Assam: Will ‘break backbone’ of ‘Miyas’ if BJP returns to power, says CM Himanta Sarma
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Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday said that his government would “break the backbone” of “Miyas” in the state if the Bharatiya Janata Party returns to power in the Assembly elections, PTI reported.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Dhakuakhana of Lakhimpur district, Sarma said that his government had worked for the “indigenous people of the state”.
“And those who came from Bangladesh and encroached on Assam’s land and homes, we broke their hands and legs politically,” PTI quoted the chief minister as saying.
He added: “This time, we will break the very backbone of the Bangladeshi Miyas, so that they cannot dare the Assamese people.”
In Assam, “Miya” is a derogatory word used to refer to undocumented immigrants and is exclusively directed at Muslims of Bengali origin. They are often accused of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.
Once a pejorative in Assam, from the common use of the honorific “Miya” among South Asian Muslims, the term has now been reappropriated by the community as a self-descriptor to refer to Muslims who migrated to Assam from Bengal during the colonial era.
In the past months, Sarma has made a series of remarks targeting Miyas, including claiming that it was his job to “make them suffer” and saying that he had directed BJP workers to file applications...