Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has laid down conditions for the Bengali-speaking Muslims– known as ‘Miya’— to be recognised as indigenous people of the state. Sarma said if ‘Miyas’ want to be considered ‘khilonjiya’ (indigenous), they need to forsake practices like child marriage and polygamy.
Assam CM’s remarks weeks before the Lok Sabha election 2024. Sarma had in the past held the Bengali-speaking Muslim community of the state, most of whom have roots in Bangladesh, responsible for these social evils.
What did Assam CM Say?
“Whether ‘Miyas’ (Bengali-speaking Muslims) are indigenous or not is a different matter. What we are saying is that if they try to be ‘indigenous’, we have no problem. But for that, they have to forsake child marriage and polygamy, and encourage women’s education,” Sarma said on Saturday.
‘Miya’ is originally a pejorative term used for Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam and the non-Bengali speaking people generally identify them as Bangladeshi immigrants. In recent years, activists from the community have started adopting this term as a gesture of defiance.
Sarma claimed that marrying two or three times is not an Assamese culture, where people compare girls to ‘shakti’ (goddess).
“I always tell them, there is no problem in ‘Miyas’ being indigenous. But they cannot have two or three wives. That is not an Assamese culture. How can one encroach Satra (Vaishnavite monastery) land and want to be indigenous?” he maintained.
If the Bengali-speaking Muslims can follow the Assamese customs, they too will be considered ‘indigenous’, the CM added.
Himanta’s Fight Against Child Marriage
Last year, the Assam government launched an intensive to put a crackdown on child marriages in the state. “It was found that many elderly men married multiple times and their wives were mostly young girls, belonging to the poor section of the society,” Sarma had said earlier.
The initiative was launched in two phases. In the first phase in February last year, 3,483 persons were arrested and 4,515 cases registered while 915 persons were arrested and 710 cases registered in the second phase in October.
Sarma had asserted that the practice of underage marriage will be eradicated from the state by 2026 when the next Assembly elections are due. He has also said that the state government was planning to bring a bill to end polygamy in the state in the last budget session of the legislative assembly, but did not do so.
In a bid to end child marriage, the state Cabinet had last month also approved a decision to repeal the Assam Muslim Marriages and Divorces Registration Act, 1935. The Act contained provisions allowing marriage registration even if the bride and groom had not reached the legal ages of 18 and 21 years respectively, as required by law.
The opposition had termed the decision as a move to polarise voters ahead of Lok Sabha elections and asserted that it would sound the death knell for the BJP government at the Centre.
The opposition parties had also slammed the decision of the government to enact a law on polygamy as diversionary and communal, especially at a time when suggestions on the UCC are being received by the Law Commission, a move supported by Sarma.
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