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Indian Express
2 days ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
Assam evictions: Himanta Biswa Sarma government must not trade empathy for political expediency
The recent wave of eviction drives in Assam raises troubling questions. In the past month alone, the state has conducted five major drives across four districts, including Dhubri, Lakhimpur, Nalbari and now, Paikan reserve forest in Goalpara, removing at least 3,300 families from forest land, grazing land and government revenue land. These have been framed as an exercise in reclaiming encroached land in accordance with the standing order of the Gauhati High Court to minimise man-animal conflict. However, from Darrang and Lumding in 2021 to Barpeta in 2022 to now, the execution of these drives, and the polarising political rhetoric surrounding them, serve to underline a troubling reality: In Assam in the recent past, all too often, governance appears to function through the prism of exclusion, not inclusion. To be sure, underlying the state's initiatives are legitimate concerns — environmental degradation, land management, and deep-seated anxieties around migration and identity that have persisted since Partition and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. According to the Union Environment Ministry, as of March 2024, Assam had the second highest encroachment of forest land in the country, after Madhya Pradesh. But weaponising these concerns to target specific communities — most eviction drives have focused on areas with large populations of Bengali-origin Muslims — underlines a politics of dispossession. Over the past weeks, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has spoken of 'demographic invasion' by 'people of one religion.', of 'land jihad', and of his determination to 'protect Assamese constituencies' in places where 'an effort has started to change the demography of Upper Assam'. Such rhetoric from the chief minister — not for the first time — stands to transform administrative action into communal performance. It recasts vulnerable citizens as outsiders, an especially cruel turn in a state where, post-National Register of Citizens, nearly 19.6 residents had been rendered suspect, forced to prove their citizenship without state support. According to the state government, over 1.19 lakh bighas of land have been reclaimed since Sarma came to power in 2021 and over 50,000 people have been evicted. These statistics encompass homes, schools, livelihoods, lifelines and lifetimes. Many of the evicted are displaced victims of river erosion, economic marginalisation, or historical neglect. An absence of humane policy response stands to render eviction not as an administrative necessity, but as a form of institutional violence; not enforcement but erasure. With assembly elections less than a year away, the Assam government's campaign against purported outsiders in the state has gained political urgency. But electoral arithmetic must not override constitutional responsibility and due process. If the aim is environmental or administrative correction, it must be carried out without inflammatory rhetoric or partisan action, and with a commitment to transparency. It means building trust, offering rehabilitation, and recognising that the rights to shelter, belonging and dignity are fundamental. When the state trades empathy for political expediency, it is the notion of justice that gets bulldozed.
Time of India
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind team visits eviction site, sets up shelters
Guwahati: A delegation from Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (Maulana Mahmood Asad Madani faction) visited Goalpara district in lower Assam on Tuesday to assess the aftermath of a recent eviction drive and helped set up temporary shelters for those evicted. The recent eviction drives at Hahilabil (also known as Hasilabil) and Ashudubi in Goalpara's Paikan led to the demolition of approximately 4,000 houses, primarily affecting Bengali-origin migrant Muslim families. The delegation comprised five members, led by the organisation's general secretary, Maulana Hakim Uddin Qasimi. The ASJU provided assistance by establishing temporary shelters, while local organisations and residents offered essential humanitarian support, including food provisions. The delegation engaged with affected families and evaluated the conditions at the demolition. "Whatever has happened in Goalpara was painful. People of our own country are being evicted. Govt first needs to arrange shelter for them, then other decisions may be taken," Hakim Uddin said, noting the deprivation of basic necessities and advised the displaced residents to remain patient. The organisation submitted a memorandum to CM Himanta Biswa Sarma through the district magistrate. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Kassel: GEERS sucht 700 Testhörer für Hörgeräte ohne Zuzahlung GEERS Undo The document criticised the demolition as discriminatory, highlighting its focus on Muslim-majority areas, while sparing similar settlements of other communities. The memorandum emphasised that many affected families resided in these areas for over seven decades and possessed legitimate Indian citizenship. Many were previously displaced by the Brahmaputra's erosion. A preliminary report by Maulana Badruddin Ajmal and Hafiz Bashir Ahmad Qasmi detailed that demolitions from Nov 2023 to July 2025 affected 8,115 families across Goalpara, Dhubri, and Nalbari districts.
