As evictions continue, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma invokes Lachit Borphukan and Bir Chilarai. It was under the leadership of Borphukan that the armies of Oxom crushed the Mughals at Xoraighat, their 17th  and last attempt to take Assam. Among Chilarai’s many military exploits, was the invasion of Sylhet, then under the rule of the Karrani dynasty of the Bengal Sultanate. “We have Borphukan and Chilarai’s blood in our veins. Borphukan went to the battlefield even when he was unwell. We too will fight…” Every Assamese, Sarma said, must be ready for war.

But lets first talk about the politics that led to this. As we watch Bharat script history in its fight against illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas, their systematic settlement in India that started it all is a result of gross political impropriety on the part of several very desperate political parties that sold this country out to somehow win elections through ‘vote-banks’ comprising what they called ‘minority’ communities, who, in turn, overran entire districts. The current unrest is the price we now pay for the deeds of the Congress party and its votebank electoral antics.

As their cup of shamelessly anti-national politics brims over, the nation has reacted and responded, across the board—from ordering evictions across wide swathes of land that were colonized, to deportation exercises, to the denotification of certain national identity documents, to ordering a recheck of electoral rolls in places where the number of votes cast exceeds the number of actual voters, to empowering deputy commissioners to decide who gets to stay in the country, and, more importantly, who does not.

To the surprise of those who were hellbent on conning the country by labelling the problem to be one of Assam and Assam alone, evictions are now happening in multiple states not just within the Northeast but in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, the one place that had, especially during the time of the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party not just looked away from the illegal migrants issue but actually encouraged their settlements. Internationally, the opposition to the evictions is close to zero, a result of the silent jihad that entire continents are now being dragged through. Vested regional interests are now having to watch their voices drown in the national outcry against illegal migrants, forces that side with Pakistan during a war, threaten to take over the Northeast, and create unprecedented religious tension. In effect, there is now no difference between the pushback against radical Islamic crowds across Europe, for example, and what is happening in India.

It was a matter of time before this happened—only those who were responsible for creating the phenomenon decided that they would, whatever the cost to the nation, prevent the wrong from being corrected. Hence the visits by politicians who guarantee the Assam chief minister’s arrest should their party cpme to power, the harping on the ‘moral’ weight of evictions (but not the creation of religious votebanks) on the conscience of the Oxomiya, the pointing out of what they claim is ‘illegal’ in the entire eviction and pushback exercise (but not the creation of laws that made the usurping of India in the modern age possible)…

In a more localized context, the arrival of Gaurav Gogoi, son of former chief minister Tarun Gogoi from Delhi, resulted in what was only to be expected: the creation all over again of ethnic fault lines in the state’s political landscape, of groupings of people who go by certain surnames. As for the promises made by him and his leaders of the Congress ‘high command’ included reconstructing houses for encroachers whose illegal houses had been destroyed.

The question that weighs heavy on the minds of local indigenous communities is whether the land that has been cleared of encroachers will stay clear of encroachers. For one, the widespread fear of indigenous communities that saw their land usurped by illegals has dipped post evictions. Reports of their asking for eviction in other localities are rising. Additionally for the first time in history, and in a complete reversal of situations, compared to the days of the Congress, both government and most local organisations be it in the Brahmaputra valley or the Barak are for the first time on the same page and in agreement—that come what may, Bangladeshis have to go. With law enforcement now being used for the state’s people rather than against them as was the practice before, there is renewed awareness, energy and effectiveness in the drive against illegals.

The state government, for its part has done something that is unprecedented: declare that people in border areas that are suffering from unabated influx will be issued arms to protect their land and that of their communities from encroachers, whose pattern it has been to arrive in droves and take over land from those it belongs to, in weeks, sometimes even overnight.

As expected, both the proposed arming of people and the widespread eviction drives have atrracted flak from neighbouring states, one of which is expected to see a change in government should illegals not vote for a certain party. The situation is exactly that which Assam faced a few decades ago. The question that parties such as the Congress and other pro-illegals parties are not willing to answer is this: Why and how did the situation come to this? Truth is Assam and Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and Delhi are now undoing a terrifying situation that has been created by pro-Bangladeshi parties. The good news: that in a new India, the parties that stand with the country are determined to go the whole hog to dismantle Bangladeshi vote-bank politics in the country, no matter what it takes, be it disenfranchisement, deportation, even bifurcation of Bangladesh to resettle the illegals who came there.

