In the wake of the devastating floods that submerged Silchar, Assam in June 2022, Nikhil Das and his family spent 25 days on the tin roof of their kutcha house. He gestures towards a bridge built later that year, spanning the ponds bordering his house, which they had to wade through to reach home. Citing it as an example of “development,” he explains that it’s one of the reasons he supports the BJP. Nikhil is a resident of Tapoban Nagar, a settlement primarily populated by Hindu Bengali migrants on the outskirts of Silchar in the Barak Valley. Like many locals, his name was absent from the final draft of Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC), released in 2019. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the ruling BJP’s promise to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) if re-elected garnered widespread support from the Hindu Bengali community in the Barak Valley. This region, sharing a 125-km border with Bangladesh, witnessed a significant influx of Bengali Hindus following Partition, seeking refuge from persecution in what was then East Pakistan. The BJP pledged that the CAA would provide relief to Bengali Hindus facing citizenship issues by simplifying and expediting the citizenship process for such migrants. While the CAA was passed in December 2019, its rules were only notified last month, shortly before the announcement of the schedule for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. However, the hopes of many Bengali Hindus that the CAA would alleviate their concerns seem to have dwindled. The Indian Express reported on the challenges faced by those seeking to apply under the Act, which requires documentation proving the applicant’s Bangladeshi nationality. Recently, while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections in the Brahmaputra Valley, where the CAA has been opposed due to its conflict with the 1985 Assam Accord, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma stated that only one person, a Barak Valley resident, had applied for citizenship under the Act. The CAA pitch appears to be absent in the Barak Valley this time. Nevertheless, Sarma has repeatedly asserted at public meetings in the Silchar constituency that the citizenship issues of Bengali Hindus will be resolved “within 6 months,” without providing specific details. Addressing a public meeting in Dholai, Sarma declared, “I want to assure you that we will resolve all issues of Bengali Hindus with citizen issues, tribunal issues, and D-Voter (Doubtful Voter) within 6 months. There will be no more problems going forward.” Nikhil clings to such promises. “The BJP says we will be able to apply (for citizenship) sometime after the election. I don’t know exactly what will be done, but everyone says something will be done,” he remarks. Support for the BJP is evident throughout his settlement. Dulona Das, 21, whose family relocated there after years in a refugee camp, points to several houses under construction under the PM Awas Yojana. “The BJP is building all these houses. Our house is also being built, and we hope it will be completed soon. We’ve been receiving free rice. They’ve done a lot for us,” she says. Kumud Das, a resident of the Kali Bari Char slum, predominantly inhabited by Hindu Bengalis, summarizes his stance on the citizenship issue. “We’ve been hearing about nagarikta (citizenship) issues all our lives, and we’ll continue to hear about them. Parties raise the issue, talk about it for a few days, and then forget about it. So here, we all support the BJP. They’ve provided us with ration cards and built roads, and we want Modi ji to be PM,” he says. Despite the perceived disappointment among some locals over the CAA, the BJP appears poised to secure victory in Silchar, one of the Barak Valley’s two Lok Sabha seats, with the backing of a substantial portion of Bengali Hindus and goodwill towards its candidate, Parimal Suklabaidya, while the Opposition falters. A veteran BJP member and minister, Parimal currently serves as MLA for the Dholai Assembly seat, which falls within the Silchar Lok Sabha constituency. The Congress suffered a setback with the departure of its most prominent figure in the region, Sushmita Dev, who won the Lok Sabha seat in 2014 but lost in 2019 to the BJP’s Rajdeep Roy by over 81,000 votes. Given that the Silchar seat is now reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates following the 2023 delimitation exercise and the Congress’s lack of prominent Dalit leaders in the belt, the party has fielded a relatively unknown face, Suryakant Sarkar. In 2021, Sushmita left the Congress to join the Trinamool Congress (TMC), which has also nominated its candidate, Radheshyam Biswas, a former AIUDF MP from Karimganj, with an eye on the 2026 state Assembly polls. “There is not much of a contest here. The main competition is for second place, and for Sushmita Dev, it’s a test of her leadership… The TMC lacks a strong organizational structure here. It is primarily a Bengali party, and that’s how it’s positioning itself here,” observes Joydeep Biswas, a teacher at Cachar College. Last week, TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee made her maiden visit to the Barak Valley since becoming the West Bengal CM in 2011 to address an election rally in Silchar, appealing to Bengalis, both Hindus, and Muslims, to unite based on their linguistic identity and vote out the BJP, claiming that a TMC victory would eliminate “NRC and CAA.” Nevertheless, the space for Opposition parties appears to be shrinking in the constituency, which goes to polls on April 26. In Madhubond, a Muslim settlement in East Silchar, several voters indicate their decision to shift their support from the Congress to the BJP, as they do not yet view the TMC as a viable option in the region. “We haven’t yet seen the development we hear about, but I feel like it’s better to choose the BJP. We voted for Sushmita Dev in the past, but now we feel like even if we elect a Congress MP, they might join the BJP tomorrow. Seeing the example of Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha (a prominent Congress leader from the region and MLA who earlier this year ‘declared his support’ for the BJP government) has eroded our trust,” remarks Sahil Laskar, 33, a driver. “The TMC is not prepared, and we haven’t seen them anywhere here. Under the BJP, at least some work is being done. Even Muslims are benefiting from schemes like Orunodoi (an Assam government scheme) and houses,” he says, echoing the BJP’s emphasis on “inclusive development.” Similar sentiments were expressed by voters in Sonai, an Assembly segment with a Muslim-majority population and currently represented by an AIUDF MLA. “The BJP is doing well, and their candidate is good. I voted for the Congress last time, but the BJP candidate is much better… TMC is a West Bengal party; I don’t know about them here,” said 31-year-old Mudabbir Hussain Laskar, who runs a footwear shop in the Sonai market.
Silchar’s Bengali Hindu Community: Disappointment over CAA, but BJP Support Remains Strong
