Guwahati, Assam: On 26 August 2024, M* packed his clothes, belongings, and the life he had made for 16 years in Geleki, a town in the eastern Assam district of Sivasagar, where he worked as a scrap collector.

M sold his four ducks and used the money to rent a vehicle, which transported him, his wife, and three children nearly 300 km west to Morigaon district in central Assam, where he grew up and where Muslims are 52% of the population. 

“We ran away because we were terrified,” said M, speaking from his village in Morigaon on the phone. 

A day before he fled, M said that a group of Assamese men arrived at his rented home in Geleki with a threat. 

While his family hid indoors, they could hear them speaking with their landlord.  

 “They asked our malik (landlord) if there were any ‘miyas’ living on his property,” said M. “And that we should clear out within seven days.”

“Miya” is a pejorative term frequently amplified by the chief minister to refer to Bangladesh-origin Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam, routinely denigrated as “bahiragata” (outsiders) and "illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh by many among the native population. 

In recent years, the upwardly mobile sections of the community have tried to reappropriate the slur and have begun to refer to themselves as miya.

The men warned the landlord that the consequences would be dire if they did not leave, M recalled. 

“We spent a sleepless night and made arrangements to leave as soon as possible,” he said.

Islamophobia & Displacement 

It is unclear how many Bengali Muslims fled their homes in eastern Assam between 24 August and 30 August. 

Local activists put the figure at between 100 and 1,000. 

M was among those who left the districts of Sivasagar, Jorhat, Charaideo, and Tinsukia and went to central and western Assam districts, where Muslims are the majority.

Their departure from the east—a belt colloquially referred to as “upper Assam”, home primarily to ethnic Assamese communities—was triggered by an incident hundreds of kilometres away: a gangrape of a 14-year-old in the Dhing town of Nagaon district, allegedly by a Bengali Muslim man, Tafazul Islam, on August 21. 

Islam later drowned in a pond while trying to flee police, according to local authorities, shortly after the arrest, the latest in a series of deaths of alleged criminals in Assam police custody.

While protests demanding justice for the survivor broke out in the town of Dhing, other parts of Assam saw a protest of a different kind: one that has pitted the ethnic Assam population against the entire Bengali-speaking Muslim community, who have now been held responsible for a “rise in crimes” in the state. It led to a ‘miya kheda abhiyan’, a movement by nativist groups to drive Muslims out of upper Assam. 

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, which has been in power since 2016, has backed and encouraged these claims and doubled down on communally and ethnically divisive politics. 

Sarma became chief minister in the party’s second term in 2021, vowing to protect ‘jaati, maati, bheti (nation, land, and homestead)’ of Assam's indigenous communities. 

Officials Deal With The Fallout

Sivasagar-based Forid Islam Hazarika of the Upper Assam United Muslim Council, an organisation that represents the interests of indigenous Assamese Muslims (considered distinct from Bengali Muslims) in the state, said that it was difficult to put a number on the exodus because it was happening in “fits and starts in different locations.” 

“But there is no denying that it is happening,” he said, “Not just from Sivasagar, but neighbouring areas such as Jorhat and Chariadeo too." 

While the administration and police in Sivasagar said that there are “no official records” of people leaving, senior officials admitted that it “could have” happened to some extent, following the threats by groups. 

“Many groups such as the Bir Lachit Sena made inflammatory speeches, there have been threats issued to migrant labourers, and that is why we stepped in,” a senior police official from Sivasagar district told Article14, on condition of anonymity, adding that things were “peaceful now”. 

“We don't have numbers, but there is a weekly market in Sivasagar, where sellers are mostly from the Bengali Muslim community—it was practically empty this past Sunday,” said the official.  

“The inference is for you to draw.” 

Chief Minister Doubles Down

A day after the alleged rape, chief minister Sarma, who often uses Islamophobic speech, was swift to describe it as an “attack on the indigenous people” of Assam. 

A few days later, he took up his rhetoric a notch in the state assembly and said that he “will not let miya Muslims take over all of Assam”. 

Amid criticism from the Opposition, chief minister Sarma doubled down on his comments.

In a speech on 27 August 2024, responding to adjournment motions moved by the Opposition parties on the law and order situation in the state, he said:  "Why will people from Lower Assam go to Upper Assam? So that miya Muslims can take over Assam? We won't let it happen.” 

About the reported departure of labourers, Sarma said: “I have only one thing to say. During this sensitive time, don't forcefully go where people don't want you to. If you go against the will of the people of upper Assam, there will be no security there,” he told the Assembly.

As Sarma spoke, in upper Assam, ethnic Assamese organisations, such as the All Tai Ahom Students Union (ATASU) and the Bir Lachit Sena, began to threaten Muslims. 

Members of these groups fanned out across districts, issuing ultimatums to Bengali Muslims, asking them to leave within a week.

