By Aban Abrar Biplob for TwoCircles.net
The recent terrorist attack in Dhaka, allegedly by the Islamic State (ISIS), has seen the Assam Government as well as the media, expresses concerns. On first impressions, these concerns seem valid as Assam has a long border with Bangladesh, along with more than one-third of Muslim population. Even though the Bangladesh government attributed these attacks to local organisations, it would not be surprising if these terrorists try making inroads in Assam. But a deeper look into the issue shows a completely different picture, which makes me wonder what the Assamese media is talking about.
Despite having 34% population and general grievances over harassment on citizenship issue and ethnic riots in Bodoland, no serious extremist group has ever been reported to have a presence among Muslim youths of Assam. It is interesting to note that almost all ethnic groups or tribes in Assam have had an armed militant group in some point of time; many of them like the Bodo outfit NDFB (Sonbijit) even staged mass killings of Muslims, tea tribes, Bengali Hindus etc. but Muslim youths have never, thankfully, taken up weapons.
But clearly, the Assamese media is not convinced it seems and believes that every terror attack in the world, whether by Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or ISIS has an impact in Assam. And their focus regarding the activities of that particular terrorist organization in Muslim majority areas seem focussed in the ‘Char areas’ (River islands of Brahmaputra). And sometimes, it borders on the ridiculous. When the US was spending millions of dollar in search of Bin Laden in Afghanistan-Pakistan bordering region, an Assamese daily reported that Bin Laden was ‘sighted’ in some obscure Char of Assam!
In the current situation, such flights of imagination are taking dangerous trends. Last week, a news channel reported that four dreaded ISIS terrorists entered Assam from Bangladesh through Dawki Border post in Meghalaya. The channel ran a commentary on the journey of the ISIS terrorists, with minute details like which motor bikes they rode, where they stopped, what they ate in which Dhaba. They even reported the zarda pan and brand of cigarette these dreaded terrorists consumed during their journey from the Dawki border to Assam. However, in their so called ‘exclusive big breaking’ news story the news channel could not divulge any substantial information or any facts. Subsequently, it was revealed that even the state police sleuths and central agencies also are not aware about any such grand entry of ISIS terrorist in Assam.
It is important to point out that these instances of shoddy and reckless journalism are not new in Assamese media. Two such reports in the past week generated a great amount of outrage and furore in the social media. ‘Asomiya Pratidin’, the highest-selling Assamese daily. It is often alleged to be the path breaker of Yellow Journalism in Assam and true to this label, they declared on their headline of July 11 that the ‘Char’ areas (Muslim inhabited river islands) are already under the net of Jehad and full swing arms training is going on in these ‘Chars’ to perpetrate terrorist attacks on Assam . The only evidence they published was a photo in which few young girls in hijab were shown performing some martial art.
However, Bangalore-based software engineer Rajiv Ranjan discovered that the photo used in the report as evidence is not actually from Assam. It was a photo taken in 2014 during ‘National Girl Child Day’ celebration in St Maze School, Hyderabad, in which some school girls demonstrated their martial art skill. The photo was published in national media, including ‘The Hindu’. Once the lies of the newspaper were exposed, it created a great amount of resentment in social media. Many social organizations are even contemplating to take legal action against ‘Asomiya Pratidin’.
But the media house that runs the newspaper was not done here and learnt no lessons from readers pointing out the mistakes in their story. ‘Pratidin Time’, the news channel of the same media house was running a video during last two days in which an ISIS terrorist was warning of ‘Jihad’ in Afghanistan and Al-Sham. For the uninitiated, Al-Sham is the region bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea including Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and Jordan, usually known as the Levant. But the news channel claimed that ISIS is warning of Jihad in Afghanistan and Assam. Subsequently, the Assam Police on Saturday through a press release clarified that the claim of the News Channel was false. And in the video the terrorist mentioned Al-Sham, not Assam.
Many social activists believe that these are not mere editorial mistakes; rather a deliberate and part of a greater propaganda. The Pratidin group is often alleged as the founder of Islamophobia in Assam. In past also they published photos with catchy captions like ‘Illegal foreigners arrested with deadly weapons in hands’. Later on it was found that they were not foreigners but Assamese Muslim labourers and the so-called ‘deadly weapons’ were nothing but mere agrarian tools of day to day use like sickle and spade. Popular Assamese blogger Muhammad Ibn Batuta believes this hatred towards Muslims was systematically made a part of Assamese psyche since Assam Agitation of late seventies. According to him, the Assam agitation was initially against the ‘Outsiders’ (All non-Assamese), then the focus changed from ‘Outsiders’ to ‘Foreigners’ (including Hindu Bangladeshi and Nepalis). But at this juncture RSS highjacked Assam agitation and the focus changed from ‘Foreigners’ to ‘Bangladeshis’, which was slowly changed from ‘Bangladeshi’ to ‘Miya’, slang used for Bengal origin Muslims in Assam. However, over the years ‘Miya’ also changed by a plain ‘Muslims’. He claims that in the cartoons published in Assamese media, a ‘Bangladeshi’ is always depicted as a bearded Muslim man with skul cap.
Dr Akash Barua dismisses such social psyche and claims that Assamese society is very tolerant and secular. Assam in popular parlance is called as the land of Shankar and Ajan, after the great Bhakti saint Shankar Dev and Sufi saint Ajan Peer. He explains that, due to influx of illegal Bangladeshis over the years, there is a threat perception among all Assamese irrespective of religion, of losing political power and demographic balance. This perception of threat is being utilized by the vernacular media to sensationalise news to attract more viewership. However, he agrees that in their zeal to create sensation, Assamese media often passes sweeping comments or indulge in over generalization about Muslims which is no less than holding the whole community responsible for a crime which was never actually committed.
At a time when Islamophobia has found acceptance among all mainstream media, the visibility of this trend in Assam is neither shocking nor surprising. It is our duty to expose and challenge these claims so that the truth does not become hostage to rumour and hate mongering.