By Dr. Gyan Pathak
Intensification of minority pushback drive after Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s reaffirmation during the special session of the Legislative Assembly of the State held on June 9, 2025, that his government will not halt the pushback drive against alleged Bangladeshi infiltrators, has sparked the minority community’s outrage across the state. They allege that CM Sarma is communalising Assam politics afresh in an unprecedented way to extract political benefits for himself and BJP, by targeting Muslims in the guise of action against Bangladeshi infiltrators.
Though there have been widespread protests, the minority pushback drive will be kept alive, as CM Sarma has himself vowed to continue deporting all illegal immigrants to Bangladesh. His affirmation has come within a short time of one month. Only on May 10 last month, in the one-day special session of the legislative assembly to mark his government’s four years of his current term, he had said that the pushback operations would be intensified.
It is important to note that the special session also marked the beginning of the election year in Assam. The issue of Bangladeshi infiltrators has always been a sensitive political issue in the state, of which the BJP has been the chief beneficiary since May 2016. Himanta Biswa Sarma became chief minister on May 10, 2021, for the first time in the state, and he has emerged as a chief voice of the BJP, not only in Assam, but in the entire North-East. He obviously enjoys support from the central BJP leadership, especially of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Moreover, Sarma is eying for his second term as chief ministers. It is well known that BJP’s election year politics across the country has been marked by anti-Muslim rhetorics.
CM Sarma has already said in the legislative assembly that the pushback operations against Bangladeshi infiltrators are being carried out under the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, which empowers District Commissioners to declare individuals as illegal immigrants and deport them without referring the cases to Foreigners’ Tribunal. He even cited a Supreme Court judgement and claimed the 1950 Act remains in force. He justified the state’s rewed crackdown on alleged infiltrators under this legislation.
Nevertheless, minority organisations, including All Assam Minority Students’ Union (AAMSU), NEMSU, ABMSU, and the Minority Sangram Parishad have been vehemently opposing the state’s move. They have alleged that BJP-led Assam government is using the pushback operations only to selectively targeting Muslims. Individuals are being detained and forced into no man’s land along the Bangladesh border.
It should be noted that pushback operations have been intensified in Assam from the last week of May, after the CM Sarma’s declaration of intensifying the operation in the assembly on May 10. Obviously, protests from minority Muslims, have also intensified against the drive.
A people’s convention held in later in May under the auspices of AAMSU in Guwahati saw as many as 19 minority and civil society organisations as participants. They alleged that Muslims of the state are being targeted in the name of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The convention adopted an 11-point resolution condemning the alleged harassment of minorities. They vowed to launch statewide protest against the illegal targeting of Muslims in the name of Bangladeshis.
The opposition political parties in general, including the Congress, AIUDF, and Raijor Dal have also protested CM Sarma’s pushback operations, both inside and outside the state assembly. Congress politician and the Leader of the Opposition in state assembly Debabrata Saikia has criticized the government for failing to act on the final National Register of Citizens (NRC), noting that rejection slips had not yet been issued to the 1.9 million people excluded from the list. Without these slips, affected individuals have been denied the right to appeal their exclusion. He said that the constitutional authority to declare anyone foreigner is vested in only Foreigners’ Tribunal. He also pointed out that some individuals who were earlier pushed back into Bangladesh have returned, which undermines the legitimacy of the actions of the government.
Some pushback details are really alarming. For example, Assam Border Police arrested over 50 persons including children, women, and elderly people between May 23 and May 27, and sent them to the Matia detention camp in Goalpara. Later they were allegedly handed over to BSF, who pushed them into Bangladesh overnight into the flooded paddy fields, with no food, shelter, or medical aid. Humanity does not approve such treatment to human beings. It may be shocking to know that in that group there was a teacher whose case is pending in the Supreme Court of India. It has been claimed that those individuals became victim of the pushback operation despite theirs having valid documents, even from 1951 NRC and 1966 and 1971 electoral roll.
In the meantime, an PIL has been filed in the High Court of Gauhati challenging the legality of the pushback operations especially against those whose cases are pending in various higher courts of appeal.
Sometimes situations become ironical, especially when Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), formerly known as Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), refuses to accept alleged Bangladeshi citizens from India’s BSF, without verifiable documents that they are Bangladeshis. Many individuals have not valid documents to prove their citizenship of any country.
In the special assembly session, on June 9, Opposition demanded government’s reply on the reportedly unlawful expulsions of ordinary Assamese, including minor, pregnant women, and ailing elderly, since May 23 under the pushback operation. CM Sarma, however, goes on defending his pushback operation under 1950 law and vowed to intensify it further.
CM Sarma has also said that the process of identifying “foreigners”, which slowed down due to matters relating to the National Register of Citizens, will now continue at a faster pace, adding “This time, if someone is identified as a foreigner, we will not have to take up the case with the foreigners’ tribunal to push back the person.” Obviously, Assam is being pushed towards a new phase of socio-political tension. (IPA Service)
