Islam in Assam

Islam is the second-largest and is the fastest-growing religion in the Indian state of Assam as per as decadal Census reports. The Muslim population was approximately 10.7 million, constituting over 34.3% of the total population of the state as of the late 2011 census, though some projections have estimated it as up to 14 million in 2021 (thus constituting 40% of the state population), giving Assam the second-largest Muslim population percentage in the country after Kashmir.

Quotes

• Few years back the Bengali Muslims from Mymensingh and other areas have settled in Assam. The Assamese Muslims have the enormous responsibility to get them educated in Assamese language, make them proud Assamese and thus strengthen the base of Assamese nationality.
  • Ambikagiri Raichoudhury Raichaudhury, ‘Bortaman Bharat Kaar’. quoted in Nani Gopal Mahanta - Citizenship Debate over NRC and CAA_ Assam and the Politics of History (2021, SAGE Publications India),20

• It was Abdul Matin Chaudhury, a close aide of Jinnah, who had increasingly drawn Jinnah’s attention to Assam. Muhammad Ali Jinnah wrote a letter to Chaudhury on 25 March 1945: ...You are quite right that in Assam Muslims were dead. … But while I have said all this I do not want you to despair or become despondent. Our cause is honest and righteous. We may have to go through the sufferings and sacrifices and so organize ourselves. Out of ashes the true followers of Islam will rise with the noble spirit of Islam in Assam that will sweep away the traitors, hirelings and quislings amongst us. Face your opponents with power and organisation which will be irresistible.
  • Ali Jinnah, in Pirzada, Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah’s Correspondence, 20. quoted in p. 81 of Nani Gopal Mahanta - Citizenship Debate over NRC and CAA_ Assam and the Politics of History (2021, SAGE Publications India)

• The rise of AIUDF is directly linked to the issue of changing character of demographic change in the state. The 2011 census is very important in this regard. As per the census of 2011, total Hindu population stands at 61.47% and Muslim population at 34.22%. At the rural areas Hindus comprise 58.57% and Muslims comprise 36.85%. In 1971, Muslims in Assam comprised of 24.6%. Facts reveal that in 1971 only Dhubri and Hailakandi districts were Muslim majority; in 1991 four districts have turned out to be Muslim dominated—Dhubri, Hailakandi, Goalpara and Barpeta. In 2001 six districts have become Muslim dominated; and in 2011 nine districts have become Muslim dominated. … In these districts there are dominance of East Bengal origin Muslims. Immigration of Muslim to Assam mainly started in order to meet the British colonial economic inter- est. On the eve of partition and even in post partition days, the process of immigration more or less continued. The immigration process height- ened during Bangladesh liberation war. The issue of unnatural growth of Muslim population in the state was linked to the issue of Immigration of Bangladeshi Muslims to Assam.
  • Akhil Ranjan Dutta of Gauhati University, Dutta, Possibility: Assam Assembly Election 2016, 55 quoteed in quoted in Nani Gopal Mahanta - Citizenship Debate over NRC and CAA_ Assam and the Politics of History (2021, SAGE Publications India)in 291

• In Asia, a prominent example of immigration-driven ethnic change is taking place in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam. A Hindu-majority tongue of Indian territory lying north of Muslim Bangladesh, Assam has long been host to large-scale illegal, but peaceful, Bengali immigration. Bengali Muslims grew 30 to 50 percent over the period 1971 to 1991. They now constitute more than 30 percent of Assam’s population and are believed to control the electoral verdict in 60 of Assam’s 126 Assembly constituencies. Numerous battles have taken place over whether large numbers of Muslims have the legal status necessary to add their name to the electoral rolls.
  Muslim growth has been the catalyst for ugly Assamese attacks against unarmed Bengali workers since the 1980s, and an Assamese political movement demands the deportation of illegal immigrants. This conflict is regional, but on the wider Indian level, the growth of the Muslim population through higher fertility and an often exaggerated degree of illegal immigration has been a red flag for Hindu nationalism. The Muslim population’s fertility advantage over Hindus was 10 percent at partition in 1947, but is now 25–35 percent. Only a fraction of this gap can be explained by relative Muslim poverty. Muslims grew from roughly 8 percent of the Indian total in 1947 to 14 percent today, and are projected to rise to 17 percent by 2050. These are not staggering numbers, yet have proven useful tinder for Hindu nationalists and sparked sporadic violent reprisals against Indian Muslims.
  • Kaufmann, E. P. (2011). Shall the religious inherit the Earth?: Demography and politics in the twenty-first century. Chapter 2: Section: Ethnic change and violence