For those whose political fortunes have come to depend on the Bangladeshi vote, they will in future have to earn their votes from Indians.

This news platform and think tank does not make space for pieces on specific individuals, as this is a space that is reserved for writing that is strictly nationalist. However, we consider it to be incumbent upon us to flag an issue should we consider it to be one that can impact public interest at large. In this case, it concerns the arrival of Gaurav Gogoi, son of late Tarun Gogoi, the longest serving chief minister of Assam who passed away in 2020, as president of the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC). Tarun Gogoi, a very highly respected person in state politics, had held the position of chief minister for 15 long years in Assam, a state that was till then–and till it saw the departure of Himanta Biswa Sarma, Gogoi senior’s right-hand man, from its fold–a Congress bastion.

Anyone even remotely familiar with the ethnic structure of Assam would expect a certain realignment of ethnic forces as Gaurav arrived on the scene in May this year, his position as Pradesh Congress president having been fortified by the ‘high command’ in Delhi. Gaurav’s performance on the floor of Parliament too had brought him his share of laurels in Assam. Hence the age-old dynasty dynamic of political entitlement would have been a given in his case, as would the rejoicement of certain self-proclaimed jatiyo media houses where content is driven more by political self-interest than interests of the jaati (community).

That said, Gaurav’s initial public meetings and statements to the Press smacked of insecurity, loaded as they were with dangerous portents of oppression, laying bare his layered fears of what he and his party feel are the biggest existential threat to the Congress. “All RSS and Bajrang Dal members who had come in from outside the state should be monitored by the Assam police”, Gaurav said at a public meeting. Import: that deep-set fear of Gaurav and his party of the quiet, systematic work that the RSS and its sister organisations do, grassroots-level social activities being their strongest point, something that no other organization in the country seems to equipped to deliver–on a sustained basis, and in times both of peace and calamity.

The Sangh Parivar works on this tirelessly, and on several fronts simultaneously: reaching out to communities previously ignored and sidelined by the ‘mainstream’, setting up thousands of ‘single-teacher’ schools, protecting marginalized ethnic belief systems and non-mainstream religions, working on history and fighting false narratives created by bluntly biased historians, fighting for majority rights while bringing on board minority communities who have been wronged by their own… The list is endless. It is this that converted the state of Assam, once a Congress stronghold, into a BJP state. As is the case with Tripura and other areas of the Northeast, which lie targetted by ungratefuls such as Bangladesh. Those are the security dividends that the RSS has earned through decades of untiring work in the region.

This fear of organization, the tireless functioning and outreach of the RSS, is something that people such as Rahul Gandhi cannot seem to imagine Congress cadres delivering, their only claim to organized effort being the Independence movement a century ago.

Hence the easier thing for Rahul to do: label the RSS as being an organization that functions like the radical Islamic ‘Muslim Brotherhood’, which across nations advocates a return to the Qurān and the Hadith to ‘reform’ society. Trouble with trying to build that narrative is that the beneficiaries of the work done by the RSS and its affiliates, will never agree with the scion. It is something late Tarun Gogoi too acknowledged.

And yet younger Congress politicians  of the day such as Rahul and Gaurav press on with their efforts. With a visible lack of dedicated workers in their ranks, they are happy to name call and label–their best bet, they seem to believe, at tacking the RSS.

That is not the worrisome bit though… The worrisome part is that both Rahul and Gaurav’s and their party’s long-term strategy in the matter. If history is anything to go by, their push could just be towards criminalizing organisations such as the RSS and Bajrang Dal, while preventing their entry into Assam and the Northeast, where their work brings about social–and hence political—cohesiveness among communities disparate in language, culture, faith and political thought. In a land where Macaulay and his mission have determined the discourse for many decades, the RSS and its affiliates have managed to redefine ‘missionary zeal’. Rahul and Gaurav attempt to bring an end to that by criminally labelling the RSS, their actions hauntingly same as those that were put into effect in the past, which saw the banning of the RSS four times. Every single time, though, the RSS and its its ranks returned, consolidated and stronger.

