On September 14, on a go to to Assam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for liberating “lakhs of bighas of land from infiltrators”.
He made particular point out of Garukhuti in Darrang district.
In September 2021, the Bharatiya Janata Party authorities demolished houses of two,000-odd Bengali-origin Muslim households within the space as they’d allegedly encroached on public land.
They had been evicted to make manner for an natural farming programme meant to create employment just for these thought-about “indigenous” to Assam.
It turned out to be one of many most violent eviction drives in Assam, with the police opening hearth when the demolition bumped into resistance. Two individuals had been killed, amongst them a 12-year-old boy.
Garukhuti set the template for eviction drives within the state underneath the Himanta Biswa Sarma authorities, which have usually been marked by police excesses.
In the final 9 years of Bharatiya Janata Party rule within the state, about 17,600 households, the vast majority of them Muslims of Bengali origin, have been evicted from authorities land, in line with information supplied by the state income and catastrophe administration division and district authorities. At least eight Muslims have been shot lifeless through the evictions.
There is in style assist for the motion in opposition to Bengali-origin Muslims, also called Miya Muslims, who’re considered in Assam as “unlawful immigrants” occupying the land of the “indigenous” regardless that their presence within the area goes again to pre-1947 years.
In his speech, Modi claimed that “Garukhuti space, as soon as underneath the management of infiltrators… has now been reclaimed”.
“The reclaimed land is now dwelling to the Garukhuti Agricultural Project, the place native youth are working as ‘Krishi Sainiks’ and cultivating crops resembling mustard, maize, urad, sesame, and pumpkin,” he stated. “The land as soon as occupied by infiltrators has now turn out to be a brand new hub of agricultural growth in Assam.”
But in Garukhuti, neither of the PM’s claims have gone uncontested.
The Bengali-origin Muslim households, who’re nonetheless struggling to recuperate from dropping their houses and livelihoods, vehemently denied that they had been undocumented migrants. “If we’re Bangladeshi infiltrators, why did the district administration give one bigha of land per household and resettle us?” stated Shahjahan Ali, who had misplaced his dwelling through the eviction.
Ali identified that lots of the displaced have their “names within the NRC of 2019 and 1951”.
He was referring to the National Register of Citizens, an inventory of professional residents within the state which was drawn up in Assam in 1951 after which up to date in 2019 after a mammoth bureaucratic train.
Modi’s assertion that the multi-crore farming mission is a hit can also be removed from the reality.
“The Prime Minister didn’t see what was occurring inside,” stated Dhanjit Nath, a 40-year-old employee on the mission. “He doesn’t know that we aren’t being paid sufficient.”
The Assam authorities’s personal figures present that it has not turned up a revenue within the final 4 years. A number of months in the past, ministers within the Himanta Biswa Sarma authorities and BJP MLAs had been accused of corruption – particularly of cornering cows purchased by the federal government for the mission for his or her private use.
What the agriculture mission has succeeded, nonetheless, is in pushing a number of Miya Muslim households out of agriculture. Many of them work as migrant labour exterior Assam.
The killings and the aftermath
One of probably the most chilling pictures from the Darrang eviction was that of a photographer connected with the district administration stomping on the physique of a person killed in police firing.
Mumtaz Begum has not been in a position to overlook that picture.
It was her husband, 28-year-old Moinul Haque, who had been shot within the chest and his physique desecrated.
“It breaks my coronary heart at any time when it involves thoughts,” the 36-year-old Begum instructed Scroll. “I weep earlier than going to sleep and pray to Allah for justice.”
After the eviction, Begum lived for 3 years on the financial institution of a close-by rivulet in a makeshift shelter constructed with the stays of her outdated dwelling in Dhalpur.
A number of months in the past, she purchased a tiny plot – one katha or one-fifth of a bigha – of land with the cash donated by others and constructed a tin shanty on it.
She runs her dwelling with a month-to-month wage of Rs 3,000 that she will get as an anganwadi employee.
When Begum heard that Modi had known as those that had lived in Dhalpur and misplaced their houses in evictions as “ghuspetiye”, she was enraged. “They killed the person, harassed and punished his household, and now Modi calls us Bangladeshi.”
She added: “This authorities has no mercy. It doesn’t take into account us people.”
Like Mumtaz Begum, the household of 12-year-old Sheikh Farid, who was shot through the eviction, is weighed down by the tragedy.
“Our father died in grief,” stated Farid’s brother, 29-year-old Amir Hussain. “My mom went again to Kamrup, from the place our household had moved to Dhalpur within the Eighties. She couldn’t keep on this home as Farid is buried simply exterior.Whenever she comes right here, she goes to the grave and weeps.”
Both Hussain and Mumtaz Begum stated the federal government had not paid them any compensation for the deaths.
The state authorities had arrange an inquiry fee after the deaths. The panel reportedly discovered that the displaced weren’t given satisfactory discover earlier than the evictions and that the police ought to have exercised restraint. It didn’t suggest any aid to the households of the lifeless.
“We didn’t get any replace on the inquiry. I simply visited Guwahati as soon as to make a press release. Nobody visits us with data,” Mumtaz Begum stated.
A neighborhood scattered
Dhalpur is surrounded on three sides by the Brahmaputra and criss-crossed by many rivulets. As in most char or non permanent riverine islands within the state, land right here is fertile however usually eroded by the river.
The neighborhood of Miya Muslims, who had been evicted in 2021, had been residing there for the reason that Eighties. They made a residing by rising seasonal greens, paddy, maize, and jute and promoting them to retailers in Guwahati.
