Opinion Gained in Translation: Who gets to own this land?

The 1943 policy rendered obsolete the Line System, adopted by the colonial government in 1920 as a measure to protect the lands of indigenous-tribal people from non-tribal encroachers. With the system gone, all grazing fields, forests and khas lands were thrown open for cultivation by immigrants.

Luckily, after Independence, the (Constitutional) provision of tribal belts and blocks was created, one that would safeguard tribal lands falling within 45 newly-created tribal belts and blocks. But despite the good intentions enshrined in that provision, subsequent governments in Assam have continued to pursue a policy of population assimilation, one that has led to massive settlement of non-tribal population on supposedly protected tribal belts and blocks.

While Partition caused more harm to Assam than to Punjab, with thousands of families having crossed over to Assam till 1964, the Bangladesh liberation movement added to the state’s woes in the shape of a large-scale exodus of both Hindus and Muslims.

As per the Ministry of Labour and Rehabilitation, about seven lakh people entered Assam from erstwhile East Bengal between 1947 and February 1971. These included 4.87 lakh people who came between August 15, 1947, and March 31, 1958, due to Partition, while about 2.14 lakh fled communal riots in erstwhile East Pakistan between January 1, 1964, and March 24, 1971. Later, over 2.77 lakh people entered Assam between March 1971 and September 30, 1971, due to the civil war that led to the creation of Bangladesh.

The Assam Accord of 1985 legitimised all migrants who entered the state before 1971. But while it was largely believed that the accord would bring the curtains down on the illegal migrants issue, the reality is that the problem continues to bog the state. For tribal communities, the issue is not only about these migrants, irrespective of their religion or language, but about non-tribal migrants as a whole. The tribal political space has gradually been captured by the non-tribals, thus turning them into a minority in many belts and blocks areas.

The criticality of the land question is bigger than the ethnic identity crisis, because immeasurably vast land areas are under occupation of those who have no legal claim over them. Today, tribals have lost faith in any government run by the non-tribals, and therefore are on the warpath demanding safeguards for culture, language as well as political identity. But keeping aside a few differences, both native tribals and the non-tribal Assamese people have commonness in one issue — their political pre-eminence and land rights being gravely endangered by the growth of the illegal migrant population. No wonder the Supreme Court had, in its 2005 judgment in the famous Sarbananda Sonowal vs Union of India case, said that “there can be no manner of doubt that the State of Assam is facing ‘external aggression and internal disturbance’ on account of large-scale illegal migration of Bangladeshi nationals.”

Many modern political thinkers are of the opinion that the denial of Sixth Schedule status to tribes living in the plains was equally responsible for large-scale immigration to Assam. Had that Sixth Schedule not been denied in the plains of Assam, at least one-third of the state’s total area could have been saved from the illegal migrants. In 2003, the Sixth Schedule was extended to plains with certain modifications, thus creating the Bodoland Territorial Areas districts. By that time, however, the demographic of Assam’s tribal area had already been altered and vast tracts of tribal land had already passed into the hands of non-tribals.

The non-tribal Assamese may be equally worried with both the tribal movements and the illegal migrants, but the latter is much graver because political status and language supremacy have become seriously susceptible to drastic demographic changes. More or less 75 per cent of migrants are counted as ‘religious minority’, with the remaining 25 per cent labelled as ‘linguistic minority’, but together they form the greater Bengali linguistic family because they all speak the same language.

The migrants issue was first seen only through the language prism in Assam, leading to the establishment of Assamese as the official language in 1960. But it gradually turned political, with the ‘religious minority’ beginning to enter the political arena. Thus, a movement that began to protect the language and culture of the indigenous Assamese people by 1985 turned into one to protect political identity too. And as tribals continue to feel the incessant pressure on their land and demography, Assam appears to be only heading towards a more explosive situation. The governments, both at the Centre and in the state, have to treat both issues with equal seriousness.