India Today
15-07-2025
- Politics
- India Today
At Ground Zero in Bihar, a common refrain: Voted in 2024, vanished in 2025
It started with a push from my senior that an unbiased outlook investigating the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process in Bihar is important with the replugging of the illegal immigration political conversation. That was enough to push me to board a flight from Delhi to Patna despite travel anxiety peaking through the recent crash and tracing the arc of deletion stories making their way from urban corners to far-flung the time we drove through Muzaffarpur and reached Hajipur, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) in the field were already speaking in half-truths and contradictions. What was going on with the SIR process? Why were citizens, largely Muslim, Bengali-origin, or from the Shershabadi community, finding their names missing from electoral rolls after having voted just a year ago? In Bihar, the Special Intensive Revision was initiated to update electoral rolls by identifying dead, duplicate, or voters who have migrated. Before the SIR began, the Election Commission had conducted a summary revision of the electoral rolls. This concluded in June 2025. The summary revision is a scheduled, annual process through which voters can add, correct, or delete theory, this means that between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the SIR, there was one formal opportunity for changes to be made to the rolls. Yet, many voters are finding out now - during the SIR - that their names have been quietly raises a crucial question: At what point did these deletions actually take place? Were they removed during the summary revision without informing voters, or is the SIR now being used to retroactively validate such deletions?What is clear on the ground is confusion and panic. Individuals named in the 2024 rolls are being told they do not exist in the system. And the process, I discovered, varies sharply - sometimes from booth to booth. In Purnea's Chimni Bazar, 400 voters, all Muslim, had their names missing from the voter list IN PURNEA, DELETIONS RAISE QUESTIONS ON TIMINGWe entered Chimni Bazaar in Purnea, a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood. We met Sitab, the ward parshad, who claimed that 400 voters, all Muslim, had their names missing from the voter BLO told them their enumeration records could not be found. One of those whose name vanished showed us his 2024 voter slip. He had cast his vote. But now, when he went to verify his name for 2025, he was told, "Naam list mein hi nahi hai" (Your name is not on the list).Across the mohalla, I heard the same refrain. Voters were missing from the current enumeration list. They had voter ID cards, yet their names were marked as deleted. This raised a sharp question - at what point between the 2024 election and the 2025 SIR process did their names go missing?advertisementWhat makes this more complicated is that the summary revision, which concluded just weeks before the SIR, should have caught and corrected these deletions if they were in several residents told us they were neither informed of objections nor asked for fresh documentation during that time. Now under SIR, they are expected to fill Form 6 or, as they say, are yet to be told about this process. A BLO claimed the deletions were done at the district level, not by BLOs 'DELETIONS DONE AT DISTRICT LEVEL'The ward is manned by four BLOs. In the local government school, we began a candid conversation with one of them. The officer, who had been in the system for close to 18 years, opened up about the claimed the deletions were done at the district level, not by BLOs."2024 mein vote diya, 2025 mein naam kat gaya. Deletions toh zila se ho raha hai. Hamara system ek saal hi hua hai ki allow karta hai add ya delete. Abhi toh add bhi nahi ho raha (Voted in 2024, but name got deleted in 2025. The deletions are happening at the district level. Our system only allows additions or deletions once a year. Right now, even additions aren't happening)," he said in one asked him how voters who had valid documents could be struck off the responded, "There must have found something wrong. Only then would the name be removed. Names don't just get deleted like that at the district level. I feel like 60% of the people are outsiders. They are all scared that their names might get cut too."When I asked if he could identify illegal migrants, he hesitated. "Sab bolta hai Bangladeshi nahi hai, Bangal se hai. Lekin humein doubt hai. Ek aata hai, pachaas peechhe aate hain (Everybody says he is not Bangladeshi, he is from Bengal. But we have doubts. If one comes, he brings 50 more)," he officer went on to say that lakhs of names were removed earlier, but he does not know how. He had even been threatened by a resident whose name was deleted. "Two-three people even threatened us. We have complained to the SDM," he IN MUZAFFARPUR AND HAJIPURBefore Purnea, we stopped at Muzaffarpur and Hajipur, towns with mixed populations and relatively less panic than Seemanchal. Here, we found something equally troubling - the form submission process itself is being Muzaffarpur, a BLO gave us a live demo of the mobile app interface. Under the SIR tab, they showed how a name, date of birth, and photograph could be uploaded without any supporting documents. SIR mobile app interface "Since we are locals and know most residents, we have the authority to verify whether someone is born here. Later, if there's an objection or the ERO seeks documents, we will collect them," he system is OTP-verified using the BLO's mobile credentials. Once a form is uploaded with name and date of