Activist and former Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed’s remark that “the world is so big that Bangladeshis can also be [in Assam]” has sparked a row.
Hameed was in Assam as part of a civil society delegation that included former Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, lawyer Prashant Bhushan, activist Harsh Mander and former Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar, The Indian Express reported.
On Saturday, the group visited a site in Goalpara district where the Assam government had recently carried out evictions, and earmarked an area for a proposed township in Borduar, where concerns have been raised about land acquisition.
On Sunday, the delegation addressed a public meeting in Guwahati organised by the Axom Nagarik Sanmilan, the newspaper reported. The meeting was chaired by Independent Rajya Sabha MP Ajit Kumar Bhuyan.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Hameed said that Muslims in Assam were facing something like “qayamat”, or doomsday.
“Muslims are being targeted, and those of us who live in Delhi, our hearts are, at this time, with the Muslims and their conditions here,” she said.
“What is the crime in being Bangladeshi? Bangladeshis are also people,” Hameed said. “The world is so big that Bangladeshis can also be here. They are not depriving anyone of their rights.”
Saying that Bangladeshi immigrants are depriving Indians of their rights is “detrimental to humanity”, she added.
Reacting to Hameed’s remarks, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the activist was attempting to legitimise “illegal infiltrators”.
Speaking to reporters, he described Hameed as a friend of the Congress and claimed: “If we allow Congress…Bangladeshis will come to Assam and Assamese will have to go to Bangladesh if this continues.”
In a social media post, Sarma alleged that the Assamese identity was on the brink of extinction because of the tacit support of “persons like Hameed”.
“Bangladeshis are not welcome in Assam,” the chief minister said. “Anyone sympathising with them may accommodate them in their own backyard.”
Assam BJP asked on social media: “If she feels so strongly about the ‘rights’ of illegal Bangladeshis in Assam, why doesn’t she accommodate them in her own home?”
The Congress also criticised the comments made by Hameed.
Debabrata Saikia, the leader of Opposition in the Assembly, described Hameed’s remark as “wrong and unacceptable”, The Telegraph reported.
The Congress leader said that the activist’s remark reflected a “lack of understanding” of Assam’s problems such as the pressure on land resources created by the influx of migrants and erosion.
“We are not against humanity, but humanity should be shown…[by] distributing illegal foreigners outside Assam and the North East, irrespective of religion,” The Telegraph quoted him as saying.
The organisers of the public meeting where Hameed spoke also said that the remarks were her “personal opinion”, The Indian Express reported.
On Tuesday, a mob disrupted a press conference in New Delhi to protest her statements. Hameed was on the stage at the time, along with activist Harsh Mander, former Union Home Secretary HD Pillai, Delhi University Professor Apoorvanand and spokespersons of the victims from Assam.
“It was transparent that the mob that stormed into our press conference about Assam was not a fringe group,” Mander said. “It could not have done this unless this was engineered at very high levels to disrupt the gathering.”
The activist questioned why orders prohibiting public gatherings were imposed in Goalpara on the day that the delegation arrived in Assam.
“It is clear that the state does not want the Indian people to hear the truth of the Assam government, which is that the CM is behaving in ways that brazenly defy the Constitution and law to target a community with hate, demolitions, detention centres and illegal ‘push backs’,” Mander said.
Concerns have been raised about the targeting of Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam under the pretext of deporting “illegal Bangladeshi immigrants”.
Between 2016, when the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power, and August, 15,270 families – the majority of them Muslim – have been evicted from government land, according to data provided by the state revenue and disaster management department.
At least eight Muslims have been shot dead during evictions carried out since 2016.
Also read:
In May crackdown on ‘foreigners’, only Bengali-origin Muslims sent to Assam detention centre
Opinion: In Assam, vicious communal rhetoric is putting democracy at risk
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