In perhaps the bluntest way possible for any politician, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has made Assam a test case in countering the 1,000-year demographic war against India and over 100 years of spontaneous influx and targeted takeover of his state.

Using a 1950 law, the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, the state government has so far cleared more than 42,000 acres (think 32,000 international-size football grounds) of encroached land and reportedly pushed back thousands of illegal Bangladesh and Rohingya infiltrators across the border. The Sarma’s government is now planning to launch another major eviction drive in Golaghat to clear approximately 3,300 acres of land in the Rengma reserve forest at Assam’s Uriamghat, bordering Nagaland.

These came alongside Himanta Biswa Sarma’s public statement that the Muslim population in the state had surged to 40 per cent now from 12 per cent in 1951.

The drive has given voice to local marginalised tribes. Thousands of them gathered in Dhemaji district, Assam,........

© News18