Written by: Novanita Sharma
Assam has been the center stage of many socio-political upheavals since India’s independence. One of the most serious issues pertaining to this socio-political unrest has been the unsolvable problem of illegal migration of Bangladeshis into Assam. Historical events like the partition of Bharat in 1947, the subsequent division of Bengal on religious lines that led to the creation of East Pakistan in 1956, and then the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, set the momentum for human migration from East Pakistan or Bangladesh to Assam and other parts of eastern India.
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Thousands of Bangladeshi Hindus migrated to India on humanitarian grounds during these times; they were compelled to abandon their homes owing to the political changes and have since peacefully settled in India after the migration. However, millions of Bangladeshi Muslim nationals took advantage of this situation to illegally migrate into Indian territories for years. These Bangladeshi Muslims did not migrate for humanitarian causes; they came to India on purpose, to grab land, livelihoods, and silently obliterate the demography of Indian territories bordering Bangladesh. The result of this continuous exodus of Bangladeshis is glaringly visible in the districts of western Assam like Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Morigaon, Nagaon, Darrang, Hojai, Hailakandi, and Karimganj, etc.
These illegal Bangladeshi migrations took place under the supportive mechanism of Indian political regimes that leveraged victorious democratic elections for decades because of their Bangladeshi Muslim vote bank in Assam. Every Indian citizen in Assam is aware of this situation. Many youths and students of Assam have sacrificed their lives in socio-political movements to solve this Bangladeshi infiltration problem, which is posing threats to the identity and survival of the native Assamese people in their own land.
Encroachment on Forest Land
Assam has lost the largest area of forest cover among all the Northeastern states to forest encroachments since India’s independence. According to the Union Environment Ministry’s report to the National Green Tribunal as of March 2024, Assam has 3,620.9 square km of its forest area under encroachment. This is the highest area of encroached forestland among the Northeastern states and the second highest among all states and union territories of India, after Madhya Pradesh. Encroachment of forests is a major threat to the conservation of biodiversity in Assam. With a total recorded forest area of 26,832 sq km, accounting for 34.21% of its geographical area, Assam is at a crucial stage regarding forest conservation. Assam has lost 83.93 sq km of forest cover between 2021 and 2023.
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The state is on the threshold of losing its existing forestland, as indicated by the continuous loss of forest cover every year. One of the prime reasons behind the vanishing of forests from Assam is the unabated encroachment of forest areas by Bangladeshi immigrant populations all over Assam. A very large chunk of the Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants that infiltrated India after crossing the 4,096 km Indo-Bangladesh border, which spreads from West Bengal, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, and Assam, has come to occupy large areas of forest lands, wetlands, grasslands, and other naturally occurring uninhabited spaces in Assam over the years. This has exerted the greatest demographic, socioeconomic, ecological, and political problems in Assam for the past 78 years.
Assam has witnessed bloodbaths of socio-political movements, insurgency, and student’s agitation against the politically leveraged Bangladeshi infiltration of Assam since 1947. The socio-political threats related to Bangladeshi Muslim infiltration have been the mainstay in Assam’s political arena. However, the native people and political leaders of Assam have remained mute to the silent ecological and socioeconomic invasion of Assam by the Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants, who are responsible for the rampant loss of forest cover, the vanishing of wetlands and natural grasslands across the state, and who have supported wildlife poaching, illegal trade in wildlife, and the rapid conversion of natural habitats to croplands and human habitations. This ecological war of Bangladeshi Muslims has deprived the native dwellers of Assam of their access to the natural resources in their ancestral lands, jeopardizing the socioeconomic stability of the ethnic and indigenous communities in Assam.
Political Intervention and Eviction Drives
Despite widespread agitations, ‘andolans’, movements, and people’s support for the cause, the consecutive state governments of Assam failed to take any action to stop this onslaught of Bangladeshi Muslims amidst the continually dwindling forest spaces in the state. This happened while the Supreme Court’s standing order directed the government machinery to evict the illegal encroachments from all forest areas in Northeast India.
Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the 15th Chief Minister of Assam, led the BJP state government of Assam to execute the first eviction drive in 2025 to reclaim the forestlands, wetlands, and grazing lands from the illegal encroachments inside these areas. The loss of natural forests, grasslands, wetlands, wildlife, and biodiversity incurred by these encroachments cannot be compensated. However, this eviction drive launched the long-awaited political intervention against the ecological war of the Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants on the forests and biodiversity of Assam. This bold political decision brought the ecological war related to the Bangladeshi infiltration to the forefront. Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma finally delivered the much-delayed ecological justice to the forests and people of Assam. This eviction drive of 2025 also brought people closer to the political significance of forest conservation in Assam.
