराया था। तब उस लड़ाई में उनके मातहत कमांडर थे इस्माइल आका बाग हजारिका और मुगलों की सेना का नेतृत्व जेनरल राम सिंह कर रहे थे। वह युद्ध सरायघाट में लड़ा गया। तब से अब यानी 2016 में असम विधानसभा के चुनाव तक कभी भी सरायघाट की उस जंग को हिंदुओं और मुसलमानों की लड़ाई के तौर पर नहीं देखा गया था। लेकिन भारतीय जनता पार्टी ने इस बार यह घोषणा की थी कि यह चुनाव सरायघाट की आखिरी लड़ाई है- असम की पहचान को बचाने की आखिरी लड़ाई। हाल ही में हुए चुनाव में भाजपा ने इसी आग्रह को चुनाव का मकसद बना दिया। अब नतीजे बता रहे हैं कि इसने असम के लोगों के एक बड़े हिस्से को भीतर से हिला दिया।
 
भाजपा ने सीधे यह कभी नहीं बताया कि 2016 में इस लड़ाई के मुगल कौन हैं। लेकिन उन्होंने इसमें शक की कोई गुंजाइश भी नहीं छोड़ी। एक अहोम के तौर पर तरुण गोगोई ने नरेंद्र मोदी को मुगलों के तौर पर पेश करने की एक कमजोर कोशिश की, जो असम पर कब्जा करने की कोशिश कर रहे थे। लेकिन वे बुरी तरह नाकाम हुए। इसके उलट भाजपा ने इतिहास को तोड़-मरोड़ कर पेश करते हुए यह साबित करने में बाजी मार ली कि आज का अहोम कौन है और मुगल कौन!
 
दिलचस्प तरीके से अमित शाह ने एक चुनावी रैली में कहा कि अहोम राजा सुकफा ने मुगलों को सत्रह बार हराया। जबकि सुकफा ने 1228 ई में अहोम साम्राज्य की स्थापना की थी और 1268 ई में उसकी मौत हो गई। दूसरी ओर, इतिहास बताता है कि भारत में मुगल साम्राज्य की शुरुआत 1526 में हुई। फिर भी, यह भाजपा के लिए अपनी जनता को प्रभावित करने के लिए एक बहुत अच्छा जुमला साबित हुआ।
 
असम के लिए यह एक ऐतिहासिक चुनाव था। न सिर्फ इसलिए कि पूर्वोत्तर में पहली बार कमल खिला, बल्कि ज्यादा अहम बात यह है कि पहली बार सारी सीमाओं के पार हिंदू वोटों का ध्रुवीकरण हुआ। अगर यह कोई अस्मिता या पहचान बचाने की लड़ाई थी तो वह हिंदू पहचान थी, न कि असमिया अस्मिता। दरअसल, इस चुनाव में भाजपा का सबसे मुख्य निशाना बंगाली मूल के मुसलमान थे।
 
बहरहाल, पिछले लंबे समय से आजादी से पूर्व ही भारत आ गए बंगाली मूल के मुसलमानों को 'अवैध आप्रवासी' के तौर पर ब्रांडेड कर देने से लेकर इससे जुड़े जो दूसरे तमाम अभियान चलाए गए, उसने पहले ही बहुत कुछ तय कर दिया था। इसके बावजूद सच यही था कि कोई भी पार्टी मुसलमानों और बंगाली हिंदुओं के समर्थन के बिना बहुमत हासिल नहीं कर सकती थी।
 
भाजपा का बौद्धिक फ्रंट इस बात को बहुत अच्छी तरह समझता था कि केवल मुसलमानों की आलोचना से काम नहीं चलने वाला है। अगर भाजपा 'मिशन-84' का लक्ष्य हासिल करती है तभी वह अपने दम पर सरकार बना सकेगी और इसके लिए उसे हिंदुओं में 'एकता' लानी होगी। इसी मकसद से पूर्व कांग्रेसी नेता और असम के 'नए हिंदू हृदय सम्राट' हेमंत बिस्वा सरमा ने बार-बार तीखे बयान दिए..! बंगाली मूल के भारतीय मुसलमानों के बारे में बोलते हुए सरमा ने इंडियन एक्सप्रेस को बताया- 'मैं यह कह रहा हूं कि ये वे लोग हैं, जो लंबे समय में अलग-अलग मौके पर बांग्लादेश से आए थे। यह लड़ाई जातीय पहचान की है, हमारी असमिया संस्कृति की है। असम में पैंतीस सीटों पर बांग्लादेशी आप्रवासी बहुमत में है!
 
