Bhumiputra: photoessay by Partha Sengupta

‘Ali, Coolie, Bongali
Naak sepeta Nepali’

This racist slogan was in fervor in the Assam state in India during the Anti Foreigners Movement in 1980s against other ethnicities (Ali , Coolie, Bongali means Muslims, people from North Indian and Bengalis respectively) Coolie means who are migrated to the state bore the brunt of Assamese xenophobia. Since Independence violent agitations continued till today particularly the six-year long AASU agitation. Later a tripartite Assam Accord agreement in 1985 is the genesis of NRC (National Register of Citizenship) update process. These have found unstinted approval of the Assamese cognoscenti with their political zeal.

Assam has a long history of migration. Beginning of eleventh century the migrations of Ahom and in the end of nineteenth century the expansion of British colonial policy encouraged immigration of various class people from different parts of the Indian subcontinent into Assam. In 1920s British patronized “grow more food’ policy brings Muslims peasants to sparsely populated state. The Assamese “homeland” was a colonial creation. Robert Mullen a British Officer whose remark on the divergent ethnicity in the state and Colonial ruler’s ‘divide and rule policy’ was the seed of rift on Identity and language of today. Later various political developments in the Indian subcontinent undocumented migration continued is the reason for the state people to revolt against the ‘foreigners’. Since India’s independence “illegal foreign immigrant”, has undergone many changes claiming migrants from other states too.

Currently the Hinduvta policy of the ruling party in India and their counterparts in various states set the agenda and fuelling the ‘foreigner’s issue. Their poisonous politics legitimating of extreme unethical political formations are at the helm of NRC implementation on identity and religious ground. My project would explore the way core of Indian democracy is under threat on identity issue. NRC implementation is challenging the constitutional validity on citizenship status. Their profound nationalistic imaginary brings divisive politics foments hatred among the ethnicity and religious animosity. Central to my project would narrate visually the crudest xenophobic movement in modern India. The project portrays the plights of the four million stateless people.

Nobody knows what will happen to those who fail to prove their citizenship.

- Partha Sengupta