New
Age Islam Correspondent
15 April
2021
Syed
Muminul Aowal - The Survey Was Necessary Because Migrant Muslims Are Trying To
Merge the Goria, Moria and Deshi Muslims with the Miyas In The Name Of Islam
Summary:
1.
Muslim NRC to start in Assam today
2.
Janagosthi Samannay Parishad under the Assam government will oversee the survey
3. The
survey will identify indigenous Muslims of Assam and segregate Bengali-speaking
Muslims called Miya considered Bangladeshi
4. Only
Goria, Moria and Deshi communities will be allowed to apply to be included in
the list
-----
After the
NRC of the people of Assam was completed in August 2019, Muslims of Assam have
started their own NRC from 15 April 2021 to identify the indigenous Muslims of
the state. The Assam Janagosthi Samannay Parishad (JSPA) has taken the
initiative. The purpose of the survey is to identify the indigenous Muslim
communities of Assam and distinguish them from the Bengali speaking Muslims who
form the majority of the Muslims of Assam but are seen as immigrants from
Bangladesh. The JSPA has identified and recognised only three communities --
Goria, Moria and Deshi -- as the indigenous Muslims of Assam. The rest of the
Muslim population is immigrant from Bangladesh and therefore Bangladeshis in
their view. The Bengali-speaking Muslims of Assam are called Miya. The survey
has also excluded the Julha community though initially it was included in the
survey because the JSPA thinks that they do not belong to the pre-British era
period. Julhas or Jolas are mainly tea plantation workers and had come to Assam
from Bihar nd UP with the expansion of the Railways in Assam in the 19th
century.
The
Chairman of the JSPA, Syed Muminul Aowal is at the helm of this survey. He said
that the survey was necessary because migrant Muslims are trying to merge the
Goria, Moria and Deshi Muslims with the Miyas in the name of Islam. There is an
identity crisis in the indigenous Muslim community. Muminul Aowal also observes
that indigenous Muslims have suffered economically and politically due to the
domination of Bengali Muslims.
Actually,
the proposal of this survey of indigenous Muslims has not come from Muslims
themselves. The Minority Welfare Minister of BJP government in Assam Ranjit
Dutta had made the proposal in 2019. In the Budget session of Assam in 2019,
the provision for a Development Corporation of indigenous Assamese Muslims was
made. The provision for a socio-economic survey of the indigenous Assamese
Muslims was also made in the budget.
On 10
February 2020, a meeting of groups and communities of Indigenous Assamese
Muslims was called by the Minority Welfare Minister to finalise the
'socio-economic survey' of indigenous Muslims but the word indigenous
(khilonjiya) was unanimously replaced with the specific names of four
communities --Goria, Moria, Deshi and Jola. The Minority Welfare Minister had
said that a Goria, Moria, Deshi Jola Development Corporation will be set up.
Later the Jola community was excluded from the list.
It is to be
noted that the head of JSPA Syed Muminul Aowal is also the Chairman of the
Assam Minority Development Board, a body under the Minority welfare Ministry of
the BJP government and he is close to the state BJP leadership. He is critical
of Badruddin Ajmal's AIUDF and the Congress for the poor condition of the
indigenous Muslims of the state. He says that 13 districts of Assam are
dominated by Bangladeshi Muslims and 13 Muslim MLAs of the Congress are
Bangladeshi Muslims. He has also demanded that 102 constituencies of the state
be reserved for indigenous Muslims. To him, all the Bengali-speaking Muslims of
Assam are illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. He calls the Congress the Bangladeshi
Muslim Party.
According
to the statistics provided by the JSPA, the population of indigenous Muslims of
Assam is 40 lakh(4 million). The rest 90 lakh (9 million) are Bangladeshi
immigrants (Bengali speaking Assamese Muslims). The total Muslim population in
the state is 1.3 crore out of the total population of 3.5 crore. The total
Muslim population in Assam is 33.4 percent.
The Assam
BJP government took the cue of the survey from the Assam Accord of 1985 which
provided that 'constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards as may
be appropriate shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote cultural,
social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.'.
But the
Accord had not envisaged the narrowing down of the ambit to sub-groups of a
minority religious community.
Even if the
NRC was meant to identify permanent residents of Assam, it did not mean to
include only indigenous people from living there since ancient times. So the
survey was not necessary. The Gorias are converts from ancient indigenous
tribes. The Morias are concerts of people brought by Ahom kings and they were
skilled craftsmen. Deshis are converts from Koch Rajbanshi community. They all
came to Assam from 13th to the 19th century. The Bengali Muslims were brought
by the British government from Pabna, Mymensingh and Dhaka from 1850 after they
annexed Assam in 1826.
The NRC
requires citizens to prove their residence in India after Independence or as
late as 1971.
The narrow
chauvinistic definition of indigenous Assamese has labelled all those Bengali
speaking Muslims living in Assam since the second jalf of the 19th century as
Illegal Bangladeshi which they are not because Bangladesh came into existence
in 1971 and those called Bangladeshis today had only migrated from one part of
India to another for livelihood.
Jolas are a
community which were brought to Assam from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with the
expansion of the Railways in the 19th century. They were weavers, labourers,
technicians and tea-plantation workers. They speak both Bengali and Assamese.
That's why they were later excluded from the list.
Apart from
them there are some other people living Assam for centuries but have not been
included in the list.
If the
purpose of the survey is to identify underprivileged sections of the Muslim
community, the move can be appreciated but experts fear that this survey will
cause deep division among the Muslims of the state on ethnic grounds. They also
fear that the results of this survey may be used for NRC which, Syed Muminul
Aowal says, has failed.
The survey
will be conducted in three months. People will have to apply online to its
portal with documents issued by the organisation and government departments.
After that verification will be done and the final list will be published.
This
initiative of the Assam government has drawn criticism from political and
social activists and intellectuals of the state. They feel that it is an
exercise to cause division in the Muslim community. The NRC had excluded the
names of 14 lakh Muslims ( and 5 lakh non-Muslims) but Syed Muminul Aowal is
trying to prove that 90 lakh Bengali Muslims are illegal immigrants or
Bangladeshi. This survey which has been termed 'mini NRC will have very serious
political and social ramifications not only in Assam but in the whole country.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/muslim-nrc-assam-start-today,/d/124697
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