जिस बदरुद्दीन अजमल के बारे में यह प्रचार किया जा रहा था कि वे बांग्लादेशी मुसलमानों की ओर से मुख्यमंत्री बनेगे, वे एक ऐसी सीट पर सोलह हजार वोटों से हार गए, जहां की सनतानवे फीसद आबादी मुसलिम है। ऐसे उदाहरण और भी हैं। भाजपा ने यह मंशा भी जाहिर की कि सत्ता में आने के बाद वह बांग्लादेश से आने वाले हिंदुओं को ही नागरिकता देगी। दरअसल, पार्टी की यह योजना 2014 से ही थी। अपने चुनाव अभियानों के दौरान भाजपा ने बांग्लादेश मूल मुसलमानों से उनकी नागरिकता छीन लेने की बात कही। अब भाजपा इस बात की व्याख्या कैसे करेगी और कैसे सही ठहराएगी? वह कैसे कह सकेगी कि उसे मुसलमानों से कोई दिक्कत नहीं है?
 
चुनावी नतीजों के बाद यह साफ जाहिर हो गया कि धार्मिक लाइन पर पूरी तरह कर ध्रुवीकरण करने में भाजपा को कामयाबी मिली। लेकिन इस सांप्रदायिक छवि को धोने के लिए भाजपा के थिंक टैंक कहे जाने वालों ने यह झूठा प्रचार करना शुरू कर दिया कि असम के मुसलमानों ने भाजपा को बड़े पैमाने पर वोट दिया!
 
क्या हम इस बात को समझ सकते हैं कि एक असमिया मुसलमान शंकर अज़ान अपने चुनाव क्षेत्र में तीस प्रतिशत से ज्यादा असमिया मुसलमानों के वोट होने के बावजूद नहीं जीत सके?

भाजपा ने असम की जीत को राष्ट्रीय जीत की तरह पेश किया है। शायद इसलिए कि इसने न सिर्फ राज्य में पहली बार चुनाव जीता है, बल्कि इसलिए भी कि असम में हिंदू वोटों को इकट्ठा कर उनका धार्मिक आधार पर ध्रुवीकरण करने में उसे कामयाबी मिली।
 

The post अस्मिता की आड़ में ध्रुवीकरण की सियासत appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In 1671 the great Ahom general Lachit Barphukan defeated the Mughals. Ismail Siddique aka Bagh Hazarika was a commander under Lachit Barphukan and a Hindu general Ram Singh led the Mughal Army. The battle was fought at Saraighat. Never was the battle of Saraighat seen as a Hindu versus the Muslims until the 2016 assembly election of Assam. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) declared that the election is the last battle of Saraighat- the last battle to protect the identity of Assam. BJP made this the theme of the recently-held election. The result shows that it did strike a chord with large section of people in Assam.

The BJP never did actually say, directly who the Mughals of 2016 are, but they didn’t leave any room for doubt, either. Tarun Gogoi, an Ahom, made a feeble attempt to term Narendra Modi as the Mughal who is trying to invade Assam. He failed miserably in his attempt.BJP went overboard to assert, in turn, who is the present day Ahom(s) and who the Mughal(s), of course by doing what they do best: distorting history.

Amit Shah in an election rally said that Ahom King Sukapha defeated the Mughals 17 times. Well, Sukapha founded the Ahom dynasty in 1228 AD and died in 1268 AD. The historical rule of the Mughal dynasty in India, began in 1526 AD; just 300 years apart, but not bad. It proved a good slogan and mobilization, too good for BJP.

