The Supreme Court, in April 2023, instructed all governments to register, suo motu, FIRs against the preachers of hate, without waiting for someone to file a complaint. This measure, the court thought, was necessary to preempt mob violence and foster communal fraternity. Perhaps it didn’t reckon with the possibility of a Chief Minister persistently engaging in hate speech.

This is precisely what Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has been doing, relentlessly demonising Miyas, a pejorative reference to Bengali-speaking Muslims accused of illegally slipping from Bangladesh into India. It’s implausible a police officer in Assam will have the courage to proceed against Sarma. Ask Kalparnab Gupta, a civil rights activist, who, in 2024, emailed the Cachar district police chief, asking for an FIR to be filed against Sarma over several instances of hate speech in Jharkhand. Nothing happened.

Sarma prefers abominable speeches to employing a dog whistle to trade in hate. Contrast his fate with that of academic Ali Khan Mahmudabad, who was arrested, in 2025, on the basis of two FIRs registered against him for two social media posts. One of his posts advised Hindutva commentators, jubilant over Colonel Sofiya Qureshi’s press briefings during Operation Sindoor, to also demand protection for the victims of the “Bharatiya Janata Party’s hate mongering”.

Mahmudabad approached the Supreme Court for relief. Although he was set free, Justice Surya Kant and Justice N. Kotiswar Singh didn’t stay the FIRs against him. The judges, in fact, ordered the constitution of a Special Investigation Team because they, in the court proceedings, observed that Mahmudabad’s posts may have amounted to a dog whistle.

With judges so sensitive even to a dog whistle, might not the Supreme Court think of stopping Sarma from spitting venom against Muslims? Not too much to expect, given that Surya Kant, now the Chief Justice of India, stayed the University Grants Commission (UGC) Regulations, 2026, on the ground that “it will divide society”.

A playback of Sarma’s vituperative speeches would convey how he is dividing Assam—and India. On January 25, he said the Special Revision of Assam’s electoral rolls was bereft of controversies. How come? Sarma explained, “Which Hindu has got notice? Which Assamese Muslim has got notice? Notices have been served to Miyas and such people, else they will walk over our heads. We will do some utpaat [mischief], but within the ambit of law.”

On January 27, he said when the Special Intensive Revision happens in Assam, “four to five lakh Miya voters will have to be deleted”. He added, without a hint of embarrassment, “Vote chori means we are trying to steal some Miya votes. They should ideally not be allowed to vote in Assam, but in Bangladesh.” He surpassed his lowly standards when, on January 28, he exhorted, “Whoever can give trouble [to Miyas] in any way should give… In a rickshaw, if the fare is Rs.5, give them Rs.4. Only if they face troubles will they leave Assam.”

It’s not that he’s spurred on by the forthcoming Assembly election in Assam, for even on August 14, 2025, Sarma claimed that illegal Muslim immigrants “rent a house, then they cut the cow, then a Masjid comes up. This forces the Satra [Vaishnavite monastic institutions] out of the area. This is a pattern in Assam.” A year earlier, he accused Muslims of indulging in “flood jihad”. In 2023, he blamed “Miya vendors” for raising vegetable prices in cities. He has justified distributing gun licences to Hindus living in Muslim-majority districts, ostensibly because of the threats of violence they face. Vigilantism, eh?

It’s revolting to give a statement-by-statement account to convey Sarma’s hatred for Muslims. Yet a mention must be made of Sarma’s avowed claim of combating “land jihad” by evicting, according to journalist Rokibuz Zaman, 10,620 families which were allegedly living on government land. Behind this claim, academic Parvin Sultana has pointed out, “lies a stark truth that eviction sites in many places have been identified for infrastructural projects linked to major corporate players.” She cites the example of the power plant that the Adani Group is setting up in Dhubri, from where 1,400 Muslim families were turfed out in July 2025.

Claims debunked

To counter the mounting criticism against his derogatory references to Miyas, Sarma recently quoted late Assam Governor Gen S.K. Sinha’s statement regarding the “silent and invidious demographic invasion of Assam”. Sinha’s perception has been debunked by many, most recently, and conclusively, by academic Arupjyoti Saikia in The Quest for Modern Assam: A History (1942-2000).

Based on archival documents, Saikia identifies distinct phases of population “flows” from East Pakistan/Bangladesh into India. The first of these coincided with the Partition violence, with Hindus fleeing from East Pakistan to India. Along with them also came Muslims who had earlier left for Pakistan, but returned as they thought they would enjoy better land rights in Assam. These Muslim returnees would have only marginally offset the lakhs who chose Pakistan over India in 1947. Hindus continued to migrate to India even years after Partition because of the horrific persecution they faced in East Pakistan.

Saikia writes, “Approximately 5 million people had moved from East Bengal to India between 1946 and 1964—mostly Hindu Bengalis—of which an estimated 13 per cent moved to Assam.” Suspecting the loyalty of Bengali Muslims who had come from East Pakistan, the Indian government began pushing them out under the Prevention of Infiltration into India of Pakistani Nationals (PIP) project. An “estimated 1.92 lakh” of them were ejected.

Around 9.8 million refugees entered India before the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Saikia cites Home Ministry estimates that only five to 10 percent would have been Muslim. Most of these refugees stayed behind in India, as did thousands of Bengali Hindus and Muslims who fled Bangladesh to escape the devastating 1974-1975 famine there. According to Saikia, the gigantic flows of Bangladeshis into India ceased thereafter.

Saikia’s narrative makes it clear that the ingress of illegal Bangladeshi Muslims into Assam couldn’t have resulted in a “demographic invasion”. Whatever that number, it would have dipped because of death among illegal immigrants over the decades. Their children born in India before July 1, 1987, under the Indian citizenship law, would have, anyway, become citizens. Thereafter, all those born in India until December 2, 2004, too, would have became citizens if one of their parents was an Indian citizen. The first-generation immigrants, in other words, have been replaced by their children who legally became Indian citizens.

No wonder, illegal Bangladeshi migrants aren’t found in large numbers in India, despite police hunting for them. This is true of Assam, too, where of the 19 lakh people excluded from the 2019 National Register of Citizens (NRC) of Assam, only seven lakh were Muslim. Once the NRC is notified, challenges to their exclusion, stemming from discrepancies in their identity documents, would see the seven-lakh figure plummet.

Evidence is shunned by those who fetishise hate. With no one willing to check Sarma, only the Supreme Court can do so, for it must realise that his speeches divide the society more than UGC regulations could have.

Ajaz Ashraf is a senior journalist from Delhi and the author of Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste.

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