India Tomorrow
GUWAHATI: For the Bhartiya Janata Party and its chief minister in Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, the most vilified term is Miya- otherwise a respected term for the Muslim community. And it reflects in the manifesto for the coming Assam Assembly election to be held on April 9. The people of Assam are also called Assamiya, but the Miya from it has been othered like never before.
The very first Sankalp or resolve of the BJP, out of 31, is focused on seemingly a benign anti-encroachment drive, but the Muslims of Assam have a cruel meaning to it, as it basically makes them homeless. It talks about Land Jihad, Love Jihad and unmissingly the UCC or the so-called Uniform Civil Code. Everyone knows how the above terms are used for political gains by polarizing the voters on an anti-Muslim plank.
This can also be understood by the fact that the mention of infra-investment of Rs. five lakh crores in Assam has been pushed to number three, which could have easily been a positive first of its 31 priorities.
Read the words of the manifesto, which say, “We will protect the land, heritage and dignity of the indigenous people of Assam by: Implementing the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, to expedite the process of detection and pushback of illegal immigrants.” It also talks of freeing every inch of land from encroachment by illegal immigrants and providing land rights to all genuine citizens of Assam under Mission Basundhara. It states to free the remaining encroached lands of Satras, Namghars, Devalayas and other places of worship and cultural heritage and provide financial assistance under the Asom Darshan Scheme.
The BJP’s Sankalp Patra (election manifesto) for the 2026 Assam elections is built on a foundation of high-stakes cultural polarization, positioning the party as the sole guardian of the “indigenous” civilization against perceived demographic threats. Practically speaking, the “indigenous” are non-Muslims and the “illegal immigrants” are the same Miya who are dehumanised openly by Himanta Sarma.
This sense of targeted governance is reinforced by the pledge to use the 1950 Immigrants Act for “pushbacks,” signaling an era where executive power may supersede the long-drawn judicial protections previously afforded to those navigating citizenship hurdles.
For the Bengali-origin Muslim population (Miya), the BJP’s focus on “Land Jihad” is particularly ominous as it criminalises the survival strategies of a community frequently displaced by the Brahmaputra’s shifting course. The manifesto’s vow to “free every inch of land from encroachment,” specifically targeting areas near Satras (Vaishnavite monasteries) and Namghars, transforms land disputes into a religious conflict. In this narrative, a landless farmer displaced by erosion is not a victim of a natural disaster but a participant in a communal conspiracy. The document effectively tells the Muslim community that their legitimacy as residents is conditional and that the state views their geographic and social presence through a lens of permanent suspicion.
By formally codifying terms like “Land Jihad” and “Love Jihad” into its official policy document, the party has moved these concepts from campaign rhetoric into a legislative agenda. The use of terms like “Land Jihad” is seen by many as an attempt to criminalize and demonize the community. There are concerns that this will lead to increased evictions in Char (riverine) areas, where many Bengali-speaking Muslims reside, often without formal land titles despite living there for generations.
The manifesto explicitly promises a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) within three months, but with a strategic caveat: it excludes tribal areas and the Sixth Schedule. It is said that this caveat is to avoid backlash from tribal voters, ensuring that tribal customary laws remain untouched. This makes the UCC applicable primarily to the non-tribal population, with a heavy focus on the Muslim community’s personal laws regarding marriage and inheritance.
For the local Muslim community, this selective application sends a pointed message that the law is not intended for universal secularism but is a specific tool to regulate their personal religious practices. Many Muslim leaders and organisations argue that by excluding tribal groups, the UCC is no longer “uniform” and is being used as a tool to target Islamic personal laws specifically. They fear it will infringe upon their religious freedom and cultural identity.
The selective approach to the so-called UCC has been a well-designed strategy to humiliate the Muslim community by alienating them from their religious customs in other BJP-ruled states also. The courts are mum on this selective approach, as the uniformity of the so-called UCC fails once it comes to the traditions of the tribal community.
Assam Congress is contesting the elections in alliance with at least five other parties, including Raijor Dal and Assam Jatiya Parishad, two regional parties with a target to oust BJP and its allies. BJP, on the other hand, is eyeing a third straight term in Assam.
In contrast, the Congress party’s election manifesto (Raijor Istahar) attempts to dismantle this polarizing framework by returning to the legal benchmarks of the Assam Accord. By anchoring its identity politics in the 1971 cutoff date, Congress offers the Muslim community a sense of “constitutional finality” that the BJP’s clearly biased “indigenous versus outsider” rhetoric lacks.
The Congress message is one of administrative regularization rather than criminalization; instead of “Land Jihad” laws, it promises to convert annual land titles (Eksoniya) into permanent ones (Miyadi) for ten lakh families. For the local Muslim community, this represents a shift from being viewed as “encroachers” to being recognized as “erosion-affected citizens” deserving of state-allocated land and legal security.
The Congress manifesto also seeks to counter the BJP’s “othering” by validating the cultural and economic contributions of all communities under the vision of Natun Bor Axom (New Greater Assam). By proposing unconditional cash transfers for women and promising to investigate corruption through an independent commission, the Congress tries to pivot the election toward bread-and-butter issues. However, for the Muslim community, the most significant difference lies in the tone: where the BJP uses the manifesto to signal a period of legal and social confrontation, the Congress uses its document to promise a return to a pluralistic status quo where citizenship is defined by the law of the land rather than by a civilizational “security” test.
Ultimately, the local Muslim voter is presented with a choice between a state that views them as a demographic challenge to be managed and a state that views them as a constitutional constituent to be protected.