For Assam this was a historic election. Not only because the Lotus bloomed for the first time in North East but, more importantly, because for the first time Hindu votes –across the board – got consolidated. If at all this was a battle to protect identity it was the Hindu identity and not the Assamese identity. The main target of the BJP in this election were the Muslims of Bengali origin.

The migration of the hard working Muslim peasants of Bengal origin started from the later part of 19^th century according to a well planned British strategy to grow more food. The migration was at its peak between the first and third decades decade of the 20^th Century. By the time India gained Independence the Muslim population of Assam had become 24%.

In  the 1950s, during the language movement, the Muslims of Bengali origin accepted the Assamese language by giving up their mother tongue, an unprecedented sacrifice. Today there is not even a single Bengali medium school in entire areas dominated by Muslims of Bengal origin. They got assimilated with the culture and started calling themselves Assamese. Many Assamese intellectuals call them Neo-Assamese.

In 1960, Assam Assembly passed the Language Bill making Assamese the official language of Assam. The language bill would not have been passed without the help of Muslims of Bengali origin. Except a handful of people, the sacrifice of Muslims of Bengali origin never got acknowledged. Very soon, the Muslims of Bengali origin became the target of chauvinistic leaders.

In the beginning of Assam movement, Bengali Hindus, Marwaris, Nepalis and the Muslims of Bengal origin were targeted as  outsiders- Hindus and Muslims alike. How could RSS have stayed silent when Hindus were targeted? There comes the RSS twist to the Assam movement. Slowly the movement that started against all outsiders became a movement that only targeted ‘illegal’ immigrants.  The Muslims of Bengal origin who migrated much before Independence were branded as illegal immigrants. Bengali Hindus were not spared, but the worst kind of atrocities were inflicted on Muslims. This six year-long movement had such a long-lasting affect that it still decides who will win elections in Assam.

Amit Shah in an election rally said that Ahom King Sukapha defeated the Mughals 17 times. Well, Sukapha founded the Ahom dynasty in 1228 AD and died in 1268 AD. The historical rule of the Mughal dynasty in India, began in 1526 AD; just 300 years apart, but not bad. It proved a good slogan and mobilization, too good for BJP.

The Assam movement was seen as movement to protect Assamese identity. After six years when the leaders of the Assam movement formed a political party named the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) to contest election, they ended up winning only 55 seats, nine short of absolute majority. Bengali Hindus and Muslims of Bengali origin didn’t vote for them. The biggest take away lesson from this election was – no party could get absolute majority without the support of Muslims and Bengali Hindus.

The BJP think tank was very much aware of this and conscious that, just Muslim-bashing, per se, won’t help, or work. If at all, the BJP wanted to achieve its ‘Mission 84’ to form govt on their own they had to unite the Hindus.

This is further evident from the repeated statements made by Himanta Biswa Sarma, the former Congressman,  the new Hindu Hriday Samrat of Assam. Talking about Indian Muslims of Bengali origin, Sarma told the Indian Express,“I am saying they are people who came from Bangladesh in different years. It’s about ethnicity, our Assamese culture. The fight in Assam is about those 34 seats where Bangladeshi immigrants, who are now Indian citizens, are in a majority. Out of the 126 seats, we have to work hard in the remaining 92 seats to save our identity. This is our last chance. We don’t want Bangladeshi people to encroach on not just our land but also our political space. In this election Bangladeshi immigrants want their own chief minister, too.” 

The Chief Minister he was referring to is Badruddin Ajmal, who lost by more than 16000 votes in a constituency with more than 97 per cent Muslim population. The constituency is South Salamara. Wazed Ali Chowdhury a Congress candidate won because he was seen as a man with far greater credibility. Wherever the Muslims had a better alternative to the AIUDF, the latter lost.

The BJP fought this last battle to save Assamese ethnicity and culture from Muslims of Bengali origin who had accepted Assamese language and got assimilated with Assamese society. The Marwaris and Bengali Hindus never threatened the BJPs version of Assamese ethnicity and culture.

