Himanta’s communal tirade against Miya Muslims: Police complaint filed, defiant Assam CM cites SC ruling

by Shinjinee Majumder

Days after Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s vicious communal tirade targeting “Miya Muslims” sparked an outrage across the country, a police complaint was filed by activist Harsh Mander against the BJP leader at Hauz Khas police station in Delhi. Sarma, on the other hand, tried to defend his hateful remarks stating that he was referring to illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

“Himanta Biswa Sarma and the BJP are directly against the Miya,” the Assam chief minister proclaimed during a conversation with journalists on January 27. During the three-minute exchange, Sarma urged the people of his state to “give the Miya trouble” and “practise the politics of polarization”. “If you take a rickshaw and the fare is Rs 5, give Rs 4. Only if they suffer will they leave Assam,” the chief minister said.

In context of Assam, ‘Miyas’ are Muslims of Bangladeshi origin, or Bengali-speaking Muslims who or whose ancestors migrated from present-day Bangladesh.

This is not all. A couple of days later, on January 29, Sarma targeted the community again by urging PWD contractors to engage indigenous workers instead of Miyas. On January 27, Sarma had declared that “4 lakh/5 lakh Miya votes’ would be deleted during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Assam.

“We are ensuring that they cannot vote in Assam,” he had said, when asked about notices served to thousands of Bengali-speaking Muslims during the ongoing special revision of the poll rolls.

On January 29, responding to the nationwide criticism, Sarma stated in an X post that by ‘Miyan’, he was referring to illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Citing the Supreme Court’s comments about Assam’s demographic divide during the Sarbananda Sonowal vs Union Of India & Anr case in 2005, he remained defiant, stating, “When the highest constitutional court of the country uses words like ‘demographic invasion’… acknowledging that reality… is a recognition of a grave and long-standing problem that Assam has lived with for decades.”

What did Himanta say about Miya Muslims?

Here is an exact transcription of Sarma’s diatribe in English:

“Whatever complaints have been filed, they were filed under my orders. I am the one who told the BJP cadres to keep filing complaints against the Miyas now and then. There is nothing to hide in this. I held meetings, I did video conferences, and I told everyone to pour in as many Form 7s as possible wherever they can. So that there is a bit of running around, a bit of suffering, so they will understand that the Assamese race is still alive.

Even if Congress has an objection to this, let them have it; what can I do? Let them do it (object), what does it matter? Tell them to file a case, and the police will investigate/judge. But the intent was to give the Miya trouble, wasn’t it? So, whoever can, in whatever way… give the Miya trouble, you give it too. If you take a rickshaw and the fare is 5 rupees, give 4 rupees. Only if they suffer will they leave Assam.

They went at 9 pm (to make corrections)? I say, go at 12 am to give the Miya trouble if you want to be somewhere. No issues with that. Himanta Biswa Sarma and the BJP are directly against the Miya. And what is the point of calling this an “issue” for us? We are saying it openly. We haven’t hidden it. Have we hidden it?

Earlier, people used to be afraid (of doing this). Now I encourage everyone. That keeps giving them trouble. If we don’t give trouble… yesterday I saw they have reached Duliajan. Yesterday I saw they went and settled in Duliajan, right Bimal? He was saying yesterday.

So you all also give them trouble. And don’t keep doing sympathetic news on them. Love Jihad will happen in your own homes. Now they are telling me they are afraid because (someone) went to the office at 12 am. I say they should go at 2 am. And officers should work until 2 or 3 am to remove Miya names. If possible. What is there to be ashamed of here?

If people had fought like me earlier, if they had fought back then, Assam’s environment wouldn’t be like this today. Because Congress didn’t fight, this is why it became like this.

(Reporter asks a question – incomprehensible)

Oh, the Miyas love me. The poor Miyas love me. And the girls… all the Miya girls love me. And many Miyas talk to me and say… “Mama (Uncle), we won’t give birth to more than two (children).” If you go with me to Dhing or Rupohi to a college sometimes, no one is as popular as me (there). They love me too. That is why I give Orunodoi (a welfare scheme). That is why we don’t disturb the poor people. We only disturb the brokers (dalals). What is the issue with poor people? Wherever I go, they are with me. If I ask for votes, they will give votes too.

(Reporter asks (in English): “Mr CM, don’t you think that such a polarisation…”)

Assam is a polarised society. The next 30 years, we have to practice the politics of polarisation if we want to live. If you want to surrender, then surrender. But as an Assamese, I don’t want to surrender. So I will fight, I will polarise. But polarisation is not between Hindus and Muslim. Polarisation is between the Assamese and the Bangladeshi. That is the difference. So we don’t fight with Assamese Muslims. We only fight with Bangladeshi Muslims. What is the problem with that? The Supreme Court of India has said that there is an invasion. And if there is an invasion recognised by the Supreme Court, then you have to protect your land. That is why I have been… I have taken the oath as a CM.

So I am legally correct, ethically correct, and politically correct. And if a CM like me had been there earlier, Assam’s environment wouldn’t be like this. I would have tightened many people up.”

Sarma Trying to Defend the Indefensible

While he now claims that by ‘Miya’, he referred to illegal immigrants, Sarma has repeatedly spoken about “Miya Muslim voters” in Assam.

