On August 25, Zakaria Alam took a train from Namtiali railway station in Upper Assam and made his way back home.
The 36-year-old was accompanied by 11 other construction workers, all of whom decided it was no longer safe to stay in Sivasagar district. Hours ago, a number of organisations that claim to represent “indigenous” Assamese interests had given an ultimatum – that all Bengali-origin Muslim workers in the district should leave within seven days.
It was, they said, a Miya Kheda andolan – a movement to drive out Miyas, the derogatory term used in Assam for Bengali-origin Muslims, from the Upper Assam district.
The administrative division of Upper Assam, comprising nine districts, is the heartland of Assamese politics and home to several ethnic communities.
For six-odd years, Alam has been working as a raj mistri or mason in Namtiali at construction sites, earning Rs 700 daily by working 8-12 hours. “I have not faced such threats earlier,” said Alam, who returned to his family in Laharighat in Morigaon district. “Our employer said it is better not to take a risk and that we could return later when the situation is less tense. He said no one will take responsibility if anything happens.”
Hundreds of other Bengali-origin Muslim workers from towns in Lower Assam like Hojai and Jagiroad, too, returned from Sivasagar, Alam said. “We came back together,” he said. “Everyone has returned because of the fear.”
Five contractors who work in the region told Scroll that over 100 workers left Sivasagar because of the district.
A 40-year-old Bengali-origin Muslim worker, who is still in Sivasagar and lives in an area inhabited by Assamese Muslims, said he knows about 30- 40 workers who have left the district. “We are afraid. What if they come and beat us up?”
He said he had been living in Sivasagar for seven years, having married to an Assamese Muslim woman and bought land. “There are 12 workers under me. I’m not sure whether I should send them back or not.”
Contractor Taijul Islam, who helped Alam get work in Sivasagar, said the exodus of workers was triggered by news of an assault on a group of migrant workers in Charaideo district allegedly on the orders of a Bharatiya Janata Party leader.
When Opposition leaders brought up the threats to the workers from Lower Assam in the state Assembly, Chief Minister Sarma did not offer any assurance. Instead, he asked: “Why will people definitely go from Lower Assam to Upper Assam? That means all of you insist on taking all of Assam…You Miya Muslim people will insist on taking all of Assam.”
He added: “If they [those living in Upper Assam] want, they [Miya Muslims] may go…If you go to Upper Assam against the wishes of those living there, there will be no security.”
The call to drive out the migrant workers was triggered by the gang rape of an Assamese teenager in Dhing in Nagaon district, in which three Bengali Muslim youths were accused.
Commenting on the incident, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said that “a certain community” had become a threat to the “indigenous” in Assam.
In Upper Assam, the public anger against the crime was quickly directed at the Bengali-origin Muslims. Several groups like the All Tai Ahom Students’ Union, Veer Lachit Sena, among others, reacted by asking the Bengal-origin Muslims to leave.
Members of the All Tai Ahom Students’ Union reportedly visited houses in Sivasagar and Tinsukia districts to determine if Muslims with “doubtful citizenship” lived there.
In a video of one such incident, the members were seen asking landlords and the owners of brick kilns, where many of these individuals are employed as labourers, not to employ them. Other videos shared on Facebook also showed members of the students’ unions threatening Muslim workers to leave the district. They can be heard shouting: “Miya jaati go back” (Miya community go back).”
This is being seen as the latest attempt to marginalise the Bengal-Muslim community in Assam. They are often portrayed as “infiltrators”taking over the resources, jobs and land of the indigenous and are portrayed as a threat to Assamese culture and identity.
A senior official at the state home department, which is responsible for the law and order situation in the state, however, told Scroll that there are no reports of any mass exodus of migrant workers.
“We don’t know or have any information of a mass exodus,” the home department official said. He also admitted that the state has no data of inter-district migration. “They don’t migrate by informing us.”
He said that there may be “stray incidents of people going and harassing the workers, bashing up a few people” but there have been no major incidents.
The migrant workers from Lower Assam told Scroll that the answer to the chief minister’s question was fairly simple – they travel to Upper Assam because they find regular work.
“If we work in our home district, we can work 20 days in a month,” Alam said. “But in Upper Assam, we can work 30 days as there is no dearth of construction activities.”
Alam, who has been working as a daily-wage labourer since he was 17, said he had few other options. “I have not studied, I don’t have any land [to cultivate] and our survival depends on my work,” he said.
He said he was reluctant to leave the state to look for work, as he wanted to stay close to his wife, children and old parents. “This way, I can return home whenever I want.”
He was anxious about this interruption in his work. “ I am sitting idle, no work or income,” said Alam. “Not sure when I can return. My two children study in a private school…not sure how I will pay their fees.”
Journalist-turned entrepreneur Manoram Gogoi said most of the construction labourers in Upper Assam were Bengal-origin Muslims.
“For the last two-three decades, all kinds of construction, from roads to buildings, have largely been done by migrants,” Gogoi, who lives in Guwahati, told Scroll.
He added: “If they (workers) have been sent back from Upper Assam, there will be ill effects in every public and private construction project. It may also break the age-old harmony between communities.”
Gogoi said the divide has been created by the politicians for their vested interest.
Saranga Gogoi, a Sivasagar-based road contractor, admitted that many workers have gone back but could not hazard a number.
“The data on the number of migrant workers is not maintained by anyone,” he said. “Only the concerned contractor may have the details about the number of the workers.”
Opposition leaders criticised the chief minister and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for stoking communal fires and creating the spectre of a “Miya takeover” of the state.
“The government of Assam led by Himanta Biswa Sarma has been trying very hard to create communal disturbances in Assam and the Chief Minister himself is the prime motivator,” Pradyut Bordoloi, a Congress Member of Parliament from the state, said. “That’s why all Opposition parties of Assam have demanded that he should be actually suspended immediately from the post of the chief minister of Assam.”