Don’t care about Jamiat’s demand for my resignation over eviction, says Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma

GUWAHATI — Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said that he does not care about the demand of Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind for his resignation following the eviction drive in various parts of the state and to book him under hate speech laws.

Sarma also said that if he gets Jamiat President Mahmood Madani, he would send the Islamic scholar to Bangladesh.

Founded in 1919, Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind is considered the largest and most influential organisation of Indian Muslims.

“I am officially showing my 'burha anguli' (thumb) to them. There is Assamese blood, strength and courage in this thumb of mine. I don't care about what they demand,'' Sarma told the media on the sidelines of a programme in Morigaon.

The Jamiat's Working Committee in a meeting, chaired by Madani, on Wednesday expressed alarm over the eviction drives in Assam that have rendered more than 50,000 families homeless, mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims.

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Adopting a resolution, the organisation called upon India’s constitutional authorities—particularly the President of India and the Chief Justice of India—to immediately remove the chief minister of Assam and initiate criminal proceedings against him for hate speech.

“It is the people of Assam who will take the decision and not Jamiat President Mahmood Madani… If I get Madani, I will send him to Bangladesh. I will only say one thing that I don't care about Jamiat at all or anyone else,'' Sarma said.

He also described the Congress as the 'B Team' of Jamiat.

If anyone attacks Assam's chief minister, belonging to whichever party including Congress, “we would protest as the people of the state elected him and not the Jamiat,'' he said.

The Congress, however, did not give a single statement on this, the BJP leader said, adding that when a semiconductor facility came up in Jagiroad, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's son had protested and members of the Assam Congress echoed him.

''The Congress leaders in the state are 'sardars' (chief) of unknown people. They want to live with these unknown people, and they are not the representatives of the indigenous people,'' the CM said.

Sarma did not clarify who the “unknown people” are. He had used the expression several times during his Independence Day speech too, in an apparent reference to Bengali-speaking Muslims.

The CM alleged that it was Madani who did not allow the appointment of teachers who cleared the Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET) when he was the education minister in the Congress government.

“In association with the late chief minister Tarun Gogoi, he (Madani) would call our officers to a room and make them cry,'' said Sarma who joined the BJP in 2015.

''Their frustration has become clear after the recent eviction drive and our decision to discontinue Aadhaar cards to those above the age of 18. They wanted to occupy Assam and Congress had allowed it to happen,'' he said.

Sarma on Thursday announced that people above 18 years of age will not get first-time Aadhaar cards in the state as a precautionary measure to check illegal immigrants from getting Indian citizenship.

“Assam has taken steps, though they may be small, to build embankments, and local youth are getting government jobs. Indigenous people have the right to their lands and those who need to be evicted are being removed,” he said.

Those who need to get the Aadhaar card are getting it and those who do not deserve it would not get it, the CM said.

If identified as a Bangladeshi, the person is now directly pushed back without the earlier process of going to courts or detention camps, he said.

''For these reasons, they are naturally angry. I have no objection to it as I do not compare the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind even to my thumb,'' Sarma said.

In its resolution, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind claimed it has always opposed encroachments on government land but the current actions in Assam are being carried out in an inhuman and discriminatory manner, motivated by religious prejudice and hate-filled rhetoric.

Sarma recently claimed that over 160 sq km of land has been cleared of encroachment since his government took over in May 2021, affecting more than 50,000 people.

He said that all unauthorised occupation of forest land, VGR (Village Grazing Reserve), PGR (Professional Grazing Reserve), ‘Satras’ (Vaishnavite monastery), ‘Namghars’ (prayer houses), and other public areas would be cleared in a phased manner.

Most of the people displaced due to the eviction drive are from the Bengali-speaking Muslims community, referred to as 'Miyas' in the state, who claim that their ancestors had moved and settled in the areas where drives were carried out after their land in the ‘Char’ or riverine areas were washed away due to erosion by the River Brahmaputra.