Monumoi Hazarika flew into a rage each time the word maati – Assamese for land – was uttered. “Is it his father’s land that he thinks he c...
Monumoi Hazarika flew into a rage each time the word maati – Assamese for land – was uttered. “Is it his father’s land that he thinks he can farm on it without paying us?” the septuagenarian bellowed. “No, it is my dead husband’s land.”
Hazarika is a resident of Dakorghat village in Middle Assam’s Nagaon district. “He”, whom Hazarika refers to only in invectives, is Masamat Ali, who lives in the adjoining village of Dakhin Sialmari.
The two villages have stood next to each other for longer than any of their inhabitants can remember. But they are separated by an ethnic faultline that runs deep in Assam’s public life. Dakorghat is home to Assamese speakers – both Hindu and Muslim – considered indigenous to the state. Dakhin Sialmari is a village of Muslims who migrated from what was once East Bengal, present-day Bangladesh.
There is a physical divide, too: between Dakorghat and Dakhin Sialmari lies around 500 acres of fertile alluvial farmland fed by the Kolong tributary of the Brahmaputra.
This piece of land is the lightning rod for tensions between the two villages. Once almost entirely controlled and cultivated by the Assamese of Dakorghat, the area is now largely owned by residents of Dakhin Sialmari. As ownership of land...
