The elation in India's television media of Mamata Bannerjee and Jayalalitha's thumping election victories took away the attention from a dangerous trend that seems to be shaping in one of India's most beautiful, yet enigmatic states, Assam.
I remember, a few years ago, admiring the wide Brahmaputra River from an aircraft just before my plane landed in Guwahati. The shades of green that I saw on the landscape surrounding the wide river were nothing like I'd ever seen in even the greenest places like Kerala. The Brahmaputra plain is lush and probably even more fertile than the Gangetic Plain. That's the very reason that people from neighbouring (and impoverished) Bangladesh would like to settle in Assam.
While in Guwahati, I read about how a group of 200 illegal Bangladeshi migrants, who were evicted from Arunachal Pradesh, were assisted by Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who passionately argued that they were Indian Bengali Muslims. That was my first introduction to the communal and vote-bank politics of the Congress in Assam. A brilliant reporter from the Assam Tribune told me that Bangladeshi settlers now form close to 33 percent of the Assamese population and that even the dreaded separatist group ULFA, which was ironically formed to expel Bangladeshis, wouldn't touch the settlers since the group had its base now across the border.
Assam has had a long troubled with Bengal over the past few centuries. In fact, Assamese proudly talk about how the state resisted the Mughals and other Muslim invaders. There are traces of Hinduism in its pre-Buddhist form in the state. The biggest example being the Kamakhya Temple, where there are regular animal sacrifices.
The danger with the latest election result seems to be the fact that the Muslim minority voted en masse for a Deobandi party that follows a rigid form of Islam. Education across religious barriers is a problem in Assam but the fact that there is an assertive group of people, who are essentially Bangladeshis but with questionably acquired Indian citizenship, is a serious danger for India.
I remember having a debate with a close family-friend, who was an Executive Director with the Reserve Bank of India, who told me that he realised that he had to be communal to save all of India from turning into another Kashmir. He was implying that a Muslim majority area in India would never accept Indian rule. I do believe that the particular gentleman was misinformed but I can sense a real danger in Assam.
The blatantly communal Congress Party created many monsters that they couldn't control, like Bhindranwale and Prabhakaran. If education and development aren't given priority in Assam, we are sitting on our next communal flash point.
I remember, a few years ago, admiring the wide Brahmaputra River from an aircraft just before my plane landed in Guwahati. The shades of green that I saw on the landscape surrounding the wide river were nothing like I'd ever seen in even the greenest places like Kerala. The Brahmaputra plain is lush and probably even more fertile than the Gangetic Plain. That's the very reason that people from neighbouring (and impoverished) Bangladesh would like to settle in Assam.
While in Guwahati, I read about how a group of 200 illegal Bangladeshi migrants, who were evicted from Arunachal Pradesh, were assisted by Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who passionately argued that they were Indian Bengali Muslims. That was my first introduction to the communal and vote-bank politics of the Congress in Assam. A brilliant reporter from the Assam Tribune told me that Bangladeshi settlers now form close to 33 percent of the Assamese population and that even the dreaded separatist group ULFA, which was ironically formed to expel Bangladeshis, wouldn't touch the settlers since the group had its base now across the border.
Assam has had a long troubled with Bengal over the past few centuries. In fact, Assamese proudly talk about how the state resisted the Mughals and other Muslim invaders. There are traces of Hinduism in its pre-Buddhist form in the state. The biggest example being the Kamakhya Temple, where there are regular animal sacrifices.
The danger with the latest election result seems to be the fact that the Muslim minority voted en masse for a Deobandi party that follows a rigid form of Islam. Education across religious barriers is a problem in Assam but the fact that there is an assertive group of people, who are essentially Bangladeshis but with questionably acquired Indian citizenship, is a serious danger for India.
I remember having a debate with a close family-friend, who was an Executive Director with the Reserve Bank of India, who told me that he realised that he had to be communal to save all of India from turning into another Kashmir. He was implying that a Muslim majority area in India would never accept Indian rule. I do believe that the particular gentleman was misinformed but I can sense a real danger in Assam.
The blatantly communal Congress Party created many monsters that they couldn't control, like Bhindranwale and Prabhakaran. If education and development aren't given priority in Assam, we are sitting on our next communal flash point.
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