Wetland encroachment has become a global problem, and Assam is no exception. Experts have already said that one of the major reasons behind the floods in Assam is the large-scale encroachment of wetlands across the state. Wetland encroachment had begun about a century ago when land-hungry East Bengal Muslims were encouraged by the British to come to the Brahmaputra Valley after that portion of Bengal was clubbed with Assam in 1906. While the British had their own policy of growing more food, it was the Muslim League that had pumped in hordes of Muslims to the Valley with the long-term objective of converting this land into a Muslim-majority area and then demanding the merger of Assam with Pakistan. Science has defined wetlands as lands transitional between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, where the water table is usually at or near the surface or the land is covered by shallow water. One of the major reasons behind Guwahati’s waterlogging problem is the encroachment of wetlands. In the case of the city, the encroachers are both people of doubtful origin, and indigenous people. The former category is encouraged by their political masters, who consider the illegal migrants as vote banks, while the indigenous encroachers are victims of certain political groups, for whom terms like environment, ecology, and wetland do not mean anything. Unfortunately, successive governments in Assam had never considered it important to protect the valuable wetlands of the state. There was either a lack of understanding of the importance of wetlands, or more interest in using certain sections of people (read illegal migrants) as vote-banks, or both. The good news is that the present chief minister is taking a lot of interest in protecting the existing wetlands and recovering those that have been encroached upon. According to reports published in this newspaper’s Sunday edition, the chief minister has called for reports from the deputy commissioners on details of wetland encroachment in the past 15 years. As has been reported, government data shows that there are at least 712 swampy and marshy areas, 861 ox-bow lakes and cut-off meanders, ten major water reservoirs, and 1,125 waterlogged areas across the state. Remote sensing data, on the other hand, places the total number of wetlands in Assam at 3,513. Many wetlands are transitional zones between uplands and aquatic ecosystems, although others are scattered across the landscape in upland depressions that collect water or in zones where groundwater comes to the surface. Given the importance of wetlands in maintaining ecological balance and also easing the flood problem, it is important that a people’s movement be launched in order to protect them and free them from encroachers. And the eviction drive should continue in full swing.