'I Want the Situation in Assam to be Explosive': Himanta's Communal Remark to Defend Gun License Decision

The Wire

3 days ago

Communalism
Sarma's comment had stemmed from his decision to issue from this August 1 gun licenses online to only 'indigenous' residents.
New Delhi: 'I want the situation in Assam to be explosive.'
Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma made this communally provocative statement when reporters asked him this past week if the situation in the state could turn 'explosive' if his government goes ahead with its decision to issue gun licenses to 'original inhabitants'.
Speaking on the sidelines of an event organised at an agricultural project of the government at Gorukhuti in Sipajhar, Sarma said, 'Someday, the situation will be explosive in Assam. How will our people survive if there is an explosion?'
Sarma's comment had stemmed from his decision to issue from this August 1 gun licenses online to only 'indigenous' residents. Since this May 28, he has been claiming that 'indigenous' people residing in 'vulnerable remote areas' of five districts of the state were feeling 'insecure' and therefore, his government would be 'lenient in giving licenses to eligible people' in those areas. The districts named by the chief minister – Dhubri, Morigaon, Barpeta, Nagaon and South Salmara-Mankachar – are where Muslims of Bengali origin are in large numbers.
Sarma is often noted for pairing his decision to issue gun licenses to 'our' people with the massive eviction drive the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been carrying out in the state, affecting a large number of Bengali origin Muslims, locally called Miya Mussalman.
The agricultural project at Gorukhuti was launched after a massive eviction drive was carried out in 2021 by Assam Police citing a Gauhati High Court general order to clear forest areas of eviction. That drive had killed an evictee, following which a government-appointed cameraperson was seen in a trial video clip jumping on his dead body.
The Opposition parties in the state have been condemning the chief minister for his government's policy to issue gun license to local people in an election-bound state.
State Congress chief Gaurav Gogoi had said, 'People of Assam want water, employment, education, and medical facilities, not guns." Citing the recent order of the Supreme Court coming down heavily on the Sarma government over alleged police access, Gogoi said the controversial move to issue gun licenses 'may lead to an increase in fake encounters.'
After Sarma reiterated his government's policy on July 25, Asam Jatiya Parishad president Lurinjyoti Gogoi repeated his condemnation, calling it a 'dangerous' proposition, adding that it 'is an insult to police and Border Security Force' that guards the districts along the Assam-Bangladesh border.
'No less a veiled attempt at instigating violence in a poll-bound state'
On asked about the Sarma government's decision, an editor of an Assamese daily agreed to give his opinion on condition of anonymity, 'What Sarma said at Gorukhuti was no less a veiled attempt at instigating violence in a poll-bound state. His decision to carry out eviction in Miya Mussalman areas and also bringing in a policy to issue gun licenses to khilonjia (indigenous) people in those areas must be seen together, as an attempt to communally awaken the majority Assamese community, particularly in Upper Assam, as his government is getting very unpopular in those areas, mainly due to charges of corruption and nepotism. Upper Assam, mind you, has the highest number of assembly segments.'
The editor said, 'People are also seeing now a clear chief ministerial candidate in the Opposition camp in Gaurav Gogoi and that is making Sarma worried. The only thing that can perhaps save him is communal polarisation of votes.'
Prior to the anti-foreigner Nellie massacre in 1983 in Assam, former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had made a speech which some considered it provocative. Journalist N P Ullekh, in his book, 'The Untold Vajpayee: Politician and Paradox', had mentioned that speech delivered a week before the massacre in Guwahati where he said ' a river of blood' would flow in Assam if elections were allowed by Indira Gandhi government to take place in 1983.
In 1996, while debating a motion of confidence in the Lok Sabha moved by the then Vajpayee government, senior Left MP Indrajit Gupta had read out excerpts from that inflammatory speech of the BJP leader.
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