Assam Peoples
Struggle against Forcible Evictions and for Radical Land reforms.
[This article is
from ‘ CLASS STRUGGLE’, the Organ of CPI(ML) Central Committee]
Ever since BJP came
to power in Assam in May 2016 it is using repression as well as
communal division as two weapons to trample the rights of the common
people and enable the MNCs and Indian Corporate houses to grab and
control large tracks of lands and valuable natural resources in
Assam. The developments in the last one year provide a mirror for
this.
In Raha, the people
are protesting against the transfer of the site for a proposed AIIMS
in the State. On 15 th July 2016, the govt. opened fire and killed a
25 year old man Mintu Dueri during a protest in Raha. The people
of Banderdubi village near Kaziranga National Park were demanding
resettlement and adequate compensation for the lands seized from
them. The police shot dead two persons Anjuma Khatun and Fakhruddin
on Sept 19,2016 when they were in a protest demonstration led by
Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti and All Assam Minority Students Union.
It must be noted
that of the 198 displaced families in Banderdubi village, around 40
families were to take
shelter in the houses of their relatives. The rest are living under
the open in Baghmari, village.
These people are mainly Muslims of erstwhile East Bengal origin
settled in Banderdubi village
more than half a century back. The Govt. had shifted 7 Hindu families
to a safe place, but did not
bother about the rest of the families. A clear show of communal
discrimination!
After the eviction
drive, an influential Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said in an
official Face Book page that
the Govt. would never compromise on Jati, Mati, and Bheti
(Nationality, Land and Home). Here is
an attempt on the part of BJP Govt. to divide the Assam people as
“Assamese” and “outsiders”
and push the Muslim Community into an uncertain, insecure and
pathetically
dependent state and
make them easy targets of repression.
A year back, the BJP
Govt. in Assam started a drive to evict the people from the
government lands calling them as
‘illegal encroachers’. It began with Kaziranga and very soon
extended to the entire state. After almost a year, it carried on this
eviction drive in Sipajhar on 24 th Nov 2017. Here one person called
Ananda Das, a native of Kuruva village was mysteriously kidnapped
(Nov 21 st )
and murdered (Nov 23
rd ). But a violent mob went on rampaging alleging that the Gandhia
Pather villagers are
illegal immigrants and they are responsible for the murder of Ananda
Das. They even ravaged and torched
some homes. Dramatically, the District administration has immediately
moved into action on 24 th Nov 2017 and forcibly evicted almost 60
families from their lands.
The evictions did
not stop with Sipajhar. On 27 th November, 2017, they were carried
out in the Amchang reserve
forest around Guwahati. 700 families were evicted from the forest
land alleging them as illegal encroachers. While Sipajhar evictions
were carried in the name of an order from the High court, the Amchang
evictions were carried out on the demand of Bajrang Dal activists.
The Amchang eviction
received much flak from every section of Assamese society as the evicted people were largely
from Mishing and Bodo communities who lost their lands in Majuli,
Lakhimpur, Dhemaji due to river erosion. These evicted people were
left with no rehabilitation, no roof over their head.
The Sipajhar
evictions were sought to be justified by portraying the villagers as
illegal immigrants. But the fact is,
almost all of them are legitimate citizens of Assam having voter ID
cards. Their earlier generations moved from places like Jonia in
Barpeta to escape poverty and river erosion. The people were further
tricked into buying the Govt. lands from the locals of Kuruwa. The
ruling party
got them voted in
the 2016 elections but when it came to their right over the lands
they branded the same people as
illegal immigrants and illegally and forcibly evicted them from their
own lands.
Coming to Amchang
evictions, here, the tribal people are coexisting with nature and
sustaining it for ages. But they are accused of ruining the forest
resources. The Govt. has evicted these people on the allegation that
they are destroying the ecology. As per the May 2017 notification of
the Central govt. some of the evicted villages are revenue villages.
They are marked as the Eco-sensitive villages, but they are not a
part of reserved forest. According to the govt.’s own admittance, encroachment had
taken place in some parts of Amchang much before they were notified
as a Reserve Forest in
2004. But , in violation of laws, the commercial resorts, cement
industries and the army firing range
are allowed to continue in the reserved forest area.
The government is
engaged in this massive displacement of people only as part its
policy to hand over lands to the foreign companies and Indian
Corporate Houses. It is removing the people from in and around
Guwahati. The rulers consider Guwahati as an emerging a Geo-strategic
industrial and logistical hub through which goods and services will
be funneled to the neighboring states. It is also said that the areas
like Sipajhar, Morigaon, Boko,Chaygaon etc. are important to sustain Guwahati as
an industrial hub. All this is only a part of govt.’s larger policy
of privatization. It is acting like an enabler. Providing easy access
to large tracts of land to the MNCs and Indian Corporate Houses is
a first step in this. Land acquisition continues to be difficult. So
branding a part of the people as
illegal immigrants, illegal encroachers, inciting the communal forces
and tensions against them have
become a part of the game for the BJP rulers in Assam to divide the
people, set one section of people agents another, weaken their
struggle, use brutal repression and push through their
eviction drive more easily and even absolve themselves from the
responsibility of providing proper
compensation and rehabilitation to the people.
The rulers in Assam
are talking much about saving ecological resources. But they almost
destroyed the Patkai hills by allowing open mining in different parts
of the state. They allowed the extraction of large amount of
industrial wood from areas falling under Rabha Hasong Autonomous
Councils and Chirang in BTAD. Huge tracts of land in the tribal belt
were already handed over to the outfits like Patanjali and Dabur,
etc. Clearly, the rulers are feasting a handful of fatty big business
concerns by looting and starving the poor millions all in the name of
development. On one side, the MNCs and Indian big business are
allowed to massively and endlessly gobble the lands and other means of people’s
livelihood. On the other side, every year a large part of State’s
land is lost because of
erosions turning a
large number of people homeless and landless. Hence, fight against
the invasion into their lands and
means of livelihood by the imperialists and Indian big business; for
radical land reforms and a democratic, national and pro-people
development policy has become most essential and urgent task of our people.
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