Calls out panel recommendation by the BJP-led government as bid to sift Assamese-speaking Muslims from Bengali-speaking Muslims
A mostly Muslim ethnic group has slammed the BJP-led Assam government’s decision to notify Assamese Muslims as a distinct indigenous community.
The move, based on the recommendations of a panel that the State government set up in July 2021, seeks to identify a section of the Assamese by their religion and not by their ethnicity, the Sadou Asom Goria Jatiya Parishad (SAGJP) said on Wednesday.
Goria is one of the sub-groups of people generalised as Assamese Muslims. The others are Syed, Moria, Deshi and Julha.
These communities have been classified according to those Muslims, who have either settled down in Assam or converted from other communities since the 13th century. The Deshi and Julha people, for instance, converted from the Rajbongshi and the Adivasi or “tea tribes” communities.
“The panel on indigenous Assamese Muslims comprising seven sub-committees, in its July 21 report submitted to the government, suggested notification of the community. This is essentially flawed and divisive since our history has no reference to Assamese Muslims,” SAGJP president Moinul Islam said.
The Assamese society was not established on the basis of religion, he said.
“There is no such thing as Assamese Muslims, just as there is no Assamese Hindu or Assamese Christian community. The government is trying to erase the ethnic identity of the Goria-Moria people and impose the religious identity on them, which is unconstitutional,” Mir Arif Iqbal Hussain, the organisation’s general secretary said.
The SAGJP said the ‘Assamese Muslim’ tag will lead to some members of the Goria community, who follow other faiths, to lose their ethnic identity. It cited the example of Azizul Haque, a priest at a Baptist Church in Guwahati.
Critics of the plan to notify the Assamese Muslims say it is a bid to sift Assamese-speaking Muslims from the Bengali-speaking or Bengal-origin Muslims, viewed as “Bangladeshis” or “illegal migrants” in Assam. The Assamese-speaking Muslims are about 4% of the total Muslim population in Assam.
According to the 2011 census, Muslims account for a little less than 35% of Assam’s total population.
