Weeks ago, it was the shocking
molestation incident that got all the attention from the media from all over
the country. The overexcited Newslive reporter was rightly criticized by
everyone for putting TRPs over minimum sense of morality and incidentally
arrested by the post-activated police. However, as soon as that happened, other
news channels too tried to increase their TRPs by focusing on the same news and
same disguised footage.
Now, coming on to the more
pressing issue, we are still surprised how situations are being represented. Not
only that the state machinery fails repeatedly to curb natural and unnatural
disasters in Assam, but what is more shocking is that instead of taking a right
perspective of the situation, everyone including the top ministers are busy
finding someone or something else to pass on their blames. On the other side, a portion of the media
created headlines, where they highlighted words like “communal violence”, “riots”
and “Bodos Vs Muslims” – a politically, socially and anthropologically
incorrect title used to define the kind of violence. While some channels were
careful and quick to distinguish between ethnic violence and communal riots,
others simply didn’t seem to bother. “Bodos Vs Muslims” sounds as absurd as
a cricket match between Punjab and the whole of India. First of all, Bodo is
the official name of a Tribe, not a religion (of whom approximately 80 per cent
are identified as Hindus and the remaining are followers of Christianity). They
are predominantly concentrated in parts of north-eastern India. Muslims are the
people who follow Islam as their religion. They are found all over the world,
in all skin colors, speaks all sorts of their native languages and have their own
distinct respective cultures. Though, it is true that the tension that broke between
two sections was the Bodos and the other side happened to be Muslims. But why
was it necessary to highlight a particular religion before everything else? Doesn’t
it send in some way a confusing and incomplete impression of the region to the
rest of the country? Doesn’t it hurt a particular community? Of course, it
does. Therefore, here is a need to agree and reaffirm on certain basic points:
- All Muslimls living in Assam (or anywhere else) are not Illegal Migrants.
- All Illegal Migrants living in Assam (or anywhere else) are not Muslims.
- All Migrants (Hindus or Muslims or Sikhs or Christians or Buddhists) living in Assam (or anywhere else) are not Illegal.
If taken together, since independence there have been way more Hindu migrations
(including tribals) than Muslim migrations in India from Bangladesh. Migrants
are migrants; they may be legal or illegal but need not be termed as Hindus or
Muslims. Let me also clarify here that we are not dismissing the argument that,
the root causes of these ethnic violence in Assam has a lot to do with the
migration coupled with the feeling of deprivation and negligence among many
native ethnic groups living in Assam. Take the example in West Bengal and
Tripura where the problem of migration hasn’t been looked upon as severely as
it has been in Assam. This is may be because of the cultural similarities
between Bangladeshis and neighboring people of West Bengal and Tripura. In case
of Assam such a cultural similarity is difficult to establish except in the
districts of Cachar or Dhubri, where incidentally the majority population have
always felt some kind of an identity crisis. Therefore, for Assam Migration has
always been a cultural problem and was needed to be dealt as a cultural
problem. The political parties never had any clear strategy to manage the
ethnic diversity of Assam. Unfortunately, they were always luring themselves to
secure power with narrow vote bank politics. They realized that it is easier to
come to the power in Assam if it retains its sectional politics and thus never
honestly worked for a Unified State.
The tragic compulsion for the helpless people
to leave their motherland and migrate to a foreign land can be economic as well
as socio-political pressure. Therefore, dealing with migration is equally a
critical and sensitive issue which needs both diplomatic and humanitarian approach.
Unfortunately both the Centre and the State have neither of them.
