Assembly polls 2021: Assam politics' tryst with religion and language

Some 15 months ago, Assam, an otherwise forgotten state in northeastern India, catapulted to the top of trending topics when the Centre decided to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Such was the magnitude of the decision in the state that yearly floods that wreak havoc on the state and the famous tea gardens momentarily took a backseat.

The CAA controversy in Assam was crisscrossed by several grievances and agendas. It once again brought forth the two important narratives that have shaped the state's psyche in the post-colonial era: Religion and language.

Assam has witnessed migration over the years. When the Partition of the erstwhile Indian subcontinent happened, people from the then East Pakistan migrated in large numbers to Kolkata and Assam, resulting in an influx of populations and cultural traditions in those regions.

Also, former tea garden tribes had migrated to the state, according to a report by the Hindustan Times, whom the Assam government recognises as Other Backward Classes. Even the government acknowledges that “economically, they are quite backward and (the) literacy level among these communities is very low”.

Also read: Women form just 8% of Assam Assembly polls phase II candidates: Report

As per the 2011 census, Hindus are the majority in Assam state. They constitute 61.47 per cent of the Assam population. In all, Hinduism is the majority religion in 18 out of 27 districts of Assam state.

The Muslim population in Assam stands at 1.07 crore (34.22 per cent) of the total 3.12 crore, while the Christian population is 11.66 lakh (3.74 per cent).

Muslims play an important role in the electoral process of Assam, forming a significant 34.22 per cent of the total population. Islam is the dominant religion in nine out of 27 districts in the state.

The data will help everyone to understand the religious diversity of Assam. The large Muslim population has led Congress to join hands with Badruddin Ajmal and his All India Democratic United Front (AIDUF) for the upcoming Assembly elections.

Read more: BJP wants to scale newer heights of progress in Assam: PM Modi

AIDUF has a significant influence within the state. Founded by Ajmal in 2005, the party managed to win 10 seats in the 2006 Assembly elections which increased to 18 in 2011, before plunging to 13 in 2016. Congress needs AIDUF to reclaim its dominance in Assam, as the national party's strength has dwindled against the BJP's brutal juggernaut. Incidentally, Assam is the only major state which had a Congress government for three consecutive terms in the post-2000 period.

The Muslim-dominated districts in Assam are Nagao, Dhubri, Barpeta, Karimganj, Goalpara, Morigaon, Bongaigaon, Darrang, Hailakandi.

Assam shares 263 kilometres of the border with Bangladesh, out of which 143.9 kilometres are covered by the land, and 119.1 kilometres are covered by the riverine. The geographical proximity with Bangladesh has played a major part in shaping the course of state politics over the years.

According to Arpita Bhattacharyya's article in the Centre for American Progress, in 1979, a group called the All Assam Students’ Union began a campaign against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Assam, who they believed were changing their state’s demographics and gaining political influence. The All Assam Students’ Union’s main demand was that the names of illegal immigrants be taken off of the electoral rolls. The campaign led to violence across the states, with Bengali-speaking Muslims indiscriminately being targeted as illegal Bangladeshi, an agitation that ended in 1985 with the formation of the Assam Accord.

Also read: Was threatened to give up anti-CAA agitation and join RSS, BJP: Akhil Gogoi

In July 2012, violence in Assam broke out with riots between indigenous Bodos and Bengali-speaking Muslims, in which at least 77 people died and over 4 lakh people took shelter in 270 relief camps, after being displaced from almost 400 villages. As Navine Murshid discusses in his book Assam and the Foreigner Within, the 'violent event exposed the many contradiction that beset the ethnic diversity of Assam.'

The BJP, as always, is banking on the majority Hindu population of the state to come back to power for a second consecutive term. That is why the BJP leaders have broached immigrants' topic in almost each of their rallies, highlighting the problem of infiltrators and projecting Badruddin as the representative of the Bengali Muslims.

On March 24, while addressing a rally in Assam, Amit Shah said, "Rahul Gandhi talks of protecting Assam's 'asmita' (pride and identity), but today I want to ask him publicly, will the Congress do it with AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal on his lap? If by chance Ajmal comes to power, will Assam be safe from infiltrators? Do people want more infiltrators to come into the state?"

The Bengali Muslim community in Assam reportedly supports the AIUDF — 20 per cent of the AIUDF’s vote share and 31 per cent of its seats were concentrated within the Barak Valley region in the 2016 elections.

Read: Will not allow politics over illegal immigration in Assam: Rajnath Singh

Do all Bengalis in Assam belong to the religion of Islam?

As per the 2011 Census, the percentage of people who have reported Bengali as their mother tongue out of the total population of the state is 28.9 per cent and the percentage of Hindi speakers is at 6.73 per cent. According to a Hindustan Times report, Assam also has a large number of Bengali Hindus. In the Barak valley region, which comprises three districts and 15 out of the 126 Assembly constituencies (ACs) in the state, the share of Bengali speakers is 80.8 per cent. Muslims have a population share of 48.1 per cent in the sub-region.

There is an overlap between Bengali-speaking Hindus, Bengali-speaking Muslims, Assamese speaking-Muslims and Assamese-speaking Hindus. Because the census does not allow religious segregation of languages spoken, it is difficult to arrive at official estimates of a religious-linguistic matrix for the state.

It is this diversity that makes capturing the entire Hindu vote bank an uphill task for the BJP. According to the CSDS-Lokniti survey, while the BJP enjoyed a good Bengali Hindu vote bank between 2011 and 2019, its support among Assamese Hindus has gone down after having peaked in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But, a majority of the Assamese Hindus supported the BJP in the 2019 polls. The Congress, when it won the 2011 elections, had more broad-based support in the state.

A section of the Assamese-speaking population is protesting against the fact that the Citizenship Amendment Act may grant citizenship to the immigrants' Hindu population. The Congress has used the CAA to attack the BJP, whereas the saffron party is trying to avoid the topic in its rallies.

Voting in Assam will start on March 27. When the counting of votes takes place on May 2, it will be interesting to see who comes to power in Assam, a state with tremendous linguistic and religious diversity.