Muslims in Hindutva Assam: Citizens, Outsiders, or Targets?

Professor Monirul Hussain, 73, recounted a conversation that he had a few years ago in Guwahati. At the end of an engaging chat with a stranger during a journey, the professor was asked his name. When he gave his name, the stranger exclaimed, “Oh! I thought you were Axomiya.” Perturbed, the professor asked how the man defined “Assamese” and if it included only those who had Hindu-sounding names, but the conversation soon petered off.

Prof. Hussain is a scholar from Guwahati who started his journey from Cotton College in the city and went to the University of Oxford for postdoctoral studies. During his tenure as a lecturer at the Department of Political Science, he wrote his first book, The Assam Movement: Class, Ideology and Identity (published in 1993), which featured a stinging indictment of Assamese nationalism.

He criticised the movement for its narrow view on who could be Assamese, its myth-making by equating Muslims to migrants and thereby pitting them as enemies of the State and, more importantly, how the movement itself was predominantly conceptualised, steered, and controlled by the Assamese privileged-caste elite. Prof. Hussain’s observations came under severe criticism, and he was painted as an enemy of Assamese nationalism. But he continued to write.

Three decades later, there is not a single Muslim District Commissioner or Superintendent of Police in Assam even though more than 30 per cent of the population is Muslim, notes Nazimuddin Siddique, an assistant professor of sociology at Jamia Millia Islamia. But compared with the time when Prof. Hussain was writing, when there seemed to be space to at least publish dissenting opinions, Muslims in Assam now face complete isolation and social criminalisation, according to Prof. Siddique. He said: “Indian Muslims are being dumped at the borders arbitrarily by the state, targeted by almost all organisations here, and there is not a single newspaper that wants to even write an editorial column about this. How did this come to be?”

Assamese nationalism

After the British transferred power, opinion creation in every region of modern India has been the exclusive right of those who possess caste capital. Identities that eventually became core to how a region would be perceived within the nation-building exercise were closely connected with these caste networks, which constructed narratives of cultural glory that ensured marginalised tribes and others were subservient to and subsumed within the “grand picture”.

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Assamese nationalism too has done exactly that, ensuring that dominant castes stay in power while clubbing together a broad set of people—subjects of erstwhile feudal kingdoms, tribal groups, and those with historical marginalities—as “indigenous” groups.

The “indigenous” identity, however, since its creation, only seems to peak at the expense of the “outsider”, “the migrant”, “the foreigner”. At one time, the “outsider” could be either Hindu or Muslim, but now they are only Muslim. When a certain kind of Muslim is presented as “acceptable”, then they are described as “indigenous”, and the rest are pitted as the enemy.

In his seminal work Medieval and Early Colonial Assam, Amalendu Guha describes the social structure that emerged in the region from the time of the migrant Tai Ahom kings until the British took over. It details how migration, complex wars, conversions led by Brahmins, and power struggles between these groups played a role in solidifying the emergence of a dominant ruling class just before Independence.

More importantly, Guha defines the emergence of “Asamiya nationalism” in the 1850s along with the question of language, land, and jobs, and what became of it over the next century.

Analysing how some leaders of the Asam Sahitya Sabha tried to foster a political class invoking past glory, while also creating insecurity around Bengali domination, Guha observes: “As the Asamiya middle class emerged stronger and more ambitious than ever after Sylhet was shaken off its back, its little nationalism started degenerating into chauvinism and minority-baiting.”

Support for AASU

This feeling, according to him, was mainstreamed by the new Assamese nationalists, who used popular media, which they had come to control by then. The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), which was the frontrunner of the project to safeguard Assamese nationalism, received unparalleled support from media outlets at its peak and later too. Even now, any critical voice against this nationalism attracts immediate virtual mobs and trolls.

The peculiarities surrounding the AASU’s formation are a good way to understand the power centres of Assamese nationalism itself. Besides how the AASU solidified this identity, there is also the fact that every tribe in Assam has its own students’ body.

Every tribal leader this reporter spoke to said that the anxiety of tribal people around the alienation of their land did not stem only from the foreigners’ issue, as the AASU would have us believe, but from the Assamese state as well. According to them, some of the most violent displacements of tribal people have been facilitated by those in power, be it pre-independence kingdoms or the post-Independence Assam State.

These fissures and anxieties did not go unnoticed. Enter the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

RSS inroads

In the mid-1990s, the riverine town of Silapathar in Dhemaji district had very little to offer families who wanted to admit their children to good schools. Thus, when a new school called Sankardev Shishu Vidya Niketan was inaugurated in 1996, among the many students who sought admission in it were Manoranjan Pegu’s cousins. A scholar from the Mising community, Pegu has written extensively about how the RSS steadily co-opted tribal identities in Assam into the Hindu fold.

