Assam’s war on encroachment must go on unabated

Assam has been in the news for the massive eviction drives in government, forest lands, and wetlands.
encroachment
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Dwina Barbaruah 

(dwinakashyap@gmail.com)

Assam has been in the news for the massive eviction drives in government, forest lands, and wetlands. In the past month, five large-scale eviction drives were carried out in Lakhimpur, Goalpara, Dhubri, and Nalbari to free government lands from encroachers, mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims with roots in Bangladesh. 

The Government of Assam, headed by Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma, has been zealously pursuing its avowed objective of protecting the state’s ‘jati, mati, and bheti’ (community, land, and home) since its assumption of office in May 2021. The previous BJP dispensation under Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal also pursued this objective of freeing the government land and forest areas from the grip of illegal immigrants.

Following the recent massive eviction drives, around 1.2 lakh hectares of reserve forests, wetlands, and government lands have been freed from the clutches of 25,000 encroachers. This is no mean achievement by any standards! And it was carried out in a meticulous and organized manner, giving sufficient notice by the respective district administrations to the encroachers to vacate their premises on their own. There were no incidents of violence, no resistance whatsoever, and the eviction was done in a clinical fashion. Unlike some dispensations, which drew flak from the Supreme Court for bulldozing houses in a high-handed manner without service notices, the BJP-led government in Assam carried out the eviction keeping in mind the humane angle. 

In consonance with the Supreme Court and the Gauhati High Court standing orders that forest land, Village Grazing Reserve (VGR), and Professional Grazing Reserve (PGR) land should not be encroached upon, the present government embarked on its mission of freeing those lands from the control of encroachers. Officials of the Revenue and Disaster Management Department, privy to the development, said the communiques of the Chief Minister and that from the Chief Secretary’s Office that went loud and clear to the administration concerned were that the government did not want anything to go haywire, as there were some elements and political forces at work who would have taken advantage of the situation for their own mileage by browbeating the regime into submission. 

Be that as it may, the present government has been on a mission mode since day one to free the encroached lands, whether they be forests, wetlands, or government lands, from the grip of encroachers, not to speak of xatra land (Vaishnavite monasteries). This was not the scenario when the Congress was in power for decades together. During their long rule, the party followed the policy of appeasement, turning a blind eye to the unabated encroachment from Bangladesh to keep their vote bank intact in order to hold political sway spanning decades. And that led to the six-year-long protracted anti-foreigners’ movement led by AASU and AAGSP to protect the land from influx. How the mass agitation to drive out the illegal immigrants and the oppressive tactics adopted by the then Congress regime leading to the laying down of lives by over 800 martyrs is still fresh in the minds of the people. 

Under their rule, the Congress betrayed the people by putting the tripartite Assam Accord of 1985 on the back burner but also contributed to the dangerous shifts in demographic pattern by not sealing the porous Indo-Bangla border for years on end. The relentless onslaught on Assam by hordes of Bangladeshis has led to a situation where minorities have become ‘majority’ in some districts of the state! 

It is against this backdrop that it must be understood in proper perspective that the present eviction drives are not targeted at the minorities vis-a-vis sons of the soil, as they are part and parcel of the greater Assamese society. Some political forces and elements are hell-bent on giving a communal colour to the whole demographic dimension for their vested interest. This must stop for the greater interest of the state! 

It must be acknowledged that the BJP governments in the state and at the Centre have been trying sincerely and with utmost seriousness to deal with the problem of influx. The present state government held talks with the AASU leadership to ensure implementation of vital clauses of the Assam Accord pertaining to constitutional, legislative, and administrative safeguards ‘to protect, preserve, and promote the cultural, social, and linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.’

The government’s seriousness speaks volumes given the fact that Chief Minister Dr. Sarma has set the ball rolling for the implementation of 52 recommendations of the Justice Biplab Sharma Committee regarding Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. The Centre-appointed high-level committee finalised its report in February 2020. In October 2021, the present government also set up an eight-member subcommittee to examine and prepare a framework for the implementation of all clauses of the Assam Accord in general, with special emphasis on Clause 6 (high-level committee report), Clause 7, Clause 9, and Clause 10.