The BJP also made its intention to give citizenship to only Hindus who came from Bangladesh, clear. This has been a plan of the party since 2014. Himanta Biswa Sarma went to the extent of saying that even if a Hindu came just a day before –yesterday– from Bangladesh they would be granted citizenship. In contrast, during its campaign, the BJP has vowed to strip Muslims of Bengali origin of their citizenship. Four Marwaris and 12 Bengali Hindus won on a BJP ticket in a state election fought as the last battle to protect Assamese ethnicity and culture. There is no doubt that Marwaris and Bengali Hindus are integral part of greater Assamese society, but so are the Muslims of Bengali origin who considers themselves as Assamese. The only difference is the religion. They were and have been however completely sidelined by the BJP. How can the BJP explain this and justify it ? How can the BJP say that it has no problem with Muslims?

Two posters played a crucial role for BJP in this election; it featured one common man – Maulana Baddrudin Ajmal, the perfume baron chief of AIUDF.

 One poster had picture of Ajmal and Sarbananda Sonowal with the caption “Whom do you want to see as the Chief Minister of Assam”.

The BJP fought this last battle to save Assamese ethnicity and culture from Muslims of Bengali origin who had accepted Assamese language and got assimilated with Assamese society. The Marwaris and Bengali Hindus never threatened the BJPs version of Assamese ethnicity and culture.

Another poster had picture of Ajmal and his party men with Tarun Gogoi, the picture was taken when AIUDF leaders were giving a memorandum to Assam Chief Minister; the only thing that AIUDF has done for the people they claim to represent is submitting memorandum to different constitutional authorities and taking pictures of these meeting and then showing these photos around to justify their relevance. The BJP used one of such picture to its best interest. BJP circulated this picture through big hoardings all over the state with caption “Secret pact between Congress and AIUDF”. An impression was created that if people don’t vote for the BJP, the Congress and AIUDF will form government and Ajmal will become the Chief Minister of Assam. Voting for Congress was like voting for AIUDF!  The incompetence and political naivety of Ajmal was not the issue for BJP, his identity was the sole issue. It worked wonders for the BJP. Hindu votes got consolidated like never before and BJP made history in Assam. 

After the election results, when it became clear that BJP had succeeded in polarising the people of Assam on religious lines, the BJP think tank started a reverse propaganda drive to quell its communal image. They started propagating the theory that Assamese Muslims voted for BJP en masse! The insidious motive was and is to show that the Assam polity is not polarised and some Muslims stand with the BJP. There is no doubt that based on local issues some Muslims ended up voting for the BJP, even some Muslims of Bengali origin and some Muslims of Bark valley voted for BJP but it was nowhere close to an all-state phenomenon it is being made out to be.

It was merely an exception. In upper Assam, where the Congress got otherwise wiped out, the handful of seats that the grand old party won was because the Assamese Muslim vote played a crucial role in the Congress victory. Most importantly in the Nazira and Sibsagar constituency which is the heartland of Assamese Muslims, the Congress won both seats. In these two constituencies Muslim population comprised of more than 30 percent. In Amguri, another constituency with sizable Assamese Muslim votes, Congress candidate lost by only 1620 votes.

In Hajo, a lower Assam constituency known for its communal harmony with a sizable number of Assamese Muslim Population tells another story. The Guwahati Lok Sabha MP’s daughter won on the BJP ticket but in a crooked contest: an Assamese Muslim was a Congress candidate. When BJP realized that its senior leader’s daughter is losing, something exceptional happened. Another Assamese Muslim, an AGP stalwart contested from Hajo on the party ticket at a time when there was an alliance with AGP and BJP. So two alliance partners contested on the same seat! The result was obvious, the Assamese Muslim votes got divided and the Congress candidate lost by less than 9000 votes, the AGP candidate got more than 16000 votes.

