Returning To Identity Politics In Assam

Seven months before elections are held in Assam in March-April 2026, the BJP government in the state approved a regulation that makes seeking police clearance mandatory for inter-religious land transfers. This decision was taken to ameliorate concerns over communal harmony, national security and fears of demographic changes.

A note prepared for the state cabinet, which took the decision, sought to rationalise the move that ostensibly aims to prevent “fraudulent, coercive or illegal transfer of land” which could cause “communal tension”. This, the note added, would “ensure compliance with the constitutional principles of equality and non-discrimination”.

The cabinet’s decision was in the making since March 2024, when the state government issued an order that imposed restrictions on the grant of no-objection certificates for sale of land belonging to Muslims and Hindus, for three months.

The Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s dogged pursuit of the issue, from March 2025 to now, is significant with elections in the “sensitive state” scheduled for March-April 2026. Last year, he threw sufficient hints that a policy shift on inter-religious land transfer was in the offing.

While admitting that the government could not really prevent the exchange of land between people of different faiths, Sarma claimed that his heart went out to Assam’s indigenous people whose land rights ought to be protected by not just amending existing laws, but devising new laws too.

Given the BJP’s ideological stand, especially in an election-bound state, any anti-minority measure was anticipated. What was not expected, however, was the extent to which the state government would go against the sale of land to Muslims by Hindus.

In a state that has had a history of violent conflict between “sons of the soil” and “outsiders”, who are equated in Assam as Muslim immigrants, such a move is likely to spark fresh tensions among residents of different faiths, and thereby, polarise the electorate before the elections.

Restricted to Assam residents

The law aims to allow land dealings in select revenue circles only between people who have been residents of the state since at least 1951, and whose names figure in that year’s list of voters as well as the National Register of Citizens.

To justify the new regulation, the BJP government cited intelligence reports on attempts to forcefully transfer land from people belonging to one religious community to another. The ban on inter-faith land transfer, euphemistically described as “streamlining”, empowers the state government to scrutinise all applications which seek land transfer between buyers and sellers.

The applications will eventually be sent to the Assam Police. The police officials would examine them to identify any elements of fraud, coercion, or illegality, to verify the source of funds used for the purchase, assess potential implications for social cohesion and safeguard national security. Revenue officers would be required to act in accordance with the provisions of the legislation.

To further institutionalise the land transfer process, web portals would simplify the process of checking the history of ownership of a plot of land and prevent manipulation which, the government claimed, business houses often resort to while setting up new units.

While district commissioners would take the final decision, the same process would be followed when NGOs from outside Assam seek to acquire land for establishing educational or healthcare facilities. Local NGOs, however, are exempted in the proposed law.

The law is similar to another proposed legislation which will allow land dealings only within the same category in the case of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes in regions such as the undivided Goalpara Dhubri, Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar and South Salmara-Mankachar district in western Assam.

The state government had been approaching the legislation cautiously. Last year, the state government made an amendment to an existing legislation and a new chapter was added, allowing land sale within a 5-km radius of “iconic structures”, of religious and cultural importance, to only people residing there in 1951 or earlier.

While this new amendment is being implemented in three districts, the government proposes to instruct district commissioners to list iconic structures to protect them.

Besides, an amendment to another existing law would ensure that the sale of land on which tea is grown – they constitute an important livelihood source for tribal communities – is not used for other purposes without government consent. Violating this law would now be a punishable offence.

Return to identity politics?

Even as some of the measures come into effect at a time when the BJP government led by the controversial chief minister seeks re-election, there is a whiff of a return to identity politics in the latest measures.

Assam has had a sordid and often unfortunate history of violent ethnic strife over majoritarianism. This was evident in the sub-nationalism espoused by the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam that built a movement against so-called “outsiders” or settler Muslims allegedly from neighbouring Bangladesh. Much of Assam is familiar with the deadly violence that led to the Nellie massacre in 1983.

Besides, Assam has had its share of tribal politics reflected in the long and violent agitation for Bodoland.

As these conflicts developed over time, significant legislative and administrative concessions were made to these groups not just by the central but past state governments, reflecting the contestations between claims and counter-claims over identity.

The ruling BJP’s decisions related to land transfer exposes anxieties that are rooted in Assam’s history of identity politics. The chief minister’s references to safeguarding the ‘jati’ (community) which was at a “critical period” and his government’s moves to ensure the survival of the community are aimed at solidifying not just the Assamese identity but also those of other tribal communities.

But the new law must be seen in conjunction with the state government’s eviction and “push back” drive against alleged Bangladeshi settlers over the past several months.

About 450 such “doubtful citizens” have so far been forcibly pushed across the India-Bangladesh border. Over 1,400 hectares of land and 12,000 hectares of forest land supposedly encroached by alleged Bangladeshi settlers have been reclaimed by the government since June. Issuance of new Aadhaar cards to persons over the age of 18 was stopped in August.

Whether the chief minister’s moves have had any salutary effect on Assamese and tribal groups is not known yet, but they were aimed at ostensibly “saving Assamese nationality” from the perceived threat from Muslim immigrants, a bogey that brought electoral dividends to other ethnicity-based parties in the past. The BJP’s electoral challenges in Assam and the party will seek to neutralise these with the tried and tested formula aimed to mobilise the majority with the avowed purpose of polarising and communalising.

The Assam government is playing with potentially incendiary issues. Its electoral expediency can prove costly for the state and cause a setback to whatever economic gains have been achieved in the past few years.

(Published under Creative Commons from 360info.org)