Himanta’s moves mirror Partition-era ethos, not just 'infiltrators'

The Bills proposing disqualification of ministers, including CMs and the PM, imprisoned for 30 days in crimes with five-year sentences, project lofty ideals but miss the real danger: leaders don’t need to break laws to act against the people. Through rhetoric, notices, and state machinery, governments can become instruments of exclusion and fear.

Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma’s decision to restrict Aadhaar issuance for most adults, citing “infiltrators,” and policies like arming “indigenous” Assamese highlight this. Such measures, along with alarmist terms like “land jihad” and “love jihad,” exploit insecurity rather than build trust. Migration anxieties in Assam are real, rooted in Partition, but demonising Bengalis and Muslims does nothing to address illegal migration. It only furthers a divisive ideological project.

The state arming select groups undermines its duty to protect all citizens equally. Making “Bangladeshi” a slur erases the humanity of real people, like Sunali Bibi, a migrant labourer from West Bengal wrongfully pushed across borders while pregnant.

This worldview, echoed nationally by the Prime Minister’s rhetoric, frames minorities as threats and the majority as besieged. It reduces India’s plural identity to parochial labels, mimicking the Partition ethos the Constitution sought to leave behind.

The gravest threat today may not be the “ghuspaithiya,” but the belief that some citizens don’t belong in their own country.