It is no wonder BJP had no complaint against the AGP candidate who violated the alliance rule and contested from the same constituency against the BJP. BJPs fake love for the Assamese Muslim got exposed yet another time. In Chaygaon an Assamese Muslim won on the Congress ticket; the BJPs dirty tricks didn’t work here. BJP claims that it is not against the Assamese indigenous Muslims. But can the BJP claim that it gave ticket to any Assamese indigenous Muslim where there was and is any chance of that candidate winning? The answer is big no. Even the president of Minority Morcha of the BJP, Mominul Awal, was denied a ticket, a person who alone brought many Muslims to the BJP but was not even worth a BJP ticket! The BJP could have fielded Assamese Muslim candidate in both Nazira and Sibsagar constituency, but they didn’t. Nor did the Congress in all these years. Shall we understand that in the land of Shankar-Azan an Assamese Muslim can’t even win from a constituency despite having more 30 percent Assamese Muslim votes?

BJP projected Assam win as a national win, not only because it won the state for the first time, but also because it succeeded in polarising people on religious line and consolidated the Hindu votes in Assam.
 
(The author is an Guwahati based lawyer, He tweets at @AmanWadud)

The post All Hindu Consolidation or the last battle to protect Assamese Identity: Assam Polls Results appeared first on SabrangIndia.

http://www.thehoot.org/media-watch/media-practice/ndtvs-battleground-assam-wrong-on-history-and-facts-9289

Very often, the national media offers the excuse of the “tyranny of distance” to explain their negligence and ignorance about Assam. For most Delhi-based journalists, Assam is still an unknown territory. They go by whatever little is written about the contentious issues in Assam. Very few venture out to check the veracity of these reports. Truth and the ground realities are the casualties.

On Apri 8, NDTV aired a special programme on the Assam state election. It was hosted by India’s best known TV anchor Dr. Prannoy Roy who was joined by Dorab Sopariwala and Shekhar Gupta who spent three years reporting from the North East in the early ‘80s. The programme started with promotional trailer which said “TVs most credible faces come together to tell you who will be the big winner”. A short while later, Roy states “Assam has 31.2 million people and the Assamese are a minority in Assam”.

Sounds familiar? Yes, very often chauvinists and right-wingers say similar things, ie that the Assamese will become a minority in Assam. Some have even projected the year; a recent report that made the headlines was an independent survey done by Indrajit Barua who predicted that the indigenous population of Assam will be reduced to a minority by 2047. But according to Roy, this has already happened. He further states that migrants in Assam number 22 million and the original Assamese number only 10 million.

Then he breaks up the figure. He divides the entire population of Assam into two categories: “Migrants” and “Assamese”. In the first category of migrants are eleven million Muslims (the total Muslim population of Assam), six million Bengali Hindus and five million tea garden workers. In the second category of Assamese, according to Roy, are two million Ahoms (original Assamese as he calls them), 1.4 million Bodos, 1.4 million Christians, 0.6 million Mishing, and 1.6 million other tribes.

Fortunately history is different and so are the facts but Roy seems oblivious of both. The migration of Indo-Aryans to this region dates back to the Vedic period. Many Bengali-speaking Muslims who are indigenous to the lower Brahmaputra valley are converts from lower caste Hindus of Indo-Aryan stock.

The Khasi-Jayantias were the first inhabitants of Indo-Austric stock. The Bodo-Kacharis are of Indo-Tibetan origin and migrated to present day Assam much before the Ahoms (Gait, A History of Assam, 1925). The history books tell us that Muslims came to Assam in the year 1206 AD which is even before the Ahoms who migrated from Yunan Province of present-day China, and from Thailand and Burma in 1228 AD (ibid).
Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji was the first Turkish commander to enter Assam while making an effort to invade Tibet in 1206 AD (ibid). This marked the beginning of Muslim settlement in Assam, to be followed by series of invasions first by Afghan rulers and then by the Mughals.
In upper Assam, a large number of people converted to Islam under the influence of legendary Sufi Saint Hazrat Shah Miran, popularly known as Azan Peer who was a disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin and who settled near Sibsagar after getting married to an Ahom woman (Naqvi, 2013).