Prior to this, in February 2017, the BJP-led government under Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had constituted a seven-member Brahma Committee for the protection of land rights of indigenous people of the state. The exhaustive report said unabated encroachment of land by illegal migrants from Bangladesh was the ‘most serious threat’ to land rights and identity of the indigenous population of Assam. It specifically mentioned that their goal was to convert Assam through encroachment of land. The report also clearly stated that they have had vast swathes of fertile agricultural land in Bangladesh and that food was not scarce there for them to migrate.

Terming this class of people as ‘land hungry,’ the report stated that the sole agenda for them to migrate to Assam was to convert it into their own land. It termed the chars (sandbars) to be the ‘hotbed’ of illegal migrants and anti-social activities.

Brahma also suggested a proper survey in the SAR areas and bringing them under an administrative mechanism, as the chars comprise four percent of the state’s total area, clearing encroachment on lands belonging to xatras, temples, Debuttar boards, and other religious bodies, forests, and wetlands, and updating revenue administration and land laws.

The report strongly recommended sealing the largely porous border with a warning: ‘If the largely porous border is not sealed, indigenous people are bound to be reduced to a landless class of people and to become foreigners in their own home.’

The long border Assam shares with Bangladesh, left open by the erstwhile Congress dispensations leading to a dangerous change in demographic pattern, was permanently sealed during the BJP rule. This sealing of the international border even at some difficult terrains in Barak Valley, particularly Karimganj district (now Sribhumi), though Herculean in nature, has been done by the BJP Government with finesse. Where there is political will, there is a way! 

Meanwhile, the systematic incursion of migrants with roots in present-day Bangladesh moving surreptitiously from minority-dominated districts to places where Assamese Hindus and Muslims are in the majority is a dangerous portent. As rightly pointed out by Chief Minister Dr. Sarma, this phenomenon has to be thoroughly probed to find out the real motive behind it—whether there is a conspiracy, overtly or covertly, to change the demographic pattern in these areas by converting the majority into a minority with the backing of certain political forces!

Assam has a stringent set of laws to deal with encroachment. Rule 18(2) of the Settlement Rules under the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation Act, 1886, clearly states that encroachment on government khas land or wasteland or estate over which no person has acquired the right of a proprietor, landholder, or settlement holder or any land that has previously been reserved, roads, roadside land, land for the grazing of village cattle, or land for other public purposes shall be removed forthwith by the Deputy Commissioner (now District Commissioner). The power to remove encroachment has also been delegated to the Circle Officers. 

Illegal encroachment has also affected the wildlife, with shrinkage in their habitats leading to increased man-animal conflicts claiming lives on both sides and loss of properties worth several crores. 

It is laudable that the present government has embarked on a significant journey to reclaim the natural habitats and wildlife sanctuaries from the grip of illegal encroachment. With consistent efforts, Assam has managed to recover an impressive 160 sq. km. of land from illegal encroachers during the last four years—an area bigger than the size of Chandigarh City. The encroachment has freed around 22,000 bighas of forest area in Orang National Park. Altogether 119,548 bighas encroached upon have been cleared, which include VGR/PGR, khas or government lands, forests, wetlands, and satra and temple lands. All these achievements signal not only a triumph for wildlife conservation but also the state’s resolve to secure its future by addressing the challenges posed by illegal settlements.

One of the most remarkable outcomes of these eviction drives has been the revival of wildlife in the affected sanctuaries and national parks. Assam’s iconic one-horned rhinos, which had disappeared from the face of Laokhowa and Bura Chapori for more than four decades due to encroachment, have now returned to their habitats. 

As of July 15, 2025, the BJP-led government had successfully reclaimed 84,743 bighas of forest land, including areas under national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, 3,643 bighas under VGR/PGR, 26,713 bighas of khas or government land, and 4,449 bighas belonging to satras and other places of worship in the past four years. Yet another positive outcome is that the reclaimed government lands have been earmarked for public infrastructure projects, such as power plants and multipurpose agricultural projects, for ushering in socio-economic development of the state. 

Before summing up, what I would like to emphasise is that Assam’s war on encroachment must continue, as a whopping 63.58 lakh bighas of land are still under encroachment, as per official data. The anti-eviction drive has to go on on a war footing, as it has both historical and cultural ramifications as well as a long-term impact on the socio-economic and demographic landscape of Assam.

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