Outlook – July 28, 2019

22 OutlOOk 29 July 2019

by Abdul Gani in Guwahati

I am not a charuwa, not a pamua

We have also become Asomiya

Of Assam’s land and air, of Assam’s

language

We have become equal claimants.

—Mia Bande Ali (1939)

A

cross the length of Assam, as

the Brahmaputra flows—the

raging fury of the monsoons

making way for sublime grace

in the winters—the sand bars

appear and disappear accord-

ing to the mood of the river. These

are the chars, made fertile by the

ann ual alluvium deposits when the

river overflows. These shifting land-

masses are home to a hard-working

community, whose roots lie across

the international border, in pres-

ent-day Bangladesh. They are the

‘miyas’, the settlers (pamua) on the

chars, often reviled as “Bangladeshis”

in a state where fear and loathing of

the “outsider” runs deep.

And when the community took to poe­

try, in their own dialect, to depict the

“discrimination” they face in their ado­

pted homeland, the new literary genre

has opened up old wounds in Assam

and deepened the historical fractures

that run along linguistic and religious

lines. Earlier this month, a first infor­

mation report (FIR) against 10 people

was lodged, all Muslims, for alleged

criminal conspiracy, promoting social

enmity and insulting religion through

poetry. The community, however, ques­

tions the timing of the complaint and

the FIR. After all, the particular poem

which sparked a controversy has been

in public domain since 2016.

The complainant, Pranabjit Doloi,

says that the “offensive” poem—by

Hafiz Ahmed, the president of a literary

society—was aimed at scuttling the ong­

oing exercise to update the National

Register of Citizens (NRC), a niggling

project that aims to identify genuine

Indian citizens. The poem also allegedly

OxoMiya, the Poet

identity MArker

Poetry has become the medium of protest for Assam’s Miya community

Write down I am a Miya

Write down I am a Miya

My serial number in the NRC Is 20,543

I have two children

Another Is coming next summer

Will you hate him as you hate me

Write down I am a Miya

A citizen of a democratic secular

republic without any rights

My Mother Is a D voter

Though her parents are Indian

Write I am a Miya of the Brahmaputra

Your torture has burnt my body black

Reddened my eyes with fire

Write I am a Miya

The land that makes my father an alien

That kills my brother with bullets

My sister with gang­rape

The land where my mother stokes

in heart live burning coals.

Hafiz Ahmed

sandipan chatterjee