Refugee Watch-29- Uddipana Goswami

The Goroimari relief camp, like seven others in the contiguous districts of Kokrajhar and Chirang, houses Muslim people of East Bengali origin in Assam, a community also commonly called the Sar-Sapori Muslims or Miyas. These camps include Sandlartari, Nangalbhanga, Bengtol, Bangaldoba, Hapachara, Sidalsati and Tapatari, besides Goroimari. Following the signing of the Memorandum of Settlement on Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) in 2003[iii], many administrative boundaries were reshuffled to create the four districts under BTC and the district of Chirang was carved out of portions of Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon. It is a poignant pointer towards the chaos in BTC today that even after two years of demarcation of its territory, there is much confusion regarding which district these camps fall under. For instance, the Goroimari camp which falls within Chirang is, even in recent representations identified as coming under the charge of the Bongaigaon district administration. In fact, all official demands for relief and rehabilitation by inmates of this and most other camps of Chirang district are placed before the Bongaigaon district administration. Others, which before the Memorandum of Settlement had fallen under Kokrajhar (Bengtol for instance), approach the Kokrajhar district administration. Indeed, inmates of an Adivasi camp[iv] at Bengtol claimed never to have even seen their Sub-Divisional Officer[v].
Further, there is no one voice in the district administrative departments regarding the status of relief and rehabilitation, one of the forty state subjects purportedly transferred to BTC, though BTC officials claim it is under their charge[vi]. The Memorandum of Settlement of 2003 however clearly states
The special Rehabilitation Programme (SRP) for the people affected by ethnic disturbances in Assam, who are at present living at relief camps in Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon etc. shall be completed by the Government of Assam with active support of BTC. Necessary funds for the rehabilitation shall be provided by the Government on India and lands which are free from all encumbrances required for such rehabilitation shall be made available by the BTC iii
Inspite of this, confusion prevails over areas of intervention by both BTC and Government of Assam which has at many times led to neglect of certain areas of relief on the one hand, and on the other, caused overlapping and utterly wasteful expenditure under the same heads.[vii]

The Muslim people of East Bengali origin are a people who immigrated to the colonial province of Assam after the state sponsored or facilitated their settlement here since the first decade of the twentieth century, though in some cases they migrated even earlier[viii]. There were various routes the immigrants took to come and settle in land-abundant Assam during the colonial period, but one of the most favored routes was through Western Assam, most of which till 1983 comprised the undivided Goalpara district. Through this western frontier – Kokrajhar and Chirang are the westernmost districts of Assam on the north bank of the Brahmaputra river – flow of goods and peoples had been taking place in all periods of history. Indeed, Western Assam has been the connection between Northeast India – most of which once comprised the province of Assam – and mainland India through Bengal, both Eastern and Western.
The Muslim immigrants in Western Assam came into contact with the indigenous populations there when they entered this sub-montane belt where the indigenous peoples, especially the Bodo, had been living. In many cases this happened during the first waves of immigration when particularly the railways[ix] running across the sub-montane tea belt provided the immigrants easy transport to these sparsely populated areas. There have also been instances however, of very recent migration – as recent as 20-25 years ago[x] – into Western Assam from the neighbouring districts of Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Bongaigaon as also from the further off districts of central and southern Assam. There are also those who came from neighboring Jalpaiguri in West Bengal (DC Kokrajhar 2000). Allegations – not entirely unfounded as first hand experience on the Indo-Bangladesh border would manifest – are also often raised of infiltration of illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and this has proved to be one of the greatest hurdles towards creating social consensus in Assam with regard to this community. In fact, on many occasions this has been used as a justification for wholesale persecution of the entire community in Assam.

When the immigrants initially came to Assam, they had a definite economic advantage over the indigenous peoples. Elsewhere the present author has detailed (2005c)

These indigenous peoples at the time were at various stages of development from swidden to settled cultivation. The Bodo especially were swidden cultivators traditionally and had only recently taken to settled cultivation (Guha 2000: 33). Again, they were used to barter economy and when the settlers came, were still struggling to cope with the money economy introduced by colonial rule[xi].
The migrants, on the other hand … were not only adept at settled cultivation but also more enterprising and commercially inclined. They had much scope for using their advantages to the disadvantage of the indigenous people, which they did if oral accounts collected during the course of field interviews are anything to go by. To cite one of these accounts, brinjals and potatoes were vegetables introduced by immigrant Muslims in many Bodo areas. Cases of unequal exchange between the two communities of small numbers of these novelties against huge quantities of foodgrain form part of childhood recollections of a few elderly Bodo individuals[xii].

