ABSTRACT
The principal purpose of this chapter is twofold: first, to examine the extent to which the local inhabitants of Assam bear xenophobic attitudes against the (il)legal migrants from Bangladesh and the Bengali-speaking people. Second, to investigate whether the (il)legal migrants have changed the state’s demographic make-up. If so, can this demographic change be termed a ‘silent genocide’? However, to investigate these two key objectives, it remains paramount to give an overview of the state of Assam alongside revisiting history.
Assam, geospatially located in North East India, mired in multi-dimensional poverty, is one of the multi-contested spaces of India—spanning from the problems of (il)legal migrants, inter/intra ethnic conflicts, secession movements through to resistances against the draconian Armed Forces (Special) Powers Act.
Notwithstanding, post the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826 and the start of British Colonialism, Assam, especially the Brahmaputra Valley, had faced several rounds of dissection as a part of a territorial reorganisation of the British Raj aimed at easing administrative operations. Through these rounds of dissection, the region was not only brought under the provincial administration of Bengal, but Bengali was made the official language and the medium of instruction in schools in a region dwelled by people speaking the Assamese language. Plus, the educated Bengalis were brought in from Bengal for administrative, professional positions and as school teachers. These actions of the British Raj gradually opened a floodgate for the Bengali-speaking people, particularly the Muslim peasantry from the densely populated erstwhile East Bengal (now Bangladesh), to migrate to the fertile lands of the Valley. The phenomenon of (il)legal migration from Bangladesh continued even after the country gained independence in 1947. These actions created xenophobia amongst the indigenous people of Assam against the Bengali-speaking people and the (il)legal migrants from Bangladesh. The language movement, the Assam Agitation, the Nellie Massacre, the National Registrar of Citizens, and the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 are evidence of this. Using ethnographic observation complemented by the geographic information system, this chapter will critically analyse each of the phenomena to seek an explanation of the objectives that have been outlined above.
