“Houses built on people’s dreams and hopes were crushed upon by elephants and reduced to rubble by the JCBs,” claimed Rukmini Bodo, an Amchang eviction victim in Assam’s Guwahati in 2017.
Similar to Rukmini, other families fear eviction due to the uncertain nature of their land rights. In Assam’s current political environment, eviction has dominated. The state’s expanding eviction campaigns highlight the lack of land security among various populations, which holds the anguish and fear of being landless. The indigenous and Miya communities that are afflicted by erosion, floods, and landlessness make up a major portion of them and participate in the politics of displacement.
One of the major cities that has seen several eviction campaigns since 2010 is Guwahati. Such eviction efforts have periodically occurred in several Indian cities, but no organization has ever been able to effectively halt them via dharna and large-scale demonstrations. Despite preventing evictions, securing land, and protecting land rights, these protest groups were unable to provide a solid foundation for the state’s landless people.
Understanding the progression of Assam’s eviction proceedings requires a close review of the evictions from 2010. On June 22, 2010, many organizations issued a joint appeal for Dispur Chalo (Let’s travel to Dispur) under the direction of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti. The resistance activities against the Guwahati evictions have played an important part in the history of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti-organized resistance.
However, the need to protect natural resources including forests, marshes, and hills from invasion was a major factor in the filing of multiple public interest litigations (PIL). However, the political parties in the state avoided addressing the crucial topic of why people chose to reside in these particular areas. Due to a lack of land, the majority of relocated families were compelled to live close to forests, grazing areas, embankments, on the edges of marshes, or on hills. It is a typical situation in a state like Assam that experiences flooding and erosion, where there is no government statistics on the number of individuals who lose their land as a result of natural catastrophes and the number of people who are rehabilitated.
Who are the indigenous people?
The Assamese eviction problem is intimately related to the indigenous identity, which has historically formed and changed the indigenous identity debate. With respect to their political identity and land rights, communities in Kaziranga, Dhakuakhana, Baghbor, Amchang, Sipajhar, Mayang, and Mikir Bamuni have all seen eviction campaigns.
The state’s counter-insurgency to rule certain groups based on their land rights is brought up again by the lessons learned from these evictions. The concept of indigenous people in Assam was complicated by the Interim Report of the Brahma Committee, published in 2017. The identification problem is made more difficult by the cryptic references to “Khilanjia Axomiya” (indigenous Assamese) in numerous definitions, such as Clause 6 of the Assam Accord.
Understanding the claims for land rights made by certain groups, particularly the Miya communities, depends on how “land grabbing hungry Bangladeshi” are described in the Brahma Committee Report. The Brahma Committee Report polarizes the eviction debate and leaves no room for discussion of a solution to landlessness. In this sense, the indigenous Axomiya and Miya settlers are the victims of Assam’s eviction tactics, which have accelerated since the release of the Brahma Committee’s interim report in 2017.
Land rights and land policy
According to the Government of Assam’s Land Policy, 1989, erosion and floods are the main causes of the state’s declining landmass.
Similar to this, the 2019 Land Policy emphasizes the shrinking amount of cultivable agricultural land. It acknowledges the causes of the decline of agricultural areas, including floods, soil erosion, fast urban and industrialization, and land degradation.
Although these policies acknowledge the causes of landlessness, they must provide a long-term fix. These regulations neglected the reasons why displaced groups are compelled to reside in grazing fields, woods, or hills when they are displaced by floods and erosion while establishing provisions for who may acquire land rights in the state.
The situation right now
Even though the party’s program calls for the preservation of indigenous land rights, Assam’s land and erosion issues have not been adequately handled by the dominant political party. Although there has been an increase in the building of flyovers, toll gates, four-lane roads, and bridges, the rights of landless people have severely decreased.
The Silsako eviction in Guwahati on February 27, which took place just before the High School Leaving Certificate test, sparked various issues of encroachment and eviction more recently. According to the Water Bodies Act (2008), the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) started the eviction process at Silsako, a wetland that is protected in Assam. But the evicted individuals questioned the authority’s decision to wait until 2023 to demarcate the line between the wetland and settlement and its silence since 2008, which has resulted in no action from the government.
The evicted family’ HSLC candidates were anxious about their examinations. During the eviction, they misplaced their reading materials and were frightened as they saw the violent eviction procedures surrounded by bulldozers and the police.
The anti-eviction protests’ catchphrases, such as “stop supporting capitalists and stop evicting the indigenous,” are an example of how “environmental conservation” is used by big corporations to their advantage through the gentrification process, which involves displacing lower-income residents with higher-income groups. This procedure increases Assam’s eviction execution rates while decreasing indigenous land claims.
Although the Tata Group’s Ginger Hotel, the state assembly’s residential complex, Doordarshan Kendra, and the highest literary organization Assam Sahitya Sabha are among the institutions that will be relocated, the bulk of lower-income households have really been affected by eviction. The majority of these evicted households are from indigenous groups including the Bodo, Karbi, Mishing, and Miya tribes.
Moving becomes a kind of quiet aggression.
Despite the fact that the incidents are different, there is a relationship between the most recent evictions in Assam.
First off, landless indigenous and Miya groups make up the majority of eviction victims.
Second, the majority of them are from the lowest social classes.
Thirdly, and most significantly, a number of players use polarization to undermine the cohesiveness and resistance of the displaced families. It is a crucial factor in the evicted communities’ inability to organize their voices and convey their opposition on a single platform, resulting in their voices being gone in a flash.
Furthermore, Assam’s organized protest and resistance areas are being progressively repressed by the government. In the context of landlessness and conservation politics, eviction therefore takes on the form of silent violence. Some voices are calling for social justice amidst this quiet brutality. For instance, in a 19-second viral video, a seven-year-old kid requests that authorities hold off on arriving at the Silsako eviction site for 10 minutes since he has not yet packed up his belongings. In light of the politicization and polarization of evictions, how effective is the current state in delivering social justice? Given the political unrest that is now occurring in Assam, it is the most delicate subject.