Growing political awareness and nativist sentiments among the Bodo since mid-twentieth century, however, brought the two communities into confrontation. The immigrants already had an articulate political leadership that drew on the rhetorics of humanitarianism, economic and political rights and advantages, and so on to justify continued influx and settlement of landless East Bengalis in Assam.
In postcolonial Assam, the scenario took a slightly different turn in that the binary oppositions of indigenous and settler rights now overtly had another dimension added to it as the Axamiya-speaking – largely Hindu – people assumed the role of the ‘mainstream’. The opposition(s) could now be identified between the ‘ethnic’ Axamiya – the Axamiya-speaking dominant community, indigenous peoples of Assam and settler communities, with the ‘ethnic’ Axamiya enforcing a policy of assimilation – an example of which was the Assam Official Language Act of 1960 that declared: ‘Assamese shall be used for all or any of the official purpose, of the State of Assam’[xiii] – on the others as a precondition of inclusion[xiv]. The settler communities, most notably the Muslims of East Bengali origin had already recognized the necessity of such an assimilative approach if they were to avail of the opportunities that were open to the mainstream; the indigenous communities, on the other hand, attempted a reversal of the assimilation that had already occurred. The anti-Axamiya slogans of the Bodo movement have their genesis in this attempt that has proved to be a very potent tool of political resistance.
As identities thus continued to be reconstructed or remodeled in relation to the mainstream, changes also continued to take place in the equation between the Bodo and immigrant Muslims of Western Assam. The Bodo agitation for a separate homeland that was launched in 1987 initially directed most violence and vituperation towards the ‘ethnic’ Axamiya and Koch-Rajbongshi people[xv] in the proposed Bodo homeland which initially comprised of the entire north bank of the Brahmaputra valley – or roughly half the territory of the current geo-political extent of Assam[xvi]. The year 1989 especially saw large scale violence against Rajbongshi people in Bodo areas, and sporadic incidences of violence against ‘ethnic’ Axamiya so much so that till date, Axamiya officers consider being transferred to Western Assam as ‘punishment posting’. This was the time when the walls of Kokrajhar town, the heartland of the Bodo agitation, wore graffiti proclaiming Bodo-immigrant Muslim unity. One such graffiti read: Bodo-Muslim bhai-bhai/Marwarir taka chai/Asamiar matha chai: Bodos and Muslims are brothers/We need the Marwaris’[xvii] money/And the Axamiya’s head[xviii].
The scenario changed somewhat with the coming of the new decade, a change of ruling party in the state government – which same ruling party was in power at the centre – and a new approach at the level of the central government in New Delhi that sought to conclude the agitation it had allegedly fuelled and sustained in an effort to destabilize the state government that was so far ruled by a regional party[xix]. A three member expert committee – the Expert Committee on Plains Tribes of Assam (ECOPTA) – was appointed to
(i) to determine the area of Bodos and other plains tribes to the north of river Brahmaputra and
(ii) make recommendations as to the autonomy, legislative, administrative and financial powers that may be given to them.[xx]
It had become evident to the leaders of the Bodo agitation by now that a separate state was not on offer, and a conscious effort was noticeable on the part of the leadership to garner the support of mainstream Axamiya intellectuals towards their right to self-determination even within the geo-political ambit of Assam. Expressions of solidarity from the intellectual and political leaderships of both communities became especially noticeable in the years leading up to the signing of the first Memorandum of Settlement signed with the Bodo leadership headed by the All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) and its political front Bodo Peoples’ Action Committee (BPAC) Bodo in 1993[xxi].
This accord[xxii] provided for the creation of a Bodo Autonomous Council (BAC) but it was a much watered down version of autonomy than the one suggested by the ECOPTA which submitted its report in 1992 favoring large scale devolution and decentralization of power. The report was shelved. Though providing for an autonomous council, the Bodo accord of 1993 did not delimit the territory for the proposed Bodo homeland and merely laid fifty percent Bodo population in an area as the criterion for inclusion within Bodoland. Settler influx having been immense and sustained since the colonial times, and resource alienation among the Bodo an inescapable reality, there were many areas in the proposed homeland where the Bodo were a minority. The only way to create majority then was to exterminate some of the settlers, and the first victims of a massive ethnic cleansing drive after the signing of the Bodo accord of 1993 were the Muslims of East Bengali origin. The fact that they were the bete noir of every other community in Assam – especially of the ‘ethnic’ Axamiya who live under the constant fear of minoritisation and Islamisation through the sizeable presence of this community in Assam[xxiii] – might have prompted, however subtly, their selection as targets.

