Climate change, which has led to land erosion, is not only depriving farmers of their acres in Assam but also of their Indian citizenship as they lack documents, says Anup Sharma
For over the last 30 years, Rahim Khan has not been able to grow a single grain on his land but has been keeping the land documents close to his heart. He is even paying the annual revenue (tax) for the 32 bighas which have been eroded by the hungry tides of the mighty river part by part over the last three decades.
The Bengali-speaking Muslim settler, a resident of Balapara char in Barpeta district of Assam has been paying the annual tax at the Chenga revenue circle regularly as the land documents and the updated tax receipts are the most important proofs of his Indian identity.
Khan is one of the lakh victims of climate change in Assam who are already pushed to live on the edge by the changing climatic conditions, eroding their lands and snatching away their livelihood — agriculture. These people who live mostly on the 2,251 sand bars that dot the entire river system in Assam are living at the mercy of nature for long and are now fighting another battle to keep their Indian identity alive. With the Assam government working on updating its National Citizenship Register (NRC), most of these people fear that their names would not figure in the list as they do not have documents for their lands which have fallen prey to climate change-induced erosion and they will be reduced to stateless people.
“Our ancestors came here from Mymansingh region of Bangladesh centuries back. My grandfather was born here in Assam. We have land documents dating back to 1948. Despite that we are often branded as illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators due to the linguistic similarity of our dialect with those from the neighbouring country. There are lots of people from these areas who are picked up by the police and sent to detention camps as they fail to provide documents to prove their Indian identity,” said Khan.
“My family owns 32 bighas (12.8 acre) of land here on the banks of the river but have not been growing anything here for over 30 years as the river has eaten up my lands. Yet I am paying the tax of Rs 35 per bighas annually. The land is titled and registered in the name of my grandfather since 1948 and it proves that we are ancestors of someone who settled in Assam long before 1971,” said Khan who works as a daily wage earner now.
The BJP-led government in Assam has been updating the NRC through a rigorous Supreme Court-monitored process and intends to include the names of those people and their descendants who had entered Assam post March 24, 1971. The complete draft of NRC, which was published by the Assam government earlier this year, has already left out a total of 40,07,707 people due to some discrepancies in their documents.
On the other hand, the changing climatic conditions have affected the hydrological pattern of the mighty Brahmaputra river and its tributaries affecting over 25 lakh people living in the 2,251 char (river islands) that dot the entire river system in Assam, eroding the people’s lands and forcing them either to move inbound in the char.
What enhances the fear among the community of being branded as illegal Bangladeshi infiltrator are the instances of arbitrary arrests and detention by police and subsequent declaration by the Foreigners’ Tribunals.
For example, 32-year-old Saheb Khan, a resident of Ganakpara reserve under Chenga revenue circle was detained by the police in 2010 on mere suspicion of being an illegal Bangladeshi infiltrator. Although Saheb finally managed to go free, his family has received a notice from the Foreigners’ Tribunal 10 years later asking him to prove his Indian citizenship. The family is running from pillar to post even now to prove his it.
“The problem is that none of the 378 families living in Ganakpara reserve had land documents. These people, most of whom are descendants of Bengali Muslim settlers, hail from Goma Phulbari village under Chenga revenue circle in the district. The Brahmaputra river eroded their lands forcing them to settle in Ganakpara reserve in 2008, which used to be a village grazing reserve (VGR) and of the Assam government,” said Abdur Rahim, an activist in the reserve.
“The government had allowed us to settle here after considering our problems at that time and had also assured that they would provide us with land pattas. We have been living here since 2008 but the government has not even initiated the process to de-reserve the Ganakpara reserve, which is necessary to allot land pattas. These are all farmer families who are now earning their livelihood as daily wage earners,” said Rahim.
He narrated the ordeal of a man called Saheb, “We speak the dialect spoken by our ancestors in Bangladesh and hence our people are often branded as infiltrators. Saheb had gone to Byrnihat, a small industrial town along Assam-Meghalaya border, to work as mason. However, a police team picked him up along with few others on mere suspicion that they are illegal infiltrators from Bangladesh.”
Another such example is that of Moinal Mollah of Kakadhowa village in Chenga area. Moinal was arrested by the police and sent to detention camps for failing to provide documents to support his Indian citizenship despite the fact that his father’s name figured in voters’ list. It is only after the intervention of the Supreme Court that Moinal was released after three years in captivity.
“We have lost our land in Goma Phulbari village due to erosion and were settled here by the government in 2008. However, we have not received any documents regarding this land. From where will we bring land documents to prove our citizenship?” questioned Manowara Begum (58), Moinal’s mother.
She said that while only her husband, Ashan Mollah’s name appeared in the draft NRC, none of other members in the family including her could make it to due to the lack of documents.
According to the Water Resources Department of the Assam government, the river bank erosion has been a serious issue in Assam for the last six decades as more than 4.27 lakh hectares of land had already been eroded by Brahmaputra and its tributaries since 1950, which is 7.40 per cent of the area of the state.
As assessed by the department, the annual average loss of land is nearly 8,000 hectares and the width of the river Brahmaputra has increased up to 15 km at some places due to bank erosion.
These Bengali-speaking Muslim settlers have been living in the sandbars since time immemorial. However, they are often subjected to harassment and termed as illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators due to their language and religion,” said Ashraful Hussain, a human rights and RTI activist based in Barpeta.
“Their forefathers dialect which is similar to the one used by Bangladeshis does not essentially make them one. Moreover, these sand bars have remained isolated for years from mainland Assam and lack basic educational facilities. As a result people did not got the opportunity to learn and speak the language of mainland Assam,” Hussain said.
He said that when majority of the people in the state applied for inclusion of their names in the recently updated NRC, names of a good number of these people in char areas were either left out while some did not even apply due to lack of documents that prove their Indian citizenship.
So, for Rahim Khan and innumerable others like him, living in the riverine sand bars of Assam, paying the land revenue for lands which they no longer hold, is not by choice but a compulsion as it is their last resort to assert their Indian identity. Like Khan, his sons too, will continue with the ritual of paying the annual revenue for the 32 bighas until a time when none will be branded as illegal Bangladeshi infiltrator on the basis of their language and religion.