Ploughing hate? What the Miya Museum flare-up reveals about Assam

Mankind’s greatest invention, the plough, allowed humanity to grow enough food on land to feed everyone. But many a civilisation ploughed itself into obsolescence, only to sow seeds of inequality in the same land, among the same people, enslaved and consumed by hate.
The otherwise innocuous plough has dug up fresh fissures in Assam following the display of the agricultural tool in a recently inaugurated museum in Goalpara district. The ‘Miya Museum’, sealed within 48 hours of its opening last week, was set up by the All Assam Miya Parishad to showcase the cultural heritage of the state’s Bengali-speaking Muslims, who are often accused of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

The museum primarily showcased agricultural tools of the people who were brought by the British from present-day Bangladesh to Assam in the late 19th century to encourage farming.

While the state government sealed the museum, saying the building was a Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana house and not allocated to be used as a museum, the police have arrested its founder and president of the Miya Parishad, Mohar Ali, and two others on allegations of wrongful use of the premises and their suspected links with terror organisations.

All of them have been charged under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Indian Penal Code sections pertaining to criminal conspiracy and collecting arms with the intention of waging war against the Union government.

The state police have also claimed to have unearthed links between the museum and terror groups Al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and Ansarul Bangla Team (ABT). According to the police, the terror outfits funded the private museum with Rs 10,000.

Special Director General of Assam Police, GP Singh, told mediapersons that Mohar Ali had approached ABT operatives for funds to set up the museum. According to Singh, arrested AQIS and ABT operatives had revealed this information to the police.

As things have quickly spiralled out of control for Ali and others, some in the state are wondering what is so offensive about the museum?

The BJP-run state government claims that the identity assertion by Bengal-origin Muslims is an attempt to create divisions in Assamese society and appropriate Assamese culture.

The BJP and many within the civil society in Assam also claim that there is no community called the Miyas even though the Bengali-speaking Muslims are often (pejoratively) referred to as Miyas by the majority population of the state.

The latest developments have a deep connection with the overwhelming fear that dominates the Assamese society and polity. Most of them believe that the “influx of undocumented immigrants illegally entering the state from Bangladesh would someday reduce the indigenous Assamese population into a minority in their own land”. The BJP in 2016, came to power in Assam mainly on the promise of protecting the sons of the soil against illegal immigrants.

The fear has been ancient and so is the pain endured by those at the receiving end of it. So, who are these “Miyas Muslims”?

Contesting identities

Assam has always been a land of contesting identities as its geography as well as demography have been time and again shaped and reshaped.

Bengali-speaking Muslims in the state or “Miyas” have mainly been victims of this reconstruction initiated after Assam became part of British India following the treaty of Yandabo in 1826.

The British colonial ruler first annexed two large areas of Bengal – Goalpara and Sylhet – to the administrative region of Assam, sowing the seeds of today’s identity war.

Not stopping there, the colonial government introduced a set of wasteland settlement rules to bring vast tracts under tillage to augment revenue.

Under this policy of wasteland grant for more food production, farm labourers from various parts of densely populated Bengal were encouraged to migrate and settle in Assam to bring uninhabited land under cultivation.

As a result, Bengali peasants, mostly Muslims, started settling in the riverine sandbars called ‘Char’ areas of the river Brahmaputra and its tributaries in four districts of undivided Kamrup, Goalpara, Darrang, and Nagaon.

The more devastating demographic push came when Bengal was first partitioned in 1905, bifurcating Muslim-dominated Dhaka, Rajshahi and Chittagong divisions to create a new province—East Bengal and Assam.

The amalgamation led to another wave of migration of peasantry with British patronage from Bengali Muslim-dominated areas of newly created province to sparsely populated Hindu-majority Assam, sparking communal tension as divide-and-rule policy of the colonial ruler was in full play.

The province though was short-lived as partition of Bengal presidency was annulled in 1911. It left a permanent socio-demographic impact in Assam. The Muslim population in Assam witnessed highest ever growth of 109 per cent between 1901 and 1911 as per Census reports.

Later, the provincial government under the premiership of Syed Muhammad Saadullah opened up grazing reserves to settle immigrants under a “grow more food” campaign launched in 1939 – something that Archibald Percival Wavell, who also served as the Viceroy of India from 1943 to 1947, had infamously called as the policy meant to “Grow More Muslims”.

“Many of the Bengali-speakers in Assam, who find themselves at the receiving end of the identity war are the descendants of those early settlers,” said Dr Kaustubh Deka, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science at the Dibrugarh University.

This group was segregated when the Assam government earlier this year granted indigenous status to five Muslim groups – Goria, Moria, Jolha, Deshi and Syed. Of Assam’s 1.18 crore Muslim population, over 40 lakh are from these five “indigenous” sub-groups.