The first attacks began in the wee hours of October 7, 1993 and continued till October 11 in parts of the districts of Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon (these areas of Bongaigaon since 2003 fall under Chirang). Eyewitnesses tell horrific tales of human slaughter and suffering[xxiv]. Despite resistance put up by a small group of people forewarned by recent sporadic incidents of violence against the community, the heavily armed Bodo militia managed to kill and displace thousands of people. Officially 3658 families or about 18000 people were affected (DC Kokrajhar 2000). Some fled to nearby areas within Assam, others fled to Bhutan from where they were herded out unceremoniously[xxv]. It took days and weeks for some people to locate their family members who were alive, had run helter-skelter and were now housed in temporary relief camps. Meanwhile, arson continued in their villages and homes in a phased manner. Barman and Ahmed (2005: 7) have identified three phases of the militant attacks in October 1993 as: ‘First phase by killing peoples (sic), second phase by looking (sic) and third phase by arsoning’. According to a memorandum submitted to the Chief Minister of Assam by the Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon Saranarthi Committee in 1996, there were more than 20,000 Muslims living in 18 relief camps in the two districts by that year (Hussain 2000).

Many ad hoc measures were taken immediately after the violence erupted. Local educational institutions and government buildings became relief camps till makeshift shelters were built elsewhere in Jamunaguri, Ananda Bazar, Patabari, Kailamoila, Tulsidangi, Amteka, Bhawraguri, Baghmara, Janata Bazar, Balajani and Chechapani (Bongaigaon and North Salmara Districts Minority Students’ Union 1997). Gratuitous Relief (GR) in the form of rice, lentil and oil were provided to the camp inmates – and according to inmates of some camps, these were supplied for as long as 5 years after the attacks[xxvi]. By 2000, there were 8 relief camps in the Kokrajhar district alone and they housed 988 families, and a total of 10,481 inmates (DC Kokrajhar 2000).
As on December 2005, however, there are 8 camps – not established by the government – in both Kokrajhar and Chirang the inmates of which allege that around the year 2000, they were forced to vacate the camps established by the government in both districts as their GR had been stopped and all sources of livelihood had dried up; they could not stay in the camp and go looking for work outside as they were not allowed to move out of the camp by the security personnel under whose protection they lived. Instances of aggression and oppression by these security personnel inside the camp have also been recounted to the author. Further, they saw no hopes of rehabilitation by the government. Therefore, through the agency of a few leaders and local dewans or matabbars[xxvii], the inmates of most of the camps took land on lease and set up camp in the areas they now live in and which have been named above.[xxviii]
The camp at Goroimari is on a piece of land leased out by a school teacher, Ismail Hussein. The Hapachara camp is located on land owned by a local Gaon Panchayat President whose son now acts as middleman and recruiter for political parties like the United Democratic Front (UDF), an political party purportedly representing the minorities. The camps have proved a fertile ground for political proselytizing for many political parties. Further, for the land that would otherwise cost a nominal revenue payment to the state, these landowners now earn an annual rent of about Rs. 20,000 from the camp inmates, the difference being calculated in terms of income lost due to leasing out of agricultural land for habitation. The case of the Goroimari camp is particularly interesting – the camp was initially on the banks of the Aie river some distance from the highway. But in 2004, the river rose during the monsoon and the people unused to cultivating or living in floodplains – having lived on kayem or non-riverine land throughout[xxix] – were forced to move yet again, this time to their current location beside the highway. The section relating to ‘Road side land’ in the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation Act 1886, which governs all matters relating to land in Assam clearly states that:

23. (1) Nothing in these rules shall entitle any person to obtain a lease in respect of land within 75 feet of the centre line of a public road. Any person occupying or encroaching on such land shall be liable to ejectment under Rule 18 of the Rules.
Explanation – The expression “public road” includes (I) any road maintained by the State Government or by a local authority and (II) any other road declared by the State Government to be a public road for the purpose of this rule.[xxx]

Legally therefore, the IDPs are now on government land, the original owner’s land having been submerged by the river in 2004. This submerged land for which he had a patta or land deed has since resurfaced but the IDPs continue to live beside the highway and what is more, continue to pay rent to him for land that is not his.

