Typically, the mention of Assam leads to an image of serene
green landscape with people of multiple ethnicities
accommodating each other under a broad understanding of mutual
co-existence. But, of late, Assam has been in the news for all
wrong reasons – the moral degradation of urban youth and
community indifference as reflected by the infamous Guwahati
molestation; and now ethnic violence between indigenous Bodos
community and predominantly Muslim migrant settlers of erstwhile
East Bengal, now Bangladesh. The official death toll so far is
77 and over 400,000 people have reportedly been displaced from
almost 400 villages. The migrants say, and this is true to a
significant extent, that they are descendent of the families who
migrated from East Bengal in late 19th / early 20th century to
chase a future away from abject poverty – and that it was
tacitly encouraged by British rulers to boost agricultural
productivity in riverine areas of western and central Assam.
These were rich, fertile tracts of land but pron