Missed demographic invasion in lower and middle Assam, won't let it repeat in upper Assam: Himanta's rationale for mass evictions
In the past month, the Assam government has conducted five major evictions across four districts in which at least 3,300 families have been removed from forest land, grazing land and government revenue land.
On Wednesday, Sarma referred to 'land jihad' and said that 'an effort has started to change the demography of Upper Assam.'
He said that ever since his government came to power in 2021, it has conducted evictions to clear over 1.19 lakh bighas of land. The highest area is of forest land at 84,743 bighas, VGR/PGR (grazing land) accounts for over 36,000 bighas, 'khas' or general government land is 26,713 bighas, and land belonging to religious institutions is 4,449 bighas.
Saying that around 50,000 people have been evicted, Himanta added that district administrations have been tasked with striking off the affected individuals' names from the voter list of the place from which they were evicted. The aim, he said, is to 'protect Assamese constituencies.'
'They have their name in the (voter list of their) original village. You cannot have names in two places. Once they are evicted and the houses are gone, the DCs have to remove the names from the voter lists. Our job is to protect the Assamese constituency or the local indigenous constituency… Almost 50,000 people have been evicted so far, but their names will be there somewhere in the voter list in Assam. Their names will not be cut from the Assam voter list provided they are Indian or proper citizens, but the duplication will be cut off,' he said.
He referred to an eviction drive held earlier this month in Lakhimpur district – an Upper Assam home to several tribal and ethnic Assamese communities like Mising, Deori and Tai Ahom – in which around 220 families were evicted. He claimed that of those, 64 were found to have migrated from Barpeta, 36 from Nagaon, and the rest from Goalpara, Cachar and South Salmara-Manckachar.
'A conspiracy had started to change the jonogathoni (demography) in Lakhimpur district, which we were able to stop… In the next 20 years, if Assamese people don't obstruct it, there will be encroachment wherever there is forest, and there will be no forest cover, and there will be demographic change. People from South Salmara can go to Bengal instead, where there is better income, and it is just 30-50 km away. But they are going 400 km away to Lakhimpur,' he said.
'After demographic invasion in Lower Assam and Middle Assam, today we are seeing the beginning of demographic invasion in Upper Assam. If we could have seen the demographic invasion of Lower Assam and Middle Assam in the beginning, we probably could have stopped it. But it has become irreversible. Today, a new move has started with Upper Assam. They will go to one constituency, and then to another constituency, and after 20 years, you will see that in every assembly constituency they have a voting of 40,000-45,000. Once they become a political force, the local leadership does not allow any eviction. And consequently, Assamese people lose their identity. We are doing whatever we can to prevent this,' he said.
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