India displaces thousands of Bengali Muslims in northeastern eviction drive
Hindu nationalist government begins evicting 2,000 families from forest land as part of broader crackdown on Bengali-origin Muslims
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — Authorities in the northeastern Indian state of Assam have launched a major eviction drive targeting Bengali-origin Muslim families, marking the latest and most aggressive phase in a years-long campaign of displacement under the state’s Hindu nationalist government.
According to The Indian Express, the operation began Tuesday in Golaghat district’s Rengma Reserve Forest, where nearly 2,700 families—mostly Bengali Muslims—have lived for years.
The state aims to clear 4,900 acres of land, claiming it has been encroached upon. Nearly 2,000 families are expected to be affected in the first phase of the eviction.
Local authorities have divided the forested area into nine blocks and deployed over 1,500 personnel—including armed police, commandos, and forest officials. Residents were given seven-day eviction notices in advance.
This is not an isolated incident. It is part of a larger campaign led by Assam’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, a senior figure in India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who has repeatedly accused Bengali Muslims of carrying out a “demographic invasion.”
He claims they are migrating from western Assam to the east, clearing forests and cultivating betel nut in an effort to shift the region’s religious and ethnic balance.
Rights advocates and student groups, however, say the campaign is an exercise in anti-Muslim scapegoating that echoes ethnic cleansing rhetoric.
The chief minister has made public statements linking these communities to illegal migration from Bangladesh, even though many of the displaced have lived in Assam for decades—some even before the formation of India’s citizenship laws.
While officials insist the operation is not targeting any single group, BJP legislator Biswajit Phukan admitted that over 90% of those affected in Uriamghat are Bengali Muslims. He also noted that 42 Manipuri Muslim and 92 Nepali families have been asked to vacate the area.
However, around 150 Bodo families—an indigenous ethnic group—will not face eviction, as they possess legal forest rights under India’s 2006 Forest Rights Act.
Phukan also stated that compensation may be offered to families with documentation proving they settled in the area before 1971—but only after the eviction is carried out.
The operation has raised tensions across state borders. The affected area lies near the state of Nagaland, which has now placed its border on high alert. Nagaland police and district officials have been deployed to prevent evicted families from crossing over. Meanwhile, the Niki Sumi faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang) condemned the eviction as a “precisely executed plan” to seize disputed land and establish permanent security control along the inter-state boundary.
The Dimapur Naga Students’ Union also warned that the influx of displaced Bengali Muslims could alter Nagaland’s demographic makeup and threaten socio-political stability.
This eviction in Golaghat comes amid a series of similar crackdowns. Since June 2025, the Assam government has evicted more than 3,500 families across four districts. Chief Minister Sarma claims his administration has “freed” 160 square kilometers of land and affected nearly 50,000 people since taking office.
In July, authorities evicted 1,080 Bengali Muslim families from the Paikan Reserve Forest in Goalpara district. Days earlier, nearly 1,400 families were pushed out of 3,500 bighas of land in Dhubri district. Many of these residents say they had been living on the land long before it was designated a reserved forest.
Tensions boiled over on July 17 in Goalpara’s Krishnai area, where a 19-year-old Muslim youth was shot dead by police during protests against the demolitions. Several others were injured, including police officers.
Observers say the wave of evictions—justified in the name of forest protection—is part of a deeper ideological project to marginalize Muslims in Assam, using state machinery and nationalist rhetoric to reshape the state’s demographic reality.
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