Currently, Assam emerges as a leading BJP stronghold with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma not one to hold back be it in words or action. Sarma and the BJP’s success in dealing with the most critical of issues—that of illegal migration from Bangladesh—is what unsettles the Congress, a party that aligns with ‘minorities’ of a certain community that grow increasingly radical in its actions, be it illegally occupying land or illegally acquiring citizenship and voting rights. Sarma and the BJP’s managing to rein them in, while the Congress tries to revive their lifeline in Assam through the same ‘votebank’ is what pushes the state towards a showdown between the two sides. In all of this what the Congress seems not particularly willing to acknowledge is that the Sangh Parivar in the state is protected to quite an extent by a range of judicial orders that have gone in its favour. Attempting to negate this by creating extra-judicial impediments can only make things worse for Rahul, Gaurav and their party. If the fight were to be fair, the Opposition would take decades to even come close to what the RSS has achieved in terms of establishing non-political, grassroots credibility, something they could have done in the decades they were in power. That the BJP continues to win elections in Assam and many parts of the Northeast is proof of the Congress’s failure and the RSS’s success.

The epoch-making reasons of that development lay elsewhere: the silent majority of Bharat had spoken, decisively, without fear, or acceptance of favour. Without fear of not making it through to that ‘secular’ grade that had been thrust on our people in 1976, and without having to acknowledge the ‘favour’ that colonialism had apparently done the modern-day Indian, both of which servile political parties had for decades said were an imperative for the Bharatiya to be modern-world worthy.

2014 was the year when the civilisationally Hindu way of life, that had for long been derided by the elite of ‘modern India’, was restated through the ballot. Thomas Babington  Macaulay’s 1835 ‘Minute in English’ dream that Ma Bharati could be shackled into producing a class of Bharatiyas who were “Indian in blood and color, but English in tastes, opinions, in morals and in intellect” had died a dishonorurable death.

The responsibility of restating Bharat’s position as a civilization that had since time immemorial ruled the world in tastes, opinions, morals and in intellect, Macaulay’s self-claimed area of dominion, was given to the Bharatiya Janata Party and its sister organisations. And Narendra Damodardas Modi, the country was convinced, was the best person to be entrusted with the responsibility of being the standard bearer of the nation-rebuilding endeavour that Bharat was embarking on.

Tejasvi Surya, a 34 year old BJP MP from Bangalore, puts it succinctly, regarding the “perverted” brand of secularism that had been thrust on this country, under which “A Muslim can be Muslim, a Christian can be Christian but a Hindu had to be secular”. It was incumbent upon our people both morally and politically to set right this wrong that had been inflicted on Bharat, for the simple reason that this involved not just a religion or a way of life, but the evolutionary path of an age-old civilization.

That development in 2014 sent the emotional and nationalist stocks of the country soaring, while at the same time sending many of the other parties, many of them dynastically entitled they thought, into a tizzy, a political shock they are yet to come to terms with. Punished by the people for their misdoings and singular opposition to the Bharatiya way, they decided to hit back with desperate acts of anti-nationalism, sabotage and wilful disruption, orchestrated from both within the country and abroad.

The political maturity of those who had been entrusted with Bharat’s rebuilding was marked not just by remarkable achievements on the economic and political fronts but also a certain political sobriety and farsightedness that involved taking forward the good that the country had achieved till 2014, discarding the rotten, and setting goals that would till only recently have been considered unachievable. Barring a few inconsequential neighbours, the world responded; the Indian passport became more valued and respected than it was ever before, the pride of being Bharatiya—and a Hindu representative of the Bharatiya civilisation–began to successfully reclaim its place in the world. While Hindu pride was being restored, the country, despite all efforts to the contrary by some, spoke as one, no matter what the religion or cultural denomination. Operation Sindoor is proof.