The Sankardev schools, similar to Saraswati Shishu Mandirs in Uttar Pradesh or similar schools in other States, are actually Vidya Bharati schools of the RSS education network, which is the largest in the country, with more than 12,000 schools. Specifically in Assam, the school name invoked Sankardev, a medieval figure who is seen as the founder of the Vaishnavite movement in the State.

“Many families would admit their children to these schools even if they were supported by the RSS because most tribal areas of Assam lack schools and other basic infrastructure. The RSS understood this fairly early,” said Pegu, pointing to how the RSS had, from the time of its entry into Assam, been flexible in its operations to aid the assimilation of various communities into the Hindu fold.

From offering “seva”, or service, during disasters through the Seva Bharati arm to reaching out to tribal groups through Vanvasi Kalyan Ashrams to building schools through Vidya Bharati to finally supporting the movement against refugees from Bangladesh, the universal experiments of the RSS turned local over a period of time.

Religion and cultural identity

It is crucial to note here that the RSS is not the first to use a blend of religious and cultural identity to foster a common political identity. It was already attempted by the Ahom kingdom, when the Vaishnavite religion was promoted as the state religion and Vaishnavite monasteries called satras were used to foster connections with tribal groups. These connections were of a transactional nature, sought only on the condition of subservience.

When some tribal groups tried to become religious preachers themselves, they were put down by the kings, thus ensuring that Brahmins remained the central figures of Vaishnavite proselytisation.

When this reporter was researching the 2018 archives of the RSS for a study on the proliferation of Hindu nationalism in the south, the name of Dadarao Paramarth cropped up repeatedly. A trusted aide of Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the RSS founder, Paramarth was first deputed to the south. From Madras Presidency, he extended support to various people such as traders, moneylenders, and others who wanted to set up RSS extensions in their regions.

It was his intervention that introduced the RSS to Mangaluru, from where it went on to become the strongest outpost of the organisation in the south. With this wealth of experience, Paramarth was sent to Assam in 1946, where he and his colleagues set up shop in Guwahati, Dibrugarh, and Shillong, reaching out to pro-Brahmin networks, who, by then, were spreading the word about the RSS’ work.

Many actively sought them out nationally, as the RSS was seen as the organisation that centred an opinion of Muslims as aggressors. Through such networks the RSS assimilated into Assam’s political, social, and cultural spaces. Speaking a language of convenience according to the group that it interacted with, the RSS used local linkages to percolate important spaces.

The fourth Hindu Conference of the Vishva Hindu Parishad in 1981 at Kamrup even had the public patronage of Sharatchandra Goswami, chairman of the Board of Secondary Education, who presided over the programme. It was a telling example of the extent of the RSS’ penetration in the State and the amount of support it enjoyed from the authorities. In less than a decade, Sankardev schools had mushroomed all over the State.

Most of these schools receive financial aid from the State government. More widespread in tribal districts are the Ekal Vidyalayas, or single-teacher schools. Many students from these schools in Assam have also been sent to other States, where they are enrolled in bigger institutions run by the RSS or its supporters. The schools centre Vedic learning and a uniform thought process that aligns with majoritarian Hindu identity while erasing the student’s own identity. Alongside, Hindu temples and institutions are built in the students’ neighbourhoods so that the conversion is complete.

“Muslims from Bangladesh”

The most important aspect of these institutions is that they seek to ensure that the students internalise that the main aggressor they need to fear, the enemy erasing their culture, identity, or space, are the “Muslims from Bangladesh”.

Both the RSS and the Assamese nationalists claim that they have the support of Assam’s tribal groups. In reality, tribal lands belonging to the Mising community have been grabbed by State authorities, often using unconstitutional methods. “Nobody showed up then,” said Pegu.

Called “Protected Tribal Belts and Blocks”, land belonging to protected tribal classes such as the Mising cannot be taken by non-tribal people, which by extension should also include the Assamese government. Yet, District Commissioners regularly denotify such protected areas, doing away with the safeguards to facilitate the takeover by the government.

Two such land grants, totalling 13,000 bighas of tribal land, to Adani Enterprises have come under severe criticism from tribal groups in Kokrajhar and Dima Hasao districts. The land grant in Kokrajhar was made without mandatory public consultations, said Bodo National Students Union president Bonjit Manjil Basumatary, calling for mass protests. These protests are supported by a few senior activists who work on land issues, but beyond that, no other Assamese nationalist group comes out in support when such rights are grabbed by the State, said Pegu.

The nexus between the State apparatus and the rise of Hindu nationalism among dominant caste Assamese peaked in the 1970s, when the RSS’ student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), began to fully participate in the Assam movement.

Masoyo Awungashi, a journalist, and Professor Malini Bhattacharjee have written in detail about how the acceptance of the RSS grew with its involvement in the campaign against “Bangladeshi immigrants” from the time of M.S. Golwalkar, the second head of the organisation. Successive RSS leaders spoke vehemently on the issue nationally, warning of the “sinister plot” of Bengali Muslims to change the demographics of Assam. Simultaneously, Bengali Hindus from Bangladesh were positioned as victims who had to be provided refuge in India. By accommodating them, the RSS said, “Assam can remain a Hindu majority.”