After the demolitions, the Assam authorities relocated most of them to Dalgaon, 50 km away, the place they got a bigha of land every – although they weren’t given any land titles. About 300-odd households didn’t even get a bigha of land and have moved the excessive court docket.
The displaced individuals stated the rehabilitation website in Dalgaon lacks fundamental infrastructure with no roads, electrical energy and bathrooms. The space can also be susceptible to floods.
Several residents instructed Scroll that they’ve given up farming as there may be not sufficient land. About 70-80% males have left Assam for both Guwahati, or additional away to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala, they stated.
“Most of them at the moment are working as day by day wagers,” Nazir Sarkar, a Darrang-based minority chief and retired trainer of Kharupetia College, instructed Scroll.
Zahurul Islam, a 28-year-old farmer, stated his household used to domesticate 26 bighas of land earlier than their houses had been razed and their lands taken over.
“Now I work as a daily-wage labourer,” Islam stated. “That too not commonly. I’d get work four-five days in per week.”
Three of his brothers have moved to Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in the hunt for work. “They work on a prawn fish farm. There is not any land or work right here. What can we do?”
“If the federal government had supplied us land, we might not have wanted to return right here,” Jainuddin Ahmed instructed Scroll over the cellphone from Tirupati district in Andhra Pradesh.
Before the demolitions, the 28-year outdated farmer grew greens and maize on seven bighas of land in Dhalpur. It was sufficient to assist his household.
He moved to Andhra Pradesh proper after, and now works for a fish firm, as does his spouse. “In Assam, we may save Rs 1 lakh yearly. Here my spouse and I work day and evening to ship our youngsters to high school. Still, we can’t earn greater than Rs 800 per day.”
Sarkar, the minority chief, added: “If the federal government allotted them seven bighas of land – one bigha for homestead and 6 bighas for cultivation – they’d not have have to migrate to another states.”
Under Assam’s land coverage, the federal government can present seven bighas to a landless particular person. But underneath the Himanta Sarma authorities, solely “indigenous” farmers are entitled to such aid. While there isn’t a authorized definition of indigenity in Assam, the regulation nearly all the time excludes Miya Muslims.
What got here up on Garukhuti
While the evictions pushed Muslims of Bengali origin out of farming and into precarious labour, it has led to employment for about 300 “indigenous” individuals, together with 50 ladies, who now work on the Garukhuti Agricultural mission.
The mission is headed by Sootea MLA Padma Hazarika. While many of the land is used for farming, six camps have been constructed on the location for the employees to reside.
On a wet morning on September 16, Scroll met 4 staff on the mission.
“We do all the pieces, from breaking apart the earth to turning the soil, after which loosening it for cultivation,” stated Dhanjit Nath, the 40-year-old employee from the neighbouring Udalguri district.
Around two years in the past, Nath labored in a personal agency in Punjab, the place he used to earn Rs 15,000-Rs 18,000.
Here, he’s paid Rs 9,000 a month. “It is much less cash however I don’t produce other choices,” Nath stated.
The wage, too, doesn’t clock in commonly. “It is the sixteenth of the month and we’ve not acquired our wages but,” Nath stated. “Despite promising that they are going to improve the wage to Rs 15,000 a month, they haven’t finished it but. If they don’t achieve this, we’ve to rethink. Many individuals have already left the mission.”
His colleagues additionally complained concerning the low wages. “We are expert labourers however we aren’t getting even Rs 500 as day by day wage,” Prasanta Boro, one other employee stated.
In the Garukhuti and Rajapukhuri villages, there are blended emotions concerning the mission, even amongst these ethnic Assamese residents who supported the eviction of Miya Muslims.
“The land belongs to the federal government and the federal government has taken it again,” Hemchandra Nath, a 66-year-old cattle grazer and resident of Rajapukhuri, instructed Scroll. “Some 50-100 individuals might have discovered work there however the mission isn’t serving to our village as such.”
Nath stated that within the Nineteen Sixties, his household used to immediately domesticate the land and harvest the produce. “But now it goes to the federal government and their leaders.”
“If the mission was managed by native residents, it might have been completely different,” he added.
‘A flop present’
The state’s agriculture minister Atul Bora has admitted that the mission has not yielded the specified outcomes.
The authorities pumped in Rs 16.1 crore over two years to implement trendy farming strategies and scientific animal rearing practices within the mission.
But, as per the minister’s personal assertion, the federal government earned Rs 1.51 crore.
“The mission has turn out to be a flop present,” stated Rafiqul Islam, a former resident of Dhalpur village.
Islam grew greens and offered them within the day by day market earlier than he was evicted from Dhalpur. Now, he buys produce from others and sells them within the Kharupetia market, 50 km away.
Islam claimed that Bengali-origin Muslim cultivators acquired significantly better yields after they had been farming.
Historically, Bengali-origin Muslim peasants are recognized for his or her expertise in farming, even in tough situations. This was one of many the explanation why they had been inspired by the British emigrate from East Bengal to Assam within the early 1900s.
“We may develop 20 quintals of maize in a bigha,” Islam stated. But the federal government’s agricultural mission grows solely 3-4 quintals, he added. “They haven’t even been in a position to recuperate their prices, overlook making revenue.”
However, regardless of the poor yields, CM Sarma has defended the mission.
“I’m not right here to calculate the revenue or loss,” Sarma stated just a few months in the past. “We reclaimed and freed 8,000 bighas from the possession of Bangladeshis. That alone is value greater than any monetary acquire.”