Social media was rife with videos purportedly showing them threatening migrant Muslim labourers in areas like Nazira (Sivasagar) and Charaideo district. 

In a clip, a group of Bengali Muslim labourers in Charaideo district are seen kneeling, being beaten with a stick and forced to chant phrases such as “Joi Ai Axom” (Hail Mother Assam) by a mob. 

The events led the district administration in Sivasagar to summon leaders of Assamese civil society organisations, make them sign peace bonds, and tell them not to “take the law into their own hands”.

In Morigaon, M said he only wants to “work and feed his family in peace”. 

“Naturally, we condemn the crime in Dhing. The culprit was caught and is now dead. Even if he had been hanged, we would support it—a criminal deserves the strictest of punishment,” he said, “But it is unfortunate to see how our entire community has been painted as criminals.”

‘They Were Polite, But It Was Still Scary’

On the same day that M was told to leave, so was 28-year-old N.*

N*, whose husband works as an e-rickshaw puller in Geleki, said that on 25 August, when she was alone, around 20 men turned up at her door.

“They were polite, but it was still scary. They referred to the incident in Dhing and said our family must leave in a week,” said N, speaking on the phone from Geleki. “Otherwise, there would be trouble.” 

N’s husband, who has lived in Geleki for more than two decades, considered moving back to Nagaon or sending his family there but ultimately decided against it. 

“I have been living here for many years, and many of my friends [from the Assamese Muslim community, and some even from the Hindu community] said that they will protect me. This gave me the confidence to stay back,” he said.

But nearly every Bengali Muslim family in his locality has left, N’s husband claimed. 

“There are about ten households in this area—near the town’s main junction. I think only two families are left, including us,” he said.

‘I Began To Have Nightmares’

In Sivasagar town, S*, a 53-year-old dry fish vendor, spoke last week of an atmosphere of “tension and fear.” 

While he did not receive any “direct threat”, what he saw on the news was enough to make him uncomfortable. 

“Many videos floating around showed our men being threatened—that was enough for me. I began to have nightmares about getting publicly humiliated and beaten up,” he said.

On 26 August, S packed his bags and returned to Nagaon, 22 years after moving to Sivasagar. 

‘You, Miyas, Cannot Live Here Anymore’ 

In neighbouring Jorhat, Imran, a Bengali Muslim contractor, said many of his labourers have “run away” to their respective home districts. “I've arranged for transport for at least three of my boys,” he said 

According to him, the video of the 15 men being beaten up in Charaideo triggered fears of violence. 

On 29 August, Muslim labourers rested at a construction site for a government project in Charaideo, where they had worked for three years. 

“All of a sudden, a mob, their faces covered, arrived with sticks, swords, and pipes and began assaulting us,” Rajibul Hoque, one of the labourers, said.

 “We were beaten up black and blue but managed to escape later that night,” Hoque, who is now in Barpeta district, said.

According to the police complaint, filed by the labourers, a copy of which Article 14 has seen, the men were forced to shout slogans such as “Joi Ai Axom" and “ATASU zindabad”.

They were told, “You, miyas, cannot live here anymore.” 

While the ATASU has denied involvement, the labourers have accused Mayur Borgohain, a local BJP leader, of sending the goons in the police complaint. 

When Article 14 sought comment from Borgohain, he said that the incident had “no connection” to him and that the allegations were “politically motivated”.

Abdul Kalam Azad, an academic who has been researching Bengali Muslims, said incidents such as these impact those attacked and the community as a whole. 

“A sense of fear has been ingrained into the psyche of the miya community. It has had a deep impact on their mental health, and thousands live in fear,” said Kalam, assistant professor at the School of Public Health and Human Development at the O P Jindal Global University in Haryana.

It had become “a norm for politicians to lend a communal colour to every other incident in Assam”, said Azad. 

“Whatever happens, the first instinct is to somehow bring the miya community in and connect the event to unchecked migration,” he said.

Protecting ‘Indigenous’ Interests

For decades now, politics in Assam has been animated by the spectre of the “outsider”, the undocumented migrant from Bangladesh, perceived as trying to take over the jobs, language and culture of the “indigenous” population. 

For six years, between 1979 and 1985, Assamese nationalist groups led a mass movement, commonly referred to as Assam Agitation, to weed out the “illegal immigrant.” It culminated in the Assam Accord and the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) publication in 2019, a list of legal Indian citizens living in Assam.

While the ethnic Assamese say they are against all “foreigners”—Hindu or Muslim—it is the state’s Bengali Muslim population who are often at the receiving end of abuse, even though many migrated before Independence or 1971, the cutoff date set by the Assam Accord. 

It is this community that has been caught in the crosshairs of the NRC, often accused of being “illegal immigrants”.

