Evictions and the politics of exclusion

The ongoing eviction campaigns by the Assam government in some districts of the state have taken the form of targeted drives against Muslims, couched as reclamation of encroachments. Large tracts of government and forest land have been encroached on by all sections of people across the state. The government claims that the exercise is intended to remove illegal encroachments from government revenue land, grazing land, commons, and forested areas. It maintains that the drive follows a Gauhati High Court order to reduce man-animal conflict by clearing illegal encroachments. But the areas and families targeted for evictions, the speed with which the government is undertaking the exercise, and the statements of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma have made the communal motives clear. The evictions have a history from 2021, but the campaign has been intensified now for political reasons.

The court order and concerns over environmental degradation and land management are being used to target Bengali-speaking Muslims who are indiscriminately dubbed illegal immigrants. The evictions are largely concentrated in areas with significant Muslim populations. Many who are identified as encroachers are people who have set up homes in any available land after losing their homes due to natural disasters. Most of them have no homes after the eviction and no sources of livelihood. People living in settlements for decades and possessing official records of residence are being thrown out onto the streets. No government action, however legal and administrative, should be devoid of humanitarian considerations.

Himanta Biswa Sarma has flaunted discrimination as public policy. He has declared that encroachment on government land by the indigenous or local people did not amount to an offence, and the government would only evict immigrant Muslims. Official policy should not discriminate between people; encroachment by locals does not cease to be encroachment. Sarma has also warned people not to extend shelter or any help to those who have been evicted. Officials and politicians are deciding who are legal residents of the state and who are encroachers. The Chief Minister has also talked about "land jihad" and a "demographic aggression by people of one religion". These utterances and the entire eviction drive are in line with the many anti-Muslim campaigns the state government has undertaken in recent years. It also needs to be noted that Assam is set for Assembly elections next year – there is a clear political stake in these assertions. The right to shelter is a basic right, and the government should not snatch it from people for narrow political ends.