The first entry into Cachar by a Muslim was by Jamal Khan, a commander of the Mughal Army which was ruling in Bengal. He entered into the Cachar territory of the Cachar King (Dimacha) but in a midnight ambush, Jamal Khan, along with all his companions, was massacred (Cachar District Record).
In 1799, Mughal adventurer Aga Mohammad Reza entered Cachar  through Sylhet and after defeating the Cachar King, Krishna Chandra, occupied the kingdom of Cachar, particularly the areas now represented by the two sub-divisions of Silchar and Hailakandi. Reza, who entered Cachar with more than 5000 followers consisting of Pathan and Mughal renegades from the then-dismembered Mughal army, settled down in Cachar. He and his followers mingled with local Cacharis, adopted local customs, and practised inter-racial marriage. Very soon, many Cacharis converted to Islam (ibid).
Many people from this stock are now citizens of Bangladesh because Sylhet became part of East Pakistan after partition. Sylhet, including Cachar, was always part of Assam and was under Ahom rule too. But according to NDTV, the entire Muslim population is migrants.

Roy then turns to Sopariwala to say, “So Dorab, it’s amazing, 22 million outsiders or migrants in the state and only 10 million indigenous or local population”. Now it’s Sopariwala’s turn to exhibit his expertise on Assam. He very confidently states: “There is another way of looking into it, most of these, except the Bangladeshi Muslims, have been here for a long time, they been here for 100 years, the Marwaris came, the Bengalis came, people from the tea gardens came from Jharkhand, Orissa Madhya Pradesh and Bengal and so the rest of the migration has taken place slowly and so they have almost been absorbed into Assam. It’s the latest migration from across the border that stands out.”

So if the tea garden workers who have been in Assam since the start of tea industry and the many Bengalis who came with the British have been absorbed into Assam and call themselves Assamese, how is it that they do not fall into the category of ‘Assamese’, according to NDTV?

The Bodos have their distinct culture and separate language, don’t even consider themselves as Assamese, and are fighting for a separate Bodo state. Yet NDTV categorizes them as Assamese. Large numbers of Christians in Assam are Bodos and tea garden workers but NDTV confuses and separates Bodos from Christians and it calls tea garden workers migrants but calls Christians Assamese.

After independence, Muslim immigration has been negligible (Guha, 2011). Those Muslims of Bengal origin who are branded as Bangladeshis (and who Sopariwala was most likely referring to) were either natives of undivided Goalpara (which was always a Muslim-dominated district) or migrated from undivided Bengal and later East Bengal. Many Muslims in undivided Goalpara are also converts from the Koch Rajbonghsi community, from the Mech tribe, the Hajong community and the Rabhas tribe, and now call themselves Deshi Muslims (Barpujari, 2014).

The migration of Muslim peasants of Bengal origin started in the later part of the 19th century under the patronage of colonial administrators according to a well thought out colonial policy. The British promoted such migration as they wanted the hard working Bengali Muslim peasants to cultivate the barren and fertile land of the Brahmaputra valley.  

The migration of these peasants was at its peak in the first three decades of the 20th century. Sanjib Baruah, in his celebrated 2011 book “India against Itself” quotes C.S. Mullan, the superintendent of the 1931 census: “In another thirty years it is not improbable that Sibsagar district will be the only part of Assam in which Assamese will find itself at home.”

Mullan’s prediction, even after nine decades, is yet to come true, but the opposite happened. Those Muslim peasants of Bengal origin who migrated from undivided Bengal and East Bengal gave up their mother tongue, accepted the Assamese language, got assimilated with the local culture, studied in Assamese medium schools, and call themselves Assamese. In fact, in the entire Muslim-dominated area of lower Assam, there is not even a single Bengali medium school. **

Some mainstream Assamese intellectuals call these Muslims of Bengal origin ‘neo-Assamese’. However, chauvinists and right wingers are averse to calling Muslims of Bengal origin Assamese, despite their unprecedented sacrifice of giving up their mother tongue. Sopariwala seems to have fallen into the latter group, intentionally or unintentionally.

