Two decades later, the issues raised by the killing fields of Nellie continue to haunt Assam and to a larger extent, the North East and India. The killings—1,753 according to one Muslim social worker of the area—were significant not just because of the scale of the violence but also because it underscored the core fear about land alienation. As noted earlier, the immigrants and every single non-tribal sitting on Tiwa land had no business to be there. Even their presence was not acknowledged under existing law. Yet they were there, in reality, in the fields and the villages. As the dispossession of the Tiwas grew, so did their rage. The boycott of the elections called by the students gave them an opportunity to strike.

Land or maati is critical to identity-formation especially among agrarian societies. Take away the land and what happens to the people who once tilled it, who trace their roots there over the centuries? They become dependent on others, mindful of the disregard and silent sneers of others. Their own shortsightedness is reflected every day when they contemplate their former tenants as owners of this ancestral land. The rage becomes deeper, blinding those in its grip to their own follies.

But how much land is needed for identity protection?

Chapter Six

The Roads Away from Nellie

For years, the middle of the road Asomiya (and this term, in my view, embraces all the people of the Brahmaputra Valley who profess Hinduism and Islam, both speaking Assamese or a dialect of it) had been fed up of the growing political influence and clout of settlers from outside. The Congress Party, which had a powerful Muslim group, was seen as the villain of the piece—getting migrants from the former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to come over in exchange for their votes. In response, the Mymensinghias (people from Mymensingh district) and other immigrants declared Assamese as their mother tongue and were promptly baptized the natun Asomiya or new Assamese. This act was resented by the Assamese who saw a Congress conspiracy to reduce the Hindus to a minority in their own land and seize political power from them. The cases of Tripura and Sikkim were cited as a mantra to whip up emotions and passions—the original groups here were marginalized and pushed out of power by aggressive immigrants. In the case of Tripura it was the Bengali Hindus fleeing discrimination and riots in East Pakistan. In Sikkim, the Bhutia-Lepchas, who have ties to Bhutan and Tibet and are predominantly Buddhists, were marginalized by Nepali speakers, who were without exception, Hindus.