All boils down to NRC

One possible solution to the identity conundrum in Assam was thought to be an updated NRC, which many believed would end once and for all the decades-old conflict. However, the BJP-led government has already rejected the final NRC published in August 2019.
The NRC (National Register of Citizens) update was an exercise which required residents of Assam to provide documentation “proving” their Indian citizenship. Prepared at a cost of Rs 1,220 crore, involving 55,000 personnel in nearly 10 years, the final list excluded the names of some 1.9 million (19 lakh) people.

Even though the mammoth exercise was monitored by the Supreme Court under former CJI Ranjan Gogoi, an Assamese, and completed during the BJP rule, the state government claims the number — 19 lakh — is too small and has filed a petition in the Supreme Court for reverification of NRC.

This demand is backed by several civil society organisations which claim around 8 million (80 lakh) “foreigners” have been “illegally” included in the NRC published in August 2019. Chief minister Sarma recently stated that his government favours a fresh NRC with 1951 as the cut-off year, and not the present 1971, which was agreed by all state-holders. This new cut-off year has already sparked a fresh identity war in the state.

According to the Assam Accord signed in 1985, anyone who entered the country before the midnight of March 24, 1971, is an Indian citizen in Assam. This was done using the 1971 war as the cut-off. During the previous Congress-led regime, all stakeholders, including the ruling and opposition political parties, social organisations and student bodies had come to a consensus and agreed on March 25, 1971, as the cut-off date for the NRC exercise.
Yet, very few in the state feel they could freely say anything against the NRC bogey.

“Saying anything about the futility of the cruel exercise would brand you as anti-Assamese. And who in Assam could afford to face the backlash of the Assamese nationalists as well as the government. The political environment is quite vitiated,” said Purabi, a Guwahati-based lawyer who requested to use her first name only.

Unlike the young lawyer, the opposition parties seem to be playing it safe and have tried to distance themselves from the Miya Museum issue fearing backlash from voters belonging to the majority community.

The opposition Congress termed the museum an impact of extreme religious polarisation. Senior Congress leader Debabrata Saikia, who is also the leader of opposition in the Assembly, said there are several other important issues which the Assam chief minister needs to focus on.

The opposition AIUDF, which projects itself as the political representative of the Muslim community in the state, though has questioned the arrests, has distanced itself from the “Miya identity issue”.

It was only suspended Congress leader Sherman Ali, who was the first MLA to propose a ‘Miya Museum’ in Assam two years back, who compared the arrests of the three with that of anti-apartheid leader of South Africa Nelson Mandela. He termed the incident as an important chapter in Assam’s history for the recognition of the Miya community.

What threatens to further polarise the situation in Assam is the vociferous campaign unleashed by the ruling BJP calling the museum an attack on Assamese culture and identity. The Miya Museum issue comes close on the heels of alleged attempts by the government to corner the Bengali-speaking Muslims by bulldozing Muslim religious and educational institutions on government land.

Many believe the ‘Miya Museum’ was nothing but an assertion by a community of their identity for which they are being unjustifiably targeted so often.

Some Muslim organisations have also accused the Assam government of backtracking on promises made during the 2016 Assam election to promote and showcase the Islamic culture in Assam.

The BJP’s 2016 Assam election manifesto had promised “Conducting academic research on their identity, language and culture” of the Religious Minorities in Assam, and had also promised “constructing Ajan Pir Kalakshetra (on the lines of the Srimanta Sankardev Kalakshetra, a cultural centre) to showcase the rich socio-religious Islamic culture in Assam”.

“The Miya community is a huge community and every community’s culture must be preserved and promoted. The government must be at the forefront for this. Someone wanting to showcase and preserve their culture is not an offence. If the government doesn’t come forward for such initiatives, private citizens and organisations will naturally try to do that on their own,” said Hafiz Ahmed of the Char Chapori Sahitya Parishad, a literary organisation for the Muslim community living in the sand islands of Brahmaputra.
“The BJP had itself promised in 2016 and the government should take up the initiative now,” he added.

Criticising the government’s heavy-handed approach, Ahmed said it was a community museum and there are many such museums across the country.

The chief minister, however, has questioned the motive behind the museum and termed it an attempt to distort the Assamese identity.

“Except the lungi (wraparound worn by men), all other items on display at the museum like the nangol (Assamese for plough) etc., belong to the Assamese community,” said Sarma. He also challenged that the representatives of the museum must prove that the nangol is used only by the Miya people or face action.

To this, Ahmed said: “Items like the nangol are used by most farmers, not just in Assam but across several Asian countries.”

“In fact, several countries in South Asia organise plough festivals. What about them?” asks Ahmed.