Denying the post-1971 migration of Muslims from Bangladesh will be wrong. The formation of human civilization is a result of migration. Every country has illegal immigrants. But branding all Muslims of Bengali origin as Bangladeshi Muslims is grossly unfair, preposterous, and prejudicial and has far-reaching consequences for the lives and properties of people and the history of Assam.

Muslims of Bengal origin have been facing persecution over their identity since independence and, since the Nellie massacre of 1983, mass violence has been cyclic. Every time Muslims of Bengal origin become victims of mass killings, right-wing politicians and jingoists describe them as Bangladeshi Muslims or illegal immigrants and shift the focus from gross violations of human rights to ‘illegal immigration’, thereby giving impunity to the murderers to carry on with further mass murders of Muslims.

No wonder that, from the Nellie massacre to the 2014 Khagrabari massacre, not even a single perpetrator has been punished.

At the beginning of the show, Roy said that, “This is a very complex election and the national media hasn’t really focused much on it and I have learned a lot by coming and traversing the state”. Well, if this is a complex election, so is the history of Assam and he and his team need to learn much more to understand the complexity.

(The author is a Guwahati-based human rights lawyer. He tweets @AmanWadud)

 References:
1. Prantik , Parag Das , 5th issue, 1-15 February, 1987 
2. Chorot Sahitya Sadana, Editorial , Notun Deen, 6th February, 2005
3. Bihu Aru Char Chapori Bakhi, Hafiz Ahmed,  Dainik Batori, 13th April, 2005, Page 7.
 
Other References:
Barpujari, H. K. (2014). The Comprehensive History of Assam (4th ed.). Guwahati: Publication Board of Assam.
Baruah, S. (2011).India Against Itself: Oxford University Press.
Gait, E. (1925) A History of Assam (2nd ed.). Guwahati: Eastern Book House.
Guha, A. (2011). Jagaran (Souvenir of Char Chapori Sahitya Parishad, Assam).
Naqvi, S. (2013, Feb 28) Northeast Review. Retrieved April 11, 2016, from Rhythm of the Brahmaputra: Hajo, Assam: https://northeastreview.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/saba/
 
 
 
 

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Khagrabari is a tiny village of 68 houses across Beki river adjacent to Manas National Park IN Assam.  People there have been residing since decades and some have land documents of 1958. However many acres of land has been eroded by the Beki over the years. The most devastating year for Khagrabari before 2014 was 2004 when Bhutan released water from the reservoir of  60-MW Kurishu Hydro Power project and two lower Assam districts of Barpeta and Baksa were devasted by the flood. Khagrabari was among one of the most affected villages. Acres of agricultural land were eroded by the catastrophic flood. The villagers who were relying on agriculture lost major portion of their land which was the sole source of their livelihood. Since then some villagers has started venturing out into the Manas National Park to collect cotton scattered on the ground.

The devastating flood of 2004 was nothing in comparison to what happened to  Khagrabari on 2nd May 2014, a year ago, today. It was a normal Friday. Villagers performed their weekly congregational prayers together. Few took a nap after lunch and the rest crossed the river to buy groceries at the Bhangarpar daily bazar. Around 2pm two forest officials from the nearby beat office came to the village to take stock of things, they sat at a house and spend around half an hour there. Some villagers chatted with these forest guards, they were completely oblivious of what awaited them an hour later. At around 3:30 pm, some 40 heavily armed groups of people attacked the village from the western side firing indiscriminately and setting houses on fire. Initially, on hearing the gun shots, some thought it was a normal exercise often undertaken by the forest guards to chase away wild animals but very soon they realized something catastrophic had struck the village.

Of the group of around 40 assailants, some had covered their faces with black cloth, others had no such qualm, they indulged in the killing spree without even covering their faces. They were forest guards including the two who had visited the village an hour ago. These people are well known to villagers and they often visit the village to have a cup of tea and take lemon and other vegetables from the village. Those who were forest guards fired using government arms and others used sophisticated AK series weapons according to eye-witness accounts.

