How Successive Congress Governments In Assam Allowed Illegal Migrants From Bangladesh To Settle On Vaishnavite Institution Lands

Nearly one-fourth of the lands belonging to Assam’s revered xatras (alternatively, satras) — Vaishnavite Ekasarana monasteries that are also centres of culture and learning — have been taken over by encroachers, almost all of them Bengali-speaking Muslims.

Assam’s Bengali-speaking Muslims are illegal migrants, or descendants of illegal migrants, from Bangladesh.

Successive Congress regimes in the state have facilitated, and even encouraged, illegal migrants and their descendants to forcibly occupy lands belonging to the xatras.

A commission set up by the Assam government in November last year to survey the status of lands belonging to the xatras has come up with a startling finding: nearly a quarter of the lands owned by these institutions founded by sixteenth-century saint Srimanta Sankardev are no longer in the physical possession of the xatras.

The Commission for Review & Assessment of Problems of Xatra Lands in Assam, headed by former minister Pradip Hazarika, surveyed lands belonging to 62 xatras spread over 12 districts of the state.

This panel found that of the 33,265.7 bighas (8,413.89 hectares) of land owned by the 62 xatras, 7,504.2 bighas (1,898.04 hectares) were under the illegal possession of encroachers. And an overwhelming majority of the encroachers are Bengali-speaking Muslims.

The most encroachment has been recorded at Barpeta, a district where Bengali-speaking Muslims form the overwhelming majority of the population. The commission found that 74 per cent of the 5,545 bighas of land owned by the xatras in that district had been forcibly occupied by Bengali-speaking Muslims.

“Successive Congress governments are responsible for this forcible occupation of lands belonging to the xatras. It is well known that the Congress had always encouraged illegal influx from Bangladesh, facilitated the settling down of the infiltrators, given them citizenship documents, and made them into loyal vote banks,” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Madhab Barua told Swarajya.

While most of the infiltrators settled down on the chars (islands formed by alluvial deposits of rivers), many settled down in government lands, especially forests, which they systematically degraded, and land belonging to the xatras.

“The xatras never had the means and the manpower, and still don’t, to protect the lands they owned. So, it was easy for these infiltrators from Bangladesh to settle down in the lands of the xatras. The task of the infiltrators was made easier by the patronage of local Congress politicians and also the state administration,” Barua explained.

Former bureaucrat Debakanta Buragohain told Swarajya that many xatras didn’t have documents to prove ownership of the lands that belong to them.

“Being religious figures, the xatradhikars (the senior monks in charge of xatras) were not worldly wise and neglected tasks like updating their land records and even keeping proper records of the lands belonging to their xatras. So, it was easy for people to settle down on those lands,” he said.

Buragohain admitted that a large section of the state administration was complicit in the act of land-grabbing by infiltrators from Bangladesh.

“The lower bureaucracy, eager to please their (Congress) political masters, helped the Bangladeshi infiltrators settle down on government lands or lands belonging to the xatras. These officials not only helped the infiltrators fraudulently obtain documents like ration cards and voter identity cards, but also forged documents to show the infiltrators as owners of the government and xatra lands they had encroached on,” he explained.

The commission, in its interim report, said that a law enacted by the Congress — the Assam State Acquisition of Lands Belonging to Religious or Charitable Institutions of Public Nature Act, 1959 — facilitated illegal occupation of lands belonging to xatras by Bengali-speaking Muslims.

The 1959 law provided for acquiring excess or unused land belonging to xatras and distributing those lands to people who were already in possession of such lands or landless peasants.

But the law said that only persons belonging to the same faith (followers of Srimanta Sankardev or Vaishavites) would be entitled to get such excess or unused lands belonging to the xatras.

However, this provision was blatantly violated and Bengali-speaking Muslims ultimately became the largest beneficiaries.

The xatras were endowed with large parcels of land by Koch and Ahom kings, most of which were regularised by the British administration.

The three-member commission, which was mandated to come up with recommendations for a long-term solution to the problem of encroachment of xatra lands, submitted its interim report to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently.

The commission visited Barpeta, Dhubri, Goalpara, Bongaigaon, Kamrup, Morigaon, Nagaon, Jorhat, Majuli, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, and Karimganj districts and met representatives of more than 300 xatras as well as district officials, local public representatives, social organisations, and prominent citizens.

According to the panel’s shocking findings, the worst-affected districts (apart from Barpeta) are Lakhimpur, Nagon, Bongaigaon, and Dhubri districts. Except Lakhimpur, Bengali-speaking Muslims form the majority in these districts.

“We have submitted 41 recommendations. Some of these recommendations relate to a few specific xatras, while the rest are general recommendations,” said commission chairman Pradip Hazarika.

Chief Minister Sarma told Swarajya that the recommendations are being studied by senior bureaucrats and “action will be taken as per law.”

He hinted that a concerted action plan will be drawn up to evict all encroachers from lands belonging to the xatras and lay down concrete measures to prevent similar encroachments in the future.

Senior state administration officials said that after studying the commission’s report and carrying out an official survey of all encroachments, measures will be taken to start evicting the encroachers.

“Local politicians will be involved in getting the encroachers to vacate the lands under their illegal occupation voluntarily. A fair and humane approach will be adopted, but the ultimate aim is to free all lands belonging to all xatras in the state of encroachers,” said a senior BJP leader.

He said that if persuasion and other means don’t work and the encroachers refuse to move out of lands owned by the xatras, an eviction drive would become inevitable.

“This problem of encroachment of lands belonging to the xatras as well as government land is an acute one and has to be tackled resolutely. Assam would not have been faced with this problem if the Congress governments of the past had not encouraged illegal influx from Bangladesh and extended protection and patronage to the infiltrators for their (the Congress’) narrow political ends,” said the BJP leader who did not want to be named since he is not authorised to speak to the media.