By the 1980s, the ABVP had started organising national programmes in Delhi to “save Assam today to save India tomorrow”, in a bid to give the issue national colour. The AASU and the RSS together created so much hate against Muslims that it eventually led to the appalling Nellie massacre, wherein more than 2,000 Muslims were slaughtered by a group of people belonging to the dominant Assamese Hindu castes and the Tiwa and Karbi tribes. The victims got no justice; worse, the event was erased from public memory by prominent Assamese nationalists who readily evoke the memory of the 855 killed during the Assam movement.

Assamese nationalism and Hindutva

The marriage of Assamese nationalism and Hindu nationalism came full circle when, in 2018, two former AASU leaders sat on the dais at what was termed the largest rally the RSS had ever organised in north-eastern India. One of them was the then Chief Minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, and the other is current Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

The rally, organised two years after the first BJP government came to power in Assam in 2016, was called “Luitporia Hindu Samabesh”. Among the invitees on the stage were leaders from over 10 tribes of Assam such as the Karbi, Tiwa, and Mising. At least 10 religious leaders from the satras were present. Also present were top RSS leaders and more than five BJP legislators.

On the occasion, RSS leaders invoked every symbol from the satras to Lachit Borphukan, a celebrated army general of the Ahom kingdom, to reiterate that Assam and other north-eastern States needed saving. They pointed to the tribal leaders on the stage to denote “diversity of Hindu identity”. Shiladitya Dev, a BJP MLA at the time, declared: “Only the RSS can save Assam.” The programme ended with a recitation of the Assamese song, “Luitporia Hindu ami” (We are Hindus of the Brahmaputra).

As the AASU and the RSS posture collectively or separately as the protectors of the Assamese, who are now more or less defined as dominant caste Hindu Assamese, newer and more aggressive groups are emerging who label them “tame” and “sold-out” and who declare that they will address the “foreigners” issue more forcefully.

Fringe groups

The Veer Lachit Sena is one such organisation. It says it will not hesitate to take up arms if required to protect Assam. Boasting of a cadre running into lakhs of youngsters, the group roughs up migrants and organises rallies targeting Muslim properties that it claims are “illegally occupied”.

Deepjyoti Gogoi, president of a local chapter of the Veer Lachit Sena, said: “The population of Assam is 3.5 crore. Of this, 2 crore are indigenous Assamese Hindu, Christian, and other communities. Muslims are 1.5 crore, of which at least 1 crore are not from here, such as the Miya Muslims (Bengali Muslims). They have to be sent back.”

According to Gogoi, Bengali Hindus have assimilated with the larger category of Hindus. But even this is not entirely true, as a visit to the lower Assam regions, especially the Bengali-dominated Barak Valley side, proves. “Actually, it is Bengali Muslims who accepted the Assamese language more readily than Bengali Hindus, since they felt their religion could be used against them and had no choice,” Prof. Hussain explained. Bengali Hindus, on the other hand, have always had the support of the RSS, so they did not have to abandon their culture or language.

As in Jharkhand, land and job losses are the main planks against the “foreigners”.

The Veer Lachit Sena has an elaborate plan on this front. In localities where Miya Muslims are seen as the major labour force, the Sena plans to create training centres to build capacities among non-Muslims.

Violence against Muslims

Funds are also reportedly being generated to support local businesses, the most important condition being that they do not employ “foreigners”. Gogoi added: “The more aggressive method is to mark areas where these Muslims live and drive them out.” According to him, a civil war is brewing, and Assam would soon turn into Manipur if the Bangladeshis are not thrown out. Gogoi showed this writer a video from Kachutali village of Sonapur, in which Shrinkhal Chaliha, a prominent Lachit Sena leader, is seen proclaiming that all Bengali Muslims would be driven out by the Sena, after the group orchestrated an eviction.

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There have already been incidents of violent evictions of Bengali Muslims in this village, and two Muslims were shot dead by the police during one such eviction in 2024.

The government justified the eviction saying that the land belonged to tribal people and fell under the protected category, but the Muslim owners said the land had been sold to them and produced documents in support. None of the Lachit Sena leaders this writer met belonged to any tribe from Assam, but the group now works in many tribal areas as leaders protecting the “indigenous land of the Assamese”.

Interestingly, all the Assamese nationalists Frontline spoke to insisted on the State’s secular history. The irony of showcasing such a secular history even as a structural campaign is being orchestrated against Muslims was lost on them.

As two majoritarian nationalisms blend violently in Assam, threats by fringe groups such as Gogoi’s loom darkly overhead.

Greeshma Kuthar is an independent journalist and lawyer from Tamil Nadu. Her primary focus is investigating the evolving methods of the far right, their use of cultural nationalism regionally, and their attempts to assimilate caste identities into the RSS fold.