Soumyadeep Datta, the well-known environmentalist and Director of Nature’s Beckon, speaks eloquently on this issue, “We fought to protect the Chakrashila Wildlife Sanctuary when this forest was not included in BTAD. At that time, our Bodo brothers were raging with the Bodo movement. Amidst all these, our ‘Save Chakrashila Movement’ drafted the permanent protection of this forest. The forest was protected as a wildlife sanctuary which saved this forestland from getting encroached upon by Bangladeshis. Without our efforts, the Bodo people would have failed to save the forest from encroachment; many Bodo villages were abandoned to the Bangladeshi Muslim migrants during that time. It is very important to understand that conservation of forests can save our land and people from the threats of Bangladeshi Muslim invasion in the future as well… we, the natives of Assam, won’t survive in the democratic framework of India. We will cease to exist if we can’t put up a collective fight to protect our forests, wetlands, and other natural habitats in Assam.”
The Ecological Threat and its Consequences
The illegal Bangladeshi immigration in Assam is a serious ecological problem of eastern India which has long been unaddressed by the authorities. Environment leaders like Soumyadeep Datta have drawn everyone’s attention to the ecological problem related to the Bangladeshi immigrant issue since the beginning of Nature’s Beckon in the 1980s. He alerted the people of Assam about the fact that the illegal Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants are finding easy hideouts in the areas deemed as free lands, which include recorded forest lands, wetlands, grazing lands, and other areas like the unoccupied sandbanks within Assam’s river systems.
The migrant populations of Bangladeshis have replicated their villages, croplands, schools, and other settlements to welcome more inbound immigrants by encroaching large tracts of forest lands in Assam. Surprisingly, the Forest Department of Assam has remained steadily impotent in dealing with these encroachments over the years. Nature’s Beckon had appealed to consecutive state governments of Assam to free the forest lands, wetlands, and other natural habitats from encroachments to make the scant forest area of our state available solely for the wildlife of Assam.
Soumyadeep Datta had also suggested protecting the newly emerging lands, like the river islands that appear every year within our wide network of river systems, from human habitations so that these areas remain accessible as viable new habitats for the growing populations of wildlife species in Assam. Saving the existing unprotected forest areas, wetlands, and the newly emerging natural habitats like the river islands is crucial to sustain the thriving wildlife populations inside many protected areas of Assam.
There are people who share their concerns regarding the survival of the growing populations of wildlife species, like the recently reported spurt of the Tiger population inside Kaziranga National Park. And there are wildlife experts of Assam who endorse investing in glitzy trans-location of rare wild animals from the safety of their primary habitats to the uncertainty of newly introduced habitats in the name of wildlife management. However, they fail to lend their voice for the appalling threats from the expanding encroachment of forest areas, wetlands, grasslands, and river islands of Assam by Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants. The complacency and reluctance on the part of the people and many collective fronts of Assam to identify and address the issue of Bangladeshi Muslim infiltration-led denudation of forests and other wildlife habitats in Assam supported the silent invasion of the state by this immigrant community.
The Road Ahead
The ongoing eviction drive under the leadership of Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma since July 2025, which recovered large areas of encroached forest lands in Goalpara, Golaghat, apart from the eviction of encroachments from many important wetlands in Goalpara and grazing lands in Dhubri, marks the much-awaited justice delivered to the forests and people of Assam after all these years of inaction towards this issue. This eviction drive depicts the growing political will in Assam under the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government to take firm steps in recovering the forests and wetlands of Assam from illegal encroachments and curb the loss of forest area in the future while the government hones pragmatic decisions for the progressive growth and development of the state in the coming years.
The people of Assam must fully support this bold political decision of the Chief Minister of Assam to carry on the eviction drive to free the encroached Reserve forests, wetlands, village grazing reserves, etc., across the length and breadth of Assam in the future. For the people of Assam, this long-awaited action against Bangladeshi infiltration calls for a collective, united, and empowered front of citizens to stop the encroachment of our forests, wetlands, and open areas of Assam once and for all. Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma has brought Assam to a historic turn. Our decisions and our collective efforts at this point will decide the future course of Assam’s destiny and the fate of our new generations.
This political intervention has sent a warning call for the first time against the unlawful encroachment of forest lands in Assam and has addressed one of the greatest threats to the forests of Assam. The tables have turned for restoring the encroached forestlands from inter-state disputed areas from the neighboring states of Assam on a serious note. Hence, all conservationists, environmentalists, and everyone working for the preservation of Assam’s rich biodiversity and natural forests must support this imperative decision of the state government. This eviction drive has also played an important role in sensitizing people regarding the importance of wetlands, which continue to be ignored from organized conservation measures in India.
With the scary obliteration of Assam’s demography, the native people of Assam have no option but to protect the existing forests from the onslaught of Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants whose silent invasion has robbed Assam of its precious natural resources, apart from posing threats to the existence of Assamese culture and identity in the future. For Assam, this eviction drive is a historic political intervention and a major conservation decision. It is a timely step to ensure the future ecological security of Northeast India. This historic decision will be forever remembered as another significant contribution of Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma towards the conservation and restoration of natural forests in Assam, apart from his governance’s role in the declaration of important protected areas like Dihing Patkai National Park, Raimona National Park, Sikhna Jwhwlao National Park, Poba Wildlife Sanctuary, and the proposed Ajagar Wildlife Sanctuary and the proposed Pancharatna Wildlife Sanctuary.
Novanita Sharma is an environment activist and writer based in Guwahati. She can be reached at: [email protected]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of Northeast Now.Â