Whither Assam Muslims? The Story of Group's Exclusion from Political, Public Spheres

In Assam, Muslims constitute one of the most marginalised social groups. Besides being looked down with condescension as ‘outsiders’, they are stereotyped as “Bangladeshi”, “illegal immigrant” and even “Jihadi”. Their citizenship is persistently under attack, and they are targeted through the state power through mechanisms such as the National Register of Citizens, and issues such as eviction and “doubtful voters”. A lot of human rights violations against Assam Muslims are already in the public domain. In this article, I will specifically deal with the question of representation vis-a-vis Muslims in the state.

Muslims of Assam are a heterogeneous category, who are sub-divided into Miya Muslims, Goriya, Moria, Julha, Deshi, Bihari Muslims, Muslims of Barak Valley, etc. The ruling parties in the state have been sharpening the existing faultlines amongst Muslim groups in the state. Some Muslim groups like Goriya, Moria, Julha, Deshi, Syed, etc., are arbitrarily termed as ‘indigenous’ by the government of Assam only to exclude the Miya Muslims from the public and political spheres. Miya Muslims are arguably the most discriminated and excluded category in the state. But in this article, I will briefly discuss the total discrimination against Muslims in the state, in general, by looking at the question of representation of the community in the major public institutions, on which the government is clearly silent.

Also read: Detention, Criminalisation, Statelessness: The Aftermath of Assam’s NRC

Abysmal representation

Assam has about 35% Muslim population, and the representation of this community in government offices is abysmally low. Presently, there are 16 ministers in the state government, and none of them is a Muslim. The state has 34 districts and not even a single district has a Muslim deputy commissioner (DC). In these 34 districts, not even a single superintendent of police (SP) is a Muslim. The Gauhati high court has 23 judges, including one chief justice and surprisingly none of them is a Muslim. These discriminations are not only limited to administration.

Presently, after the 2021 assembly election, the state has 31 Muslim MLAs out of 126 MLAs. The share amounts to 24.60% of the total MLAs. But a proportionate number would be 43 Muslim MLAs in the Assam state assembly. In the 2016 assembly elections, 29 Muslim MLAs were elected, which amounts to 23.02% representation. Thanks to the delimitation of the constituencies in the state, at least none Muslim MLA seats will be further lost in the next assembly election. The state presently has two Muslim MPs out of 14 MPs, meaning only 14.29% Muslim representation among the MPs. Not to mention, the number of MPs, which will be representative of the Muslim population in the state, is five.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

Assam has two central universities and 14 state universities. I have taken a sample of five universities to see the representation of Muslims in the teaching positions from their respective website, in these universities. One of these universities is a central university (Tezpur University), and the other four are state universities. Out of the four state universities, I have included one recently opened university (BSSR University) and the oldest university in the region (Gauhati University).

Tezpur Central University has a representation of Muslim teachers of 3.98%, while Gauhati University has Muslim teachers of 7.47%. Arabic and Parsi departments of the Gauhati University alone have seven Muslim teachers, and without these two departments, the representation of Muslim teachers in the University comes down to 5.54%. Bodoland University, located in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) of Assam, does not have a single Muslim teacher out of the 93 teachers the university has. Another relatively old university in the state, Dibrugarh University, which was established in 1965, has about 2.44% of its teachers Muslim, which is abysmally low. BSSR Vishwavidyalaya is a newly opened university in the Golaghat district of the state with 5.88% of Muslim teachers. All these clearly show severely less representation of Muslims in the university system than their population share in the state, which is about 35%. Representation of Muslims in the media houses in the state is either abysmally low or entirely missing. This underrepresentation is not an overnight phenomenon, for it happened over the decades in the state.

Source: Websites of the respective  university

The current government’s initiatives meant for the poor also exclude Muslims. A recent example is a scheme, namely Mukhyamantri Mahila Udyamita Abhiyaan (MMUA), which is a scheme with an investment of Rs 4,000 crore to improve the economic condition of rural women. To benefit from this scheme, women cannot have more than three children except in Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Scheduled Castes (SC). Women in the SC and ST categories can benefit from this scheme even if they have four children. Notably, the Sachar committee clarifies that the economic condition of Muslims is worse than that of SCs and STs. And in a time when no one wants to have more children, it is the poorest sections of all communities that have relatively more children. Mary E John critiques this move of the government and argues that this scheme is to exclude Muslim women who are more marginalised.  Another scheme, namely Vasundhara 2.0, through which land rights are given to landless people of the state, too excludes Muslims totally. There are many such examples.

 Overwhelming number of Muslims as undertrials

On the contrary, the share of Muslims in the jails of the state throws a very interesting picture. As per Prison Statistics India 2022, published by the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB), 55.6% of convicts lodged in the prisons of Assam are Muslims. When it comes to undertrials lodged in the jails, 52.54% of them are Muslims in Assam.

From the above discussion, it is clear that discrimination and exclusion are visible in Assam. Muslims in Assam are excluded from decision-making, politics, and various institutions, including institutions of higher learning and administration. They are purposely and systematically made voiceless regarding policy formation and problem-raising. An exhaustive study to understand the discrimination and underrepresentation of Muslims in public life in the state is the urgent need of the hour. The situation is all the more alarming as Abdur Rahman writes in his book Absent in Politics and Power, Political Exclusion of Indian Muslims, “The BJP openly portrays itself as anti-Muslim and has been against all forms of their empowerment. By depriving them of a just and equitable share in education, economy and politics, the party intends to push them into becoming second class citizens” (p.97).

Today in Assam, the word discrimination is meaningless if the discrimination against Muslims is not considered. While other discriminated social groups enjoy the benefit of reservation, most of the Muslims in the state, especially the Miya Muslims of the state, do not have any reservation to make inroads into the system. They are always pushed to the margin to struggle for basic survival – food, clothes, and land. The picture of missing Muslims from public institutions is completely contradictory to the claim, sabke saath sabka bikas.

Keeping a community away from the positions of power in government-run institutions leads to stereotyping of the community.  It is the need of the hour to bring Muslims of Assam into a suitable reservation system in the line of Scheduled Caste (SC) to ensure proportionate representation of this community in the social, political, economic, and educational positions and to ensure social justice to this marginalised community. The constitution of India promised equal opportunity for all the country’s citizens, and it is time to deliver this promise to these marginalised citizens of peripheral India.

Nazimuddin Siddique teaches Sociology at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He can be contacted at sid.nazimuddin@gmail.com.