Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday pledged to continue evictions on government land and free the state from alleged “infiltrators”.
Speaking at the Khanapara ground in Guwahati on Independence Day, Sarma warned of a demographic threat to the Assamese population and pledged to protect their land, identity and political power.
He said that if the people remained silent, the Assamese would lose their “jati, mati, bheti” [identity, land and roots] over the next ten years.
He warned that “Within 15 years, 80% of the ministers in the state cabinet will be unfamiliar, and after two decades, this Independence Day flag will also be hoisted by an unfamiliar chief minister”.
IF WE DO NOT ACT NOW, कुछ ही वर्षों में असम की जनसांख्यिकी (demography) इस तरह बदल जाएगी कि मुख्यमंत्री भी घुसपैठियों के समुदाय से होगा।#IndependenceDay pic.twitter.com/hFZmYIbUO7
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) August 15, 2025Declaring that the state had already cleared encroachments from 1.2 lakh bighas of land, Sarma accused previous governments and their bureaucracies of allowing encroachment on a “mind-boggling scale”.
Sarma also vowed to fight what he called “land jihad”, which he alleged was threatening Assam’s demography. “Land jihad” is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that Muslims plot to usurp public land by illegally building structures on it.
He alleged that “unknown” people had already changed the demography of lower and central Assam and were now targeting upper and north Assam.
Between 2016, when the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power, and August, 15,270 families – the majority of them Muslim – he been evicted from government land, according to data provided by the state revenue and disaster management department. At least eight Muslims he been shot dead during evictions carried out since 2016.
Also read:
How can Indian democracy allow the open oppression of Bengali-origin Muslims by Assam?Behind we of Assam evictions, a hungry river, and a land policy loaded against Miya MuslimsOpinion: In Assam, vicious communal rhetoric is putting democracy at risk