Assam under the chief ministership of Himanta Biswa Sarma has established itself as a state where Islamophobia is a crucial part of the state policy and statecraft.
In India, there is a general tolerance for Islamophobia in politics. It is argued that it is only a plank to mobilise your constituents in the time of elections. We must say, however, that it is only the Bharatiya Janata party which generates anti-Muslim hatred and uses it to mobilise voters around its platform and consolidate them. Islamophobia is the only glue which keeps its voters together.
The BJP leaders from the top to the bottom indulge in it and are given a free pass by the big media and even our political analysts who want you to understand that it is political compulsion of the BJP. How else can the poor BJP, then, fight against incumbency?
After the ascendance of Narendra Modi to the top position, Islamophobia has gained more currency in the BJP, where earlier, in the times of Atal Bihari Vajpeyi or Lal Krishna Advani, care was taken to couch it in acceptable social language. Modi did away with that pretence of civility.
It became an essential qualification for the BJP leaders to gain a position in the party or the government.
The rise of Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh showed the way. Anti-Muslim hatred became the defining element of the political language of all big leaders of the BJP. Sometimes it is done in a dog whistle style and many times it is open. Modi himself has graduated from ‘hum paanch hamare pachees (a derogatory comment that literally translates to ‘we are five and we have 25 children’)’ to slams against Aurangzeb or ‘kabristan shamshan’.
But other leaders use crude, violent language with a hope that it would attract more listeners.
The BJP leaders compete with each other to demonstrate that they can be more vile than their other colleagues which makes them fitter for bigger posts. In this hate race, those who have joined the BJP late in their career, spew more anti-Muslim vitriol to prove themselves worthy to the party.
It must be said that Islamophobia does not simply remain a mobilising strategy. Or it is not only a rhetorical tool. It informs state policies as well. When such leaders get into governments or head them, they ingrain Islamophobia in the state craft. All BJP ruled states are doing it.
But Himanta Biswa Sarma demonstrates his glee while doing it. He is one such BJP leader who brazenly displays his anti-Muslim hatred on every possible occasion. As a political leader he mocked the people thronging to see Rahul Gandhi in his Nyay Yatra by calling them people belonging to a particular religion. He suggested that Gandhi had consciously chosen a route populated by Muslims. But this was mild when one recalls his other statements openly targeting, mocking, insulting Muslims. As the chief minister of Assam, he enacts laws and passes executive orders which have Muslims as their prime target.
The Assam cabinet recently gave nod to repeal the Assam Moslem Marriage and Divorce Registration Act, 1935. Stopping child marriage and “torture and exploitation” against Muslim mothers are cited as the rational of repealing this law by parties in support of this repeal.
Responding to the repeal, CM Himanta declared in the Assam state assembly:
“Listen, I will not allow child marriages to take place in Assam as long as I am alive. Till Himanta Biswa Sarma is alive, there will not be any child marriage in Assam…Think of the children. I cannot allow the marriages of girls aged 5-6 years in Assam. Do whatever you can. Nobody will be allowed to do business with the children of the Muslim society…I want to challenge you politically that I will shut this shop by 2026.”
The personalised tone of this response is very revealing. The CM is projecting himself as a saviour of Muslim children and women. By insisting on his personal efforts – “I cannot allow”, “as long as I am alive” and “I will shut” – he has declared it a personal matter, and in essence, more than the law or the state itself. At once, all Muslim men are turned into people engaged in exploitation of women and children in their society. It also sends out the message that exploitation of women and children is only limited to Muslim society.
Child marriage is not just a Muslim problem. As per the last census data we have, a whooping 84% of the total 12 million married children are Hindus according to a report by IndiaSpend. Muslim children amounted to 11% of those married children.
A recent report in Scroll also showed discrimination against Muslims in government policies in Assam. Mission Basundhara is a flagship land settlement scheme of the Assam government. It allows the “state to regularise land held by cultivators and other occupants without land titles,” the report noted. However, in a shocking admission, the Assam CM on the floor of the state assembly said that Mission Basundhara is only for the “indigenous” people of Assam. He added that Bengali-origin Muslims who are landless cannot apply for land under this policy.
Indignity is being weaponised by this government in a much more evil manner against Bengali-origin Muslims in Assam. This is a way to discriminate against the Muslims of Assam in addition to accusations of ‘food jihad’, ‘land jihad’ and ‘flood jihad’. Eviction and demolition of Muslim property and places of worship too have become a mainstream tool in Assam.
There is enough empirical basis for people to begin to compare the state of Assam with Uttar Pradesh. Much of this comparison is based on the anti-minority politics we have observed in the past few years. Such politics has reached a critical stage where there is a serious breakdown of the social fabric of a multi-religious, plural and multi-ethnic society.
A few weeks ago, a radical Hindu outfit Kutumba Surakshya Parishad gave a 15-day ultimatum to the Christian schools in Assam to remove all religious symbols from school premises, including from churches. Furthermore, it also asked them to get rid of religious clothing. The president of the outfit, Satya Ranjan Borah, has been quoted as saying, “Christian Missionaries are converting schools and educational institutes into religious institutes. We will not allow it.”
In a recent incident in Goalpara, a nun from Meghalaya, Sister Rosemary, faced religious discrimination while travelling in a bus. The harassers stopped the bus and forced her out of the vehicle. The Meghalaya CM has apparently spoke to his counterpart in Assam about this matter.
The Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Bill, 2024, is also a critical Bill approved by the Assam government this month that infringes on minority rights. The Assam Christian Forum has opposed this move and has termed it a violation of their constitutional rights. The Assam CM is quoted as saying that this is not against any religion and that “magical healing” is found in all religions. He added, revealing the real rationale of this law, that, “Healing is a very, very dicey subject which is used to convert tribal people.” Again, the CM emerges with this law as a saviour of tribal people from “non-scientific” magical healing and evil practices, which is now a non-bailable offence with a penalty of up to five years and a fine of Rs 1 lakh, or both.
The “civilising” process of minorities in Assam and the job of taking Indian society towards a Hindu majority has picked up pace. Resistance to it has become thin.
Apoorvanand is a professor at Delhi University.
Suraj Gogoi teaches sociology at the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, RV University, Bengaluru. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect or represent his institution.
