The devastating flood waters of the Brahmaputra have receded at the whole expanse where victims of deadly Dhalpur evictions have been putting up since September 2021. The emergence of their houses from the inundation has brought immediate respite for the evictees, but their agony, and trauma from the eviction remain far from over. Moreover, they face harassment and brutal assault at the hands of workers of the agricultural project for which the land was taken from the people settled there for decades.
“Living here has been like hell. As a farmer, the land was everything I had and with that gone I lost everything. Sometimes they beat us for going into the project area, sometimes they block the roads to stop us from going to towns or hospitals. The persecution will end only if the government shifts us to some other place”, said Badshah Ali.
Badshah is among the nearly 800 families who were evicted at Dhalpur no 1 village from 20 to 23 September 2021 following the Assam government’s decision to make an agricultural project in the flood plain in the area under Sipajhar revenue circle in Darrang district.
On 23 September 2021, the second leg of the drive, powered by massive security forces, the Darrang district administration launched evictions and it turned violent when 33-year-old Mainal Hoque, a peasant in the village, impulsively started chasing a group of armed security forces with a bamboo pole as his house was being demolished.
Shots fired at him instantly and his unanimated body lay on the ground with bullet injuries. A chilling visual of a camera person attached to the district administration stomping the dead body went viral revealing Assam’s deep social discriminatory temperament towards Bengali-speaking Muslims of the state.
The assault by the eviction party also killed Sheikh Farid, a 12-year-old boy who was coming back home from the post office to get his AADHAR card.
“My whole world was destroyed. Now I do not have anything to fight for justice for my dead husband. They (the government) said that they would resettle us and give us 1 bigha of land, but that has not been given to us. Without any land, how can we pursue the case for the husband and feed the two children,” said Mamata Begum, Mainal’s wife who is struggling to take care of two minor children.
“I wait for justice for my dead husband and land promised to my family,” Mamata said.
‘Unkept promise’
Following the evictions in 2021, the representatives of the Assam government, MLA of Dalgaon assembly constituency and other students and rights groups held a meeting on 31 January 2022 and constituted a committee to resettle the evicted as well as other families residing at Dhalpur No1, Dhalpur No 3, Niz Shalmara, Fuhuratoli villages and allot them 1 bigha land. (1 bigha= 14400 sq feet or 0.25 hectare).
The plan was to move 2051 families from the Sipajhar assembly constituency to Dalgaon at various chapori areas in phases. Chaporis in Assam refers to flood plains where mostly Bengali Muslim peasants settle to perform agricultural activities.
However, in the last two years, some 859 families were relocated to Shyampur, Rowmari, Arimari chapori areas in Dalgaon Revenue circles. Of these families, 168 families were given 1 bigha of land and others received only half a bigha of land to construct their makeshift homes. According to officials, there is not enough land in the area to settle the families. However, the number claimed by district officials does not correspond to what the revenue department of the Assam government submitted to the Gauhati High Court.
The High Court, in a judgement in January 2023, noted that the revenue department had informed the court about resettling 600 families from evicted people.
Notably, the relocated families are not those who were evicted in 2021. These families were not evicted but forced to leave their homes in the Dhalpur area under the pretence of allotting one bigha land at their new location.
Those who were evicted— around 700 families as per the government’s submission to Gauhati High Court— are still living on the sandbar of Nanoi river’s stream which actually creates a border between the settlement of Bengali Muslim peasantry and the area taken over by government for the agricultural project.
Shamlai Khatun, who is in her early fifties, said, “We are the most suffers of the eviction. See yourself, we do not have even the basic thing left. Instead of shifting us first, the government is shifting those who still have a home”.
Those who were resettled felt deceived. “We would not have left our home there. We had no option but to leave as the people from the project ploughed every inch of land on which we used to cultivate leaving only land where our homes stood. Then they told us that if we shifted on our own, we would be given 1 bigha land. But when we arrived here, they gave us only half a bigha just to build our house. Nothing to cultivate here”, said Asar Uddin, a 44-year-old farmer from No 1 Dhalpur village.
Every person this reporter spoke to at the resettlement areas shared the same story. 60-year-old Afjal Hoque said, “We are farmers. Most of us used to grow vegetables to sell in 10 to 20 Bighas of land in our villages. But here, we have become labourers, sitting idle and waiting for work”.
Those who remain at Dhalpur villages and tin or jute stem-walled eviction victim “camps” have been subjected to brutal assaults, locals said.
When the floodwaters were gushing into the camps, many people gathered and decided to cross the stream into the agriculture project area to get bamboo to save their makeshift shelters. “People had no option to save their shelters if they did not get the bamboo to use them as fresh poles. But when they tried to cut bamboo, the people from the project come and beat them, filed FIRs and took a hefty fine,” locals said on condition of anonymity fearing further harassment.
“Many people have paid fines and have been mercilessly beaten by project people for crossing into their land to get grass for goats or cows”, said Shamlai Khatun.
Badshah who had paid a fine of Rs 5,000 said, “I was not even cutting grass. I had a sickle in my hand and then they caught me. They let me go only after I paid the fine of Rs 5000.”
Salim Uddin was raring his buffaloes in a nearby village, far from the project area. But he also had to pay Rs 2000 as a fine for a crime he never committed.
“I was pasturing the buffaloes far north from the project area when two police personnel came to me and took my photo with the buffaloes. After a few days, the project people came to me and showed my photo claiming that I was grazing my animals within the farm area and I was forced to pay Rs 2000 for that”.
62-year-old Habibur Rahman who lives in Dhalpur village but was not evicted also shared that many people were brutally beaten just for going to get fish. “Though our homes were not demolished, we are under constant fear of what will happen if a cow or a goat cross into the project area. They beat everybody”
An 18-year-old girl who did not wish to be identified said, “I was sitting at our home when they (workers of the project area) barged into our home. They beat my father saying he had taken his cattle to the project area. When I tried to save him, they beat me so badly that my hand was instantly broken.”
The father said that they took the cattle to the project area just to wash them or they went to the project area to get some fodder for their cattle as the area gets inundated during floods and it is the project area where they can get grass.
“The project came just two years ago, but we have been managing this way for decades. Now it is like a border crossing for us,” he said.
Shahar Uddin was also beaten for going to the project area and likened living there to hell. “The evicted people have lost everything due to eviction, but those who are left with their homes are constantly subjected to merciless beating even for going get grass for our animals. This is like living in hell for everyone here.”
While the much-hyped agricultural project saw an injection of nearly Rs 16 crores rupees over the last two financial years and almost another Rs 6 crores earmarked, the project seems to have failed to deliver. In March 2023, the Assam agriculture minister Atul Bora informed the assembly that the earning from the project was 1.51 crore.