birth, the applicant is added to the digital queue even if no document is scanned. The system is OTP-verified using the BLO's mobile credentials 'TAKE FORM FIRST, COLLECT DOCUMENT LATER'In Hajipur, the inconsistency was even starker. One BLO told us, "We were initially told not to take the form without documents. But now the directive is, take the form first, collect the document later if needed."advertisementA BLO sahayak added, "Till a few days ago, Aadhaar numbers weren't accepted. But now, if someone isn't on the 2003 roll and doesn't give documents, we still submit the form with just Aadhaar number, name, date of birth, and signature."This is a significant shift. On paper, the SIR process requires proof of citizenship, age, and residence. But BLOs in Hajipur admit they have been told to use discretion.A BLO supervisor explained, "This exercise is primarily to remove dead or duplicate voters. Document checking will happen after August 25 depending on new instructions."SOME BLOs ACCEPT AADHAAR, OTHERS SAY OPTIONALIndia Today recorded footage of BLOs submitting enumeration without uploading any documents. In some locations, Aadhaar numbers are being used even though the form lists Aadhaar as optional."In some places Aadhaar is used, in some places it is optional," said a BLO in Muzaffarpur. This has led to major confusion among applicants. While one BLO submits a form with just an Aadhaar number, another refuses the week, the Supreme Court asked the Election Commission to consider Aadhaar, voter ID card, and ration card in its verification the next part of this series, we will bring you more revelations - from how foreign nationals are being combed out across Seemanchal to how documents have gone missing to how door-to-door surveys are being skipped while BLOs face mounting pressure and unrealistic targets on the ground.- EndsMust Watch
Indian Express
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Another eviction drive in Assam, 3,300 families displaced in month
On Saturday, Rokibul Hussain (28) spent the morning sitting outside the house his father had built, in Bidyapara in Assam's Goalpara district, waiting with dread for the bulldozers to arrive. Two bulldozers eventually made their way towards his family's home, flattening other houses in the row first, while dozens of police and forest personnel stood guard. At around 11 am, a policewoman was sent to check if anyone was still inside Rokibul's house. After she gave the green signal, the bulldozer targeted the walls — which had already been stripped bare of the tin roof — working rapidly until the house was completely flattened. It then moved on to the next house while Rokibul watched on silently. In the state's fifth large-scale eviction drive within a month, the focus was on the Paikan Reserve Forest area in Goalpara district on Saturday. According to Goalpara Divisional Forest Officer Tejas Mariswamy, the drive sought to remove 1,080 families who had encroached on 140 hectares of forest land. With this, over 3,300 families — mostly Bengali-origin Muslims – have been displaced through eviction drives in multiple districts including Dhubri, Lakhimpur, Nalbari and Goalpara in just a month. The authorities have claimed that those evicted were encroaching on government/ forest/ panchayat land. Like the previous exercises, Saturday's eviction drive, too, was a large-scale affair. With the total area divided into six blocks and six bulldozers working in each block, a total of 36 bulldozers — and another four in reserve — were deployed. Security personnel, including armed police commandos, were spread across the area. Goalpara Superintendent of Police Nabaneet Mahanta said around 1,000 personnel, including forest protection forces, had been deployed on the ground. Like Rokibul, the other affected families, too, had removed the tin roofs of their houses and taken away all their belongings in the days preceding the eviction. 'We took away all our belongings yesterday, we have kept them at a relative's house in Jambari (an adjoining settlement), but we spent the night here, with a tarpaulin sheet serving as the roof. Tonight, we will probably have to pitch a tarpaulin sheet somewhere on the road. Let's see what the authorities will allow,' Rokibul said. For nearly a month now, the residents of the area had been living under the shadow of eviction. Sheikh Raju Ahmed (23) said they were first told that they should leave by June 27. 'From June 18, announcements telling us to leave were made on a loudspeaker 2-3 times everyday. For around 20 days, police and other forces have been doing the rounds here, and that increased in the last week. Everyone emptied their houses in the last two days and just put their belongings wherever they could,' he said. In the adjoining Jambari settlement, nearly every house is being used to store the belongings of evicted families. Samesh Ali (28) said that seven families had kept their belongings in his house. 'They have kept their things but there is no room for them to stay here, so they will probably have to set up tents somewhere,' he said. While residents of the affected area have claimed that their families bought the properties as 'revenue land' from earlier Garo inhabitants, they were unable to secure a stay on the eviction drive from the Gauhati High Court. On the other hand, forest authorities and the district administration say that the eviction is being carried out in compliance with High Court's instructions to clear forest land to minimise man-elephant conflict. While there have been cases of evictions in Assam facing resistance — some people pelted stones at bulldozers and faced police batons in Dhubri earlier this week; two protesters were shot dead after clashing with police in Sonapur last year — there was only a resigned silence on Saturday. But panic and fear was high. A resident, Fauzaul Hoque, was rushed for medical treatment after he was found trying to hang himself before his home was demolished. 