Diganta Tamuly of the Tai Ahom Juba Parishad, an organisation representing Ahom youths, said there has always been a deep-seated fear that the Assamese will become a minority. 

“What is happening is not new, but the incident in Dhing, preceded by the attack on the Assamese girl by a member of the Marwari community earlier this month, has brought this anxiety to the fore again,” said Tamuly.

“The BJP came to power saying they will protect Assamese. But we have really not seen them act on it – except making statements,” he said.

On 14 August, an Assamese girl was allegedly assaulted by a Marwari businessman in Sivasagar.

As happened with Bengali Muslims, protests intensified against the Marwari community, and representatives were made to apologise, kneeling before a state cabinet minister publicly.

Such incidents, especially in upper Assam, are not new. 

Ethnic and nationalist organisations, such as the ones Tamuly represents, often stoke tensions against ethnic or linguistic minorities in a bid to protect the interests of those considered native to the state.

Milan Buragohain of the ATASU said that they had been registering their protest against outsiders “peacefully”, but things got heated when a Bengali Muslim legislator, Abdur Rashid Mandal from the lower Assam district of Goalpara, declared that no organisation had it in them to “chase away miyas from upper Assam, even if they tried”. 

“This statement incensed us, and we took it as a challenge, and that is when we started giving out ultimatums,” Buragohain said. 

In the last week, Buragohain said nativist groups, including his own, had sought out miya men in construction sites, brick kilns, factories and rented accommodations, warning them to leave.

 “We have also appealed to contractors and landlords not to hire Bengali Muslim labourers and instead give our local boys a chance,” Buragohain said.  

An ATASU flyer from last week reads: “We request all miyas to leave Rajgarh [in Sivasagar] in a week. Those who are employing miyas should take steps to dismiss them. If they do not, we will not be responsible for any untoward situation.”

‘Worrying  Trend’

Under Sarma, there have been frequent eviction drives that have turned deadly, a crackdown on child marriages leading to the arrest of thousands of Muslim men, demolition of state-run madrassas, a proposed ban on polygamy and plans to enact laws against “love jihad”, a conspiracy theory where radical Hindu groups accuse Muslim men of a campaign to marry Hindu girls to convert them to Islam.

Sarma has also accused them of other baseless conspiracy theories— waging “jihads” of different kinds on the state’s native population—from “fertiliser jihad” to “land jihad” to, more recently, “flood jihad”.

Comments by the chief minister and his party members referring to miyas as “outsiders” and “criminals” are routine. 

Sanjib Baruah, an expert on the region, described the events as a “worrying trend.” 

“Illegality is now associated with a particular ethnic community. It is no longer a matter of the actual citizenship status of an individual,” he said. 

According to Baruah, a professor emeritus of political studies at Bard College, New York, Bengali Muslims constituted a “significant part of the state’s working class in sectors such as construction”, and they moved from one part of the state to another in search for work. 

“If such a community of workers faces a threat from some private organisations, it should be the state government's job to offer protection, not to add fuel to the fire by raising the spectre of that community taking over the state,” he said.

On Wednesday, 28 August, Opposition parties filed a police complaint against Sarma (it has not been registered), accusing him of trying to “promote enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion and race”. 

Peasant activist-turned-politician Akhil Gogoi said the chief minister was creating an “atmosphere of instability” following the Lok Sabha election upset earlier this June. “He is trying to polarise voters on religious lines,” Gogoi said, adding it was in preparation for the 2026 assembly elections. 

 ‘War Between Civilisations’

Commenting on Opposition criticism of Sarma’s comments about Muslims, his close aide and cabinet minister Ashok Singhal told Article 14. 

“The honourable chief minister is working to safeguard the interest of the indigenous people of Assam, and terming that communal is not correct,” said Singhal.

On Bengali Muslims fleeing from eastern Assam, Singhal said,  “The indigenous Assamese are getting pushed by Bangladeshi miyas. Don’t the indigenous people have the right to live in their state and have claims over their land?” 

Singhal described the divide between the Assamese nationalists and the Bengali-speaking Muslim groups as a “war between civilisations”. 

“This is the core issue of Assam and not just the BJP line,” he said.

‘We Are The Ones Who Suffer’

Meanwhile, the Bengali Muslims we interviewed are uprooted from their homes and workplaces and in a quandary about the future. 

M* said he was considering migrating to Kerala.

N* hoped the dust would settle and he could soon return to Sivasagar.

S* wondered if he should start farming.

“The truth is there is not much hatred [against us] at the community level.  If there was, could we have lived in Sivasagar without trouble for so many years?” asked M. 

M said the statements issued by politicians made matters worse. 

“They do it for their political motives,” he said. “But we are the ones who suffer.”

M*, N* and S* spoke on condition of anonymity.

(Tora Agarwala is a Guwahati-based independent journalist covering the northeast region.)

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