Assam is heating up the political scene in the lead up to the next elections and Miya factor, as it has always been playing a controversial role. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has raised a big controversy when he made a stern warning at a campaign rally. He said that should Bharatiya Janata Party rise to power in a third term, his government will go even further against what he calls Miyas who are commonly known as the Bengali speaking Indians.
Sarma stated that within the last five years, his administration had already diluted the impact of such groups on politics and threatened to do it even more. His statements were immediately met with a stiff reprimand by the opposition leaders among them Badruddin Ajmal, the leader of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). Ajmal refuted the claims by Sarma and said that this kind of rhetoric would not have any more impact on the voters and he thought that the ruling party would lose politically.
The problem represents a more fundamental and ancient Assamese identity, migration, and protection of indigenous societies issue. There is the fear of a population influx through migration, especially by the neighboring Bangladesh, which has influenced the political history of the state over decades.
These tensions can be tracked back to the colonial era when the British started using Bengali as an official language in 1836, which created a lot of outrage. This problem was again raised in the Partition in 1947 and escalated into the Assam Agitation of the 1980s which led to the historic Assam Accord. The agreement placed March 24, 1971, as the date of cut-off of citizenship and promised to identify and deport illegal immigrants.
With the election around the corner, the miya factor still plays a role in shaping the political policies, voter opinion and the identity and belonging debate in Assam.