On January 31, 2021, the Assam chief minister referred to Muslim voters as ‘Miya Muslims’ while stating that they wouldn’t vote for the BJP. “BJP will not get votes in the seats that are in their (Miya Muslims) hands,” he had said.

In July 2023, Sarma had blamed Miya Muslims for the inflated vegetable prices in Assam. “The price of the vegetables sold by the farmers in the rural areas is not high. But the prices of the same vegetables increase manifold when sold in Guwahati. This is being done by the Miya traders,” he had told some TV channels. He had insisted that Assamese traders would not charge ‘their own people’ more than normal prices and urged indigenous communities to push the Miya traders out by giving them stiff competition.

In July 2025, Sarma justified the ‘fight’ against minorities even if they are not ‘foreigners’, when he wrote in an X post, “Just do not stop us from fighting for what is ours. For us this is our last battle of survival.”

It is needless to say that such provocations, the use of pejoratives and calls for economic boycott of a community, particularly by an elected chief minister, result in furthering communal tension across the region. Many of the so-called Miya Muslims are descendants of families who had settled in Assam from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) generations ago. Despite living in the state for decades, they are often portrayed as outsiders.

Himanta has repeatedly pushed a narrative in which Miyan Muslims have been portrayed as a threat to Assam, claiming they would take over the state if given free rein. In these imagined scenarios, he casts himself as the strongman who will stop this from happening. He did so most infamously on the floor of the legislative assembly in August 2024. “Yes, I am partisan. What will you do? Do whatever you can do,” he had said to the Opposition bench.

The Caravan’s Praveen Donthi explained in June 2021 how demonizing the state’s Muslim population helped Himanta and the BJP electorally in the assembly polls that year. He was successful in portraying the Miya or Bengali-speaking Muslim as the ultimate enemy in both the ethno-nationalist discourse and the Hindutva discourse in the northeastern state.

“These so-called Miya people are very, very communal, very very fundamental, and they are involved in various activities to distort Assamese culture, Assamese language. So I don’t want to be MLA with their vote,” he had said.

In May last year, the Himanta-led Cabinet brought in a scheme to give gun licenses to ‘indigenous people’ living in Muslim-majority areas. Justifying the move, Sarma said, “A gun is essential. Without a gun, how will you live in places like South Salmara and Mankachar? You will understand when you go there…”

About 95% of the population in the Salmara-Mankachar district are Muslims.

Parallelly, the Assam BJP has taken communal polarization to the next level on social media platforms. Artificially generated videos of Muslim men wearing skull caps are regularly shared by the official handle to target the Congress and its MP Gaurav Gogoi, branding their supporters as “Bangladeshi Miyas.”

Taken together, these have had real-life consequences, including the increasing isolation of Bengali Muslims in Assam, irrespective of their citizenship status.

Since May last year, Assam has reportedly “pushed back” over 300 people into Bangladesh. Of these, at least 200 returned to India by June 19 after being found to be Indian citizens. According to an India Hate Lab report dated July 2025, rallies and online campaigns across districts such as Jonai, Golaghat, Hajo, Jorhat, and Kamrup repeatedly raised slogans like “Bangladeshis go back” and “evict Miyas.” In a press briefing on May 28, Sarma announced a new scheme to issue arms licences to indigenous residents of “vulnerable and remote areas,” particularly along the Bangladesh border.

India Hate Lab documented nine cases of targeted violence and harassment in their report. In Chapaidang, Muslim workers were attacked, and their homes vandalised after being accused of sheltering evictees, while in the district of Kaliabor, members of the Assamese ethno-nationalist group Bir Lachit Sena prevented Muslim families from settling with relatives. In other districts, the same group conducted door-to-door ID checks of Bengali-origin Muslims, ordering them to submit documents to the police within two days. Another Hindu nationalist group Sachetan Yuva Mancha pressured a landlord to evict Muslim tenants in Golaghat, claiming the move was in tandem with chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s vision.

ALSO READ: ECI turns a blind eye to rabidly communal speeches by Himanta Biswa Sarma

In August 2024, BJP leader Mayur Borgohain allegedly orchestrated a violent assault on Bengali-speaking Muslims he had employed, amid heightened tensions following a rape case in Nagaon district in which one accused was identified as a Miya Muslim. At the time, Sarma had blamed rising crimes against women on Miyas. The workers alleged they were beaten, threatened with death, forced to chant slogans, and told to leave without claiming ₹15 lakh in unpaid wages. After submitting video evidence of the assault, they fled Charaideo fearing further violence. Following the rape case, nativist groups reportedly planned a “miya kheda abhiyan” to drive Muslims out of Upper Assam.

It is pertinent to add that Himanta’s communal tirade has extended beyond Assam to include all minority groups.  After the NDA’s loss in Lok Sabha seats in Nagaland, Manipur and Meghalaya, Sarma had said, “Leaders of a particular religion actively campaigned against the BJP and NDA in Nagaland, Manipur, and Meghalaya. This religion has a good following in these states, which made a difference in the results.” Nagaland and Meghalaya and Manipur have 88%, 75% and 41% Christian population, respectively.

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About the Author

Student of Economics at Presidency University. Interested in misinformation.