Most of the money received as RG was used for acquiring leases such as the ones the Goroimari and Hapachara camp inmates pay. When the ethnic cleansing and arson took place in 1993, the state announced immediate compensation on the basis of loss as reported by the afflicted and one-time grants of up to Rs. 2000 – 3000 were given to people displaced from certain areas[xxxi]. Subsequently however, this policy was revoked and a Relief Grant (RG) of Rs 10,000 per family was announced for all. Though government sources deny any overlap in grant disbursement, allegations are raised that some people were benefited under both schemes of compensation. Some others allege they were given only part of the RG while the rest was given in the form of tin sheets for roofing[xxxii]. In some cases, middlemen both from within the community and without, have also siphoned a certain percentage of the RG as payment for services rendered towards expediting the release of the grant. There was also an instance when the Sub-Divisional and Circle Officers of Bijni reportedly misappropriated Rs 400,000 by entering fictitious names as beneficiaries (Bongaigaon and North Salmara Districts Minority Students’ Union 1997).
The continued burden of paying the land rent rests heavy upon the inmates most of whom have no sustained means of earning a livelihood. As one inmate at the Hapachara camp told the author: “We are like birds who leave their nests in the morning in search of food and livelihood and return home in the evening, sometimes empty handed’[xxxiii].
Touching and true though this is in the case of most inmates, it however only tells half the story. The other half is of those people who have left the camps and settled elsewhere to alternative livelihoods. Some of them are quite affluent, and the author has met a displaced family that paid a disclosed amount of Rs. 150000 to Bodo insurgents who had kidnapped a kin[xxxiv]. There are also those who maintain establishments outside the camp and live there in the hope that whatever benefits come to the inmates from the state sooner or later will also be made available to them. Thus there are school teachers and other professionals in the camps who live there but occasionally. Otherwise comfortably off, these people however actively participate in the occasional activism that the camp inmates are roused to by various leaders and political parties from time to time[xxxv].
One such event was organised by the sitting MP Golam Osmani in November 2005, where a large group of displaced people from the Goroimari camp were taken to new Delhi for a sit in demonstration. After a meeting with and petition to the president of the ruling party at the centre, the agitators were assured of quick action and early rehabilitation. A few thousand rupees have reportedly been sanctioned thereafter and a plot of land identified for building houses for the camp inmates at Salabila under the Indira Awas Yojana[xxxvi]. After the initial enthusiasm however, the project has been reportedly abandoned and all that remains are the remnants of the police outpost constructed at the site. This has been the fate of most other rehabilitation projects that have been undertaken from time to time. Though 201 families out of 269 at Tapatari were given houses constructed under the IAY (Barman & Ahmed 2005: 16), elsewhere the projects have come to a halt owing to various reasons – most often opposition from local populations in the proposed rehabilitation sites who feel their accessibility to the grazing fields and other resources will get limited or blocked altogether if these non-local people are settled in their localities. In the case of the Salabila rehabilitation scheme, resistance came from the displaced people themselves who objected to the selection of a site on the riverbank where there was obvious imminent danger of erosion and further displacement in subsequent floods.[xxxvii]
It is also not possible, according to the administration, to resettle these people in the areas from which they were displaced in the first place. Though an initial effort was made, resistance from militant Bodo organizations forced people to flee yet again. Almost all the villages that had been attacked in 1993 were encroached villages and the people who lived there had no land deeds. They had migrated from nearby districts of Assam and West Bengal to these areas since the 1960s when the administration had denotified these areas from the list of reserved forests. They however, had not been given rights to the land. Therefore, when the question of rehabilitation arose, it was easy for the administration to initially dismiss most cases as not being under their jurisdiction. Many of the afflicted people were told to approach their respective district administrations rather than the administrations of Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon (now Chirang) for relief and rehabilitation. There were also instances when police personnel alleged these people were Bangladeshis, illegally living in Assam[xxxviii] who had no right to avail of state sponsored relief.