Assam: ‘Majority’, ‘minority’ numbers, and CM Sarma’s new calculation

It was the second time in March that Sarma harked “threat to Hindus in Assam”. At the beginning of the Budget Session, amidst heated debates around the film The Kashmir Files, the CM said Muslims constituted 35% of Assam’s population, and as more “majority” than “minority”, had the onus of protecting minorities. “It is their duty to ensure that the rights of tribal people are protected and their lands are not encroached upon,” he said. “If a Bora, Kalita or a Das does not have the courage to settle on those (protected tribal) lands, an Islam or Rahman must also refrain from doing so.”

This was clever callisthenics on the part of Sarma, never one to refrain from controversial remarks or from wading into Assam’s tricky linguistic and religious waters. As per Census 2011, which put Muslims at 34.22% of Assam’s population, Hindus comprised 61.47%. However, through the prism of tribes and districts (9 of 27 are Muslim-majority in Assam), Sarma clearly hopes to make his argument stick.

It also plays into the fears of Assamese nationalism, with a large section of Muslims in Assam of Bengali origin and often labelled “outsiders”.

The Muslim-majority districts in Assam include Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Morigaon and Bongaigaon in lower Assam, Nagaon and Darrang in middle Assam, and Hailakandi and Karimganj in south Assam’s Barak Valley. In the 2021 elections, out of the 49 Assembly seats in these districts, 29 had been won by the Congress-AIUDF Mahajot alliance, and 12 by the BJP.

“This is the latest among the current regime’s many communal agendas,” says Akhil Gogoi, the Sivasagar MLA and founder of the Raijor Dal that claims to represent “progressive sub-nationalism”. “The fact that it is not legally viable is not important to him [Sarma], but that it is sensational and will lead to communal polarization is enough… In fact, that is the aim.”

Congress MLA Rakibul Hussain also slams the move as no more than political rhetoric. He points to the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, according to which Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (Parsis) and Jains were notified as minority communities. “Minorities are defined under Section 2(c) of the Act. If the Assam government wants to define minorities district-wise, they have every power to write to the Centre…what is stopping them?” Hussain asks. The fact that they have not done this so far, he adds, is indicative that the government has no concrete plans on the matter.

In the Assembly, following Sarma’s statement, Hussain proposed that the Assam government become part of the petition in the Supreme Court which is seeking that minorities be identified at the state level. Sarma accepted the proposal, but then clarified that he was speaking of only “religious minorities” and not linguistic ones. “First he said he would submit an affidavit, then he said that he would not submit anything related to linguistic minorities. So he himself is not clear,” says Hussain.

By definition, a linguistic minority category in Assam would include Bengali-speaking Muslims. A religious minority definition, however, would leave out any such overlap.

A senior BJP leader admits they have not worked out the details but says there is a good basis for what Sarma said. “If a community is a majority in a state, but not in a district, they lose out on benefits. So we want to give everybody an equal opportunity and equal rights, and make it a level playing field,” the leader says.

Civil society leaders and activists of the Muslim community see the plan as another attempt to marginalise the community.

Hafiz Ahmed, who heads the Char Chapori Sahitya Parishad, the largest literary body representing the Bengali-origin Muslims of the state, says numbers do not necessarily mean socio-economic prosperity. “They can do minority-majority politics, but one needs to check the socio-economic status of minority groups. In the char [riverine areas], no survey has been done for two decades.”

The riverine areas, where a large number of Muslims of Bengali origin reside, have long been marred by low development indices and high poverty.

Ahmed also calls for closer scrutiny of the Muslim-majority districts. “The minority population in some districts is often said to be rising because Hindu-dominated portions are carved out as separate districts,” he says.

Sanjib Baruah, Professor of Political Studies at Bard College, who has written extensively on the region, adds that districts “are not very stable entities”. “The breaking up of a district and the creation of new districts are not rare occurrences. Should we then address complex minority issues simply by changing district boundaries – create a new district and make a minority community a numerical majority?” he asks.

Baruah also argues that minority status in India is not just “a question of numbers, it is a function of social power”. “It is hard to argue that a minority community being a numerical majority in a district has any impact on its minority status.”