Among the scores of children who were brutally murdered, many used to address  the same forest guards as ‘Uncle’, yet nothing stopped the forest guards from exhibiting their inhuman brutality, nothing stopped the forest guards from smashing the head of a little girl on a hand pump , no shred of humanity stopped them from throwing a little child into the fire that they had lit aimed to burn down the homes of the villagers. Most villagers ran towards the Beki river. But only few could swim across and many drowned. Some of them drowned after being hit by bullets. The armed group of terrorists and forest guards also fired upon people who jumped into the river. A woman who jumped into the river with her two year old daughter says she tried her best to stay afloat , but to escape bullets she dived into the water, when she came out of water her daughter was not responding , she was dead by then. The wailing of the mother didn't stop for long when she narrated the tragic incident. She was inconsolable.

Few villagers ran to the nearby forest to hide, they stayed there for hours and came out only when the rescuers crossed the river and announced through micro phone of village Masjid that it was safe to come out. Within a span of 40 minutes the forest guards and terrorists had massacred 38 people including 20 children, youngest among them was just three months old. They burned the entire village to ashes.

On May 7, 2014 after public fury Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi visited Naranyanguri where the survivors had taken shelter in makeshift camps. Mr Gogoi announced then that investigation will be handed over to National Investigation Agency, but it took 81 days to actually hand over the investigation. Finally after lots of protests by local activists, the investigation was handed over to investigation was handed over to the NIA July 22, 2014. However, by then, a substantial amount of evidence was tampered with. The NIA was left with nothing much more than the eye witnesses accounts in the case. Interestingly, when Adivasis had been  massacred across Assam on  December 23, 2014, it took just a day to handover the investigation to NIA. The Assam government’s swift action in the Adivasi massacre case should be applauded, but it also brings forth the double standards of the government in the case of the Khagrabari massacre of Muslims when it took the state government 81 days to hand over the investigation to NIA.

Whenever Muslims are massacred in Assam, which has become cyclic now since 1983, many vested interested groups and section of media starts accusing the victims of being illegal immigrants and assume that their ‘doubtful’ nationality somehow justifies the targeted violence that they face. They try to shift the attention from a case of inhuman brutality to illegal immigration. The 2014 Naranyanguri massacre also saw such similar propaganda. Many on social media accused the victims as illegal immigrants. None other than Arnab Goswami conducted a prime time show on the massacre and he conveniently accused the victims of being settlers. Many of those so called settlers who were in their 40s and have lost their family members were born and brought up in Khagrabari, but that didn't stop Arnab Goswami from branding both the victims and survivors as settlers, there was no outrage about barbaric violence. It seemed as if killing poor and illiterate Muslims is respectable.

On October 31, 2014, the  NIA charge sheeted four forest guards for killing 38 innocent citizens of India. The trial has begun and witnesses are regularly deposing before Special NIA court at Guwahati. A couple of witnesses who deposed before the court in the last hearing came to Guwahati only for the second time in their life , the first time being when they recorded statement under section 164 Crpc at Chief Judicial Magistrate's court, Kamrup at Guwahati. All they want is justice and punishment for the perpetrators who killed their loved ones. They might be illiterate and poor but their faith in judiciary is unwavering. After the last hearing when I drove them from Special NIA court to Kamakhya Railway station we discussed several things, among them was their experience of facing wild animals in the adjacent forest. One of them says "We peacefully co exist with animals. No one harms each other. I came face to face with leopards, wild elephants and other wild animals several times but I was never attacked. We don't fear animals. It is the human being which we fear. It is our fellow human being who killed our family members."

Neither the devastating floods of 2004 nor any wild animals has taken any human lives in  Khagrabari, but a group of forest guards and terrorists  robbed Khagrabari of 38 lives and burned an entire villages to ashes. This became possible because no one has ever been punished in Assam for mass killings, rather the murderers are hailed for their barbaric act and victims are branded as illegal immigrants and outsiders. This very sense of impunity has ensured one massacre after another and no one can guarantee that another massacre will not happen.

This article has been archived from www.sabrang.com, published in May 2014.
 

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