'No one is going to fight here. Everyone is scared of what might happen. Even if you cry, it doesn't mean that your house will be spared. And if you try to challenge, then you may pay with your life. We can't do anything about it,' said Shah Jahan Ali. While eviction drives have become commonplace in Assam in recent years – in the run-up to the 2021 elections, the ruling BJP promised to free government land of 'encroachers' and allot the areas to 'indigenous landless people' — the exercise has intensified in the past month. With elections less than a year away, they have taken the form of a hotly contested political issue. While Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed earlier this week that the government has been 'restoring the demography' in places where it is conducting evictions, in reference to Bengali-origin Muslims populations, Congress MP Rakibul Hussain has claimed that, if voted to power in the state, the Congress will provide compensation to all Indian citizens who have been evicted in such drives under the BJP government. On Saturday, a delegation of MLAs from the AIUDF — which has its core support base among Bengali-origin Muslims — tried to visit the eviction site but were stopped by local authorities. Meanwhile, even after their houses were bulldozed, residents continued to sit by the rubble in the blazing July heat. 'There is nowhere for us to go. We have got a tarpaulin sheet, we will put it up this evening. But the authorities have removed the electric transmitter, destroyed the water lines and even the well we used to have in our compound, so we are especially worried about how to look after the children,' said Mofidul Ismal (31).
Scroll.in
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Assam: Homes of 1,080 families bulldozed in Goalpara eviction drive
Authorities in Assam's Goalpara district on Saturday cleared 140 hectares of land in the Paikan Reserve Forest, displacing 1,080 families, most of whom are Muslims of Bengali origin, officials told Scroll. This was the second major eviction drive in the district. On June 16, the authorities demolished homes of 690 families in Hasilabeel, a wetland, near Goalpara town. At least five eviction drives have been carried out in four districts of Assam in the past month, which displaced nearly 3,500 families. Goalpara Divisional Forest Officer Tejas Mariswamy told Scroll that 2,700 structures were demolished on Saturday. 'The land is part of the Paikan Reserve Forest of the Krishnai Range,' Mariswamy said. Mizanur Rahman, a 28-year-old resident of Bidyapara revenue village, lost his homes during the eviction drive. He and eight members of his family have nowhere to go, Rahman said. 'All of the three houses including the pacca house were razed today…we don't have land anywhere else,' he said. 'People have been living here before it was declared a reserved forest,' said Rahman. 'It is a revenue village.' The Assam government had proposed to constitute Paikan as a reserve forest in 1959. It was declared a reserve forest in 1982. In 2022, the Goalpara Lawyers Association sent a memorandum to the state government and forest department saying that the forest rights and claims of several persons over the land in the area had not been settled. The association had asked 'for compliance of the mandatory provisions' under 1891 Assam Forest Regulation as decided in October 1959, before the evictions take place in the protected forest areas. Jiten Das, the president of the district lawyers' association, and Wazed Ali, the secretary of the body, said that in the past 40 years, 472 villages of Goalpara district had been washed away because of erosion caused by the Brahmaputra river. As a result, they said, thousands of people had become homeless and landless. 'Many of these people, having found no alternative for their survival, took shelter in the PRF land, erecting a shed over their head,' they added. A large number of security personnel had been deployed for patrolling in the areas in the past few days. District officials had said that the majority of the people living in the area had already dismantled their homes and shifted out before the eviction drive took place. Deputy Commissioner Khanindra Choudhury told Scroll that the evictions were carried out peacefully as more than 1,000 police personnel had been deployed. About 40 bulldozers were used, he said. Last week in Dhubri district, where an eviction drive led to the demolition of the homes of 1,400 Bengali-origin Muslim families, the authorities had allocated land for the rehabilitation of the affected persons. The administration had also earmarked Rs 50,000 for one-time relief for residents to transport their belongings. Ninety-three families of Bengali-origin Muslims were evicted on June 30 in Assam's Nalbari district during an anti-encroachment drive on nearly 150 acres of village grazing reserve land in the Barkhetri revenue circle. On July 3, about 220 families were evicted during an anti-encroachment drive in upper Assam's Lakhimpur district. The district authorities said that the families were living on 77 acres of land at four locations, including three village grazing reserves. Between 2016 and August 2024, more than 10,620 families – the majority of them Muslim – have been evicted from government land, according to data provided by the state revenue and disaster management department.
