Published: 7th Nov, 2020
Months ahead of the Assembly elections, a proposed “Miya museum” reflecting the “culture and heritage of the people living in char-chaporis” has stirred up a controversy in Assam.
Context
Months ahead of the Assembly elections, a proposed “Miya museum” reflecting the “culture and heritage of the people living in char-chaporis” has stirred up a controversy in Assam.
About
Who are the Miyas?
- The ‘Miya’ community comprises descendants of Muslim migrants from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) to Assam.
- They came to be referred to as ‘Miyas’, often in a derogatory manner.
- The community migrated in several waves — starting with the British annexation of Assam in 1826, and continuing into Partition and the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War — and have resulted in changes in demographic composition of the region.
- Years of discontent among the indigenous people led to the six-year-long (1979-85) anti-foreigner Assam Agitation to weed out the “illegal immigrant”, who was perceived as trying to take over jobs, language and culture of the indigenous population.
|
The Controversy
|
What are char-chaporis?
- ‘Char’ in Assamese means sandbar while ‘chapori’ is flood-prone riverbank. These areas are associated with migrant Muslims of Bengali origin who are viewed as ‘Bangladeshis’.
- The Char-Chapori area denotes the riverine area of lower and central Assam which mainly comprises of Bengali Muslims.
- They are used interchangeably or with a hyphen. They keep changing shapes — a char can become a chapori, or vice versa, depending on the push and pull of the Brahmaputra.
- Prone to floods and erosion, these areas are marked by low development indices. 80% of the Char population lives below poverty line.
- A UNDP Assam Human Development report (2014) describes the char areas as suffering from “communication deficits, lack of adequate schooling facilities beyond primary, girl child marriage, poverty and illiteracy”.
- While Bengali-origin Muslims primarily occupy these islands, other communities such as Misings, Deoris, Kocharis, Nepalis also live here.
- In popular imagination, however, chars have become synonymous to the Bengali-speaking Muslims of dubious nationality.
Courses
Study
Notes
Home
Resources
More
