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Tools of Terror

The ruling BJP in India is using many tools to de-Islamize the country. A beginning has been made in Assam.

By Atif Shamim Syed | December 2021


Policemen barge into Muslim homes in the middle of the night without warrants, and snatch away husbands, brothers, fathers, and even kids. Their crime: failure to prove that they are legal Indian citizens.

Terrified relatives of abducted individuals follow their loved ones to the police stations and try to buy their freedom with whatever cash and meagre possessions they have. But despite all the begging, pleading and attempts at bribing, the hapless individual are shifted to a detention center built for the purpose of holding foreigners. In most cases, this detention center is located miles away from the place of arrest.

While the entire world is worried to death about the fate of the Afghans under the Taliban, people of Assam in India, are subjected to this inhumane treatment en-mass without a word of protest from the international community. These unfortunate people – the overwhelming majority of whom are Muslims – are caught in a debate over which Assamese is a legal citizen and which is not.

The state of Assam lies to the north-east of the country. It has a long border – around 160 miles – with Bangladesh. Bengalis first arrived in Assam more than a century ago under the British Raj. The growing population in the state over subsequent decades gave rise to anti-Bengali sentiments among native Assamese. In order to appease the growing unrest, the Indian government signed the Assam Accord with the Assam Movement in 1985. The Accord stated that anyone who entered the state of Assam after March 24, 1971 would be considered an illegal immigrant.

In 2016, BJP, the right-wing Hindu nationalist party, beat the incumbent Indian National Congress in Assam’s legislative assembly elections. Soon after coming to power, the BJP began its efforts to de-Islamize the state. The Assam Accord was the first tool in its arsenal. All 33 million residents of the state were subjected to a rigorous citizenship test requiring them to provide proof of being Indian citizens from before the date mentioned in the Assam Accord. This data was collected for compiling a vague document called the National Registry of Citizens (NRC).

NRC was published in 2019. The document did not contain the names of around 2 million Assamese. These people live under the constant fear of being harassed by the police. Some of them have been arrested and detained indefinitely. Officially, the NRC does not differentiate between Muslims and non-Muslims; however, it is practically used only against Muslim residents of the state.

It is obvious that the objective of BJP’s anti-immigrant drive in Assam is to declare the vast majority of Bengali-speaking Muslim Assamese as illegal immigrants and, if possible, deport them to Bangladesh. This impression is enforced by the hasty enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The CAA allows non-Muslims to obtain Indian citizenship in a swift and easy manner but Muslims are categorically excluded from the Act. This means that a Muslim individual whose name is not in the NRC, cannot benefit from the provisions of CAA while his non-Muslim counterpart can.


The BJP’s modus operandi is simple and effective. The victim receives a notice that he or she is suspected of being an illegal immigrant, and must appear before the Foreigners Tribunal with documented proof of citizenship. The Foreigners Tribunal is a joke in itself. Unique to the state of Assam, it is not part of the judiciary and was created with the sole intention of spreading fear amongst Assam’s Muslims.

Once the victim reaches the Foreigners Tribunal, he is required to prove his legal citizenship. Since, most of the victims are poor and illiterate, they are unable to defend themselves before a tribunal already hostile towards them. There have been cases where the Tribunal ruled against individuals despite having been presented with identity cards, voting cards and valid taxation documents. After being declared a foreigner by the Tribunal, the victim can appeal to the High Court which, in most cases, is in vain. Then comes the home invasion, arbitrary arrest, and indefinite detention.

At present there are six detention centers for migrants located inside existing prisons. The victim is sent to one of them. Conditions in these establishments is inhumane beyond description. The detainee is forced to live in a confined space without any hope of release. Technically, even the most serious criminal spends his days in a prison looking towards a definite date when he will be freed. No such hope exists for a person imprisoned by the Foreigners Tribunal. The situation is further aggravated by the prospect of economic hardships for the victim’s family and loved ones who have no way of arranging legal fees to get bail. In fact, if the detained person is the sole bread earner in the house, the very survival of the family is at stake.

Experts fear that Assam is BJP’s test case. The right-wing party plans to replicate Assam’s ‘success’ in other parts of the country. Already, more detention centers for migrants are being built in other parts of the country, including the capital Delhi.

The BJP blueprint is clear. The right-wing party is legalizing prejudice against its own citizens by passing discriminatory laws. Stripped of citizenship, millions of Muslims will be deprived of their basic rights. They will become refugees in their own ancestral land. This is a crime against humanity. But the worst thing about this fiasco is that India – a so-called democracy – seems to be getting away with it.

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