The dividends that Bharat has reaped in recent times are there for all to see, on all fronts: wars won, food self-sufficiency further built on and taken forward, the emergence of Bharat as an international technical hub and a hub for military development and hardware, its space programme, its strides towards achieving green energy targets, its position as an international centre for medical research and development, its never-before dimensions of infrastructure and connectivity development, its renewed position as a giant among the countries of the world politically, economically, culturally and spiritually. Milestones have been erected, rather quietly, while Ma Bharati’s call that her position as Vishwaguru be reclaimed by her children, is a national objective that is now well within reach.

In all of this, there has been a seismic shift in the way Bharatiyas now express themselves, putting their Bharatiyata first. Be it newspapers, television channels, news portals or social media, there is now a stated position that much of this country’s media takes: that progress has to keep in mind our civilizational context, that it is the history of defenders that matters and not that of pillagers and conquerers, that the majority religion of this country is inherently inclusive and nurturing of all faiths and religious practices and does not require an elitist ‘secular’ stamp of approval, that our Bharatiya identity is the only identity we have, one that the world has known, recognized and respected through the ages, that to be reinstated as Vishwaguru, the only way forward for the Bharatiya people is the civilisationally Bharatiya way.

thebharatiya.in stands with Bharat.

The past runs deep in Guwahati’s ancient Dighali Pukhuri, the city’s largest manmade tank that was once a part of the Brahmaputra that flows in all it fury a few hundred metres away, making its way through its most celebrated narrow, that was once the site of the famous Battle of Xoraighat, in 1671. It was here that soldiers of Oxom, under the leadership of the famed Ahom general Lachit Barphukan crushed the Mughals in their 17th expansionist expedition, their last ever attempt to conquer Oxom, the strategic gateway to Southeast Asia. Back then, Dighali Pukhuri served as a dock for the war going boats. The tank is believed to have been originally been dug by King Bhagadatta of Kamrup a ruler of many celebrated exploits, so much so that he finds mention in the ancient Bharatiya epic of Mahabharata, believed to have been written sometime between 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century CE. The pukhuri is a sprawling water body, over a hectare and a half in size. Surrounded by trees that have stood sentinel through a lot of the history of this land, Dighali Pukhuri is a marvel that attracts hundreds of visitors a day.

This is where Milin Dutta and his team of a few dozen meet every Sunday morning. Armed with their forks and spades and brooms and red buckets marked ‘hazardous waste’ they’re there early, before the crowds arrive. Their objective: to rid the ancient pukhuri of the garbage that lurks within its waters, tossed in by visitors who perhaps find the business of walking to the installed garbage bins a little too tedious.

Milin, a software engineer who was earlier based in the US took it upon himself to start the drive, one that gradually grows into a movement among people of all age. “We have collected well over 1100 kgs of plastic and dry non-organic waste from Dighali Pukhuri,” he says. The inspiration to launch a citizens’ movement here came from his experience outside of Assam. “I had seen such work being done in the US and in places such as Himachal Pradesh. That got me going here…”. The philosophy that backs his work is simple: “What are we leaving for the future? Why are people not taking responsiblity for the environment around them?”

That is how Reclaim Guwahati, the initiative to make Guwahatians more environment-conscious, came about. “Why should the government have to hire expertise from outside the region? Once they leave, environmental projects get abandoned. We individually and together must take responsibility for what we have.” Given the growing participation, the results at Dighali Pukhuri are striking.

Sunday mornings at Dighali Pukhuri have now come to mean a bunch of glove-clad, dedicated people gathering by its banks to clean up the waters of the ancient pond. Post operations, discussions include impromptu classes in waste disposal by volunteers who come there to clean and share their expertise and experience. All efforts are pro bono, Guwahatians’ shram daan to reclaim what is rightfully theirs. Breakfast involves bananas, boiled eggs and tea, again conjured up by someone or the other, simply because he or she wants to. Volunteers include people from outside the state as well, young professionals who have come to Guwahati to work but love the greens and blues, clean, untouched and undisturbed, the way they are meant to be. Social bonus for those who revel in getting their hands dirty, religiously every Sunday morning, comes by way of potlucks at Milin’s home. “I just throw my doors open to the crowd. The rest just happens.” Plans for the future include cleaning up the other water bodies in Guwahati and spreading the good word of Nature.

“I really hope to see our localities have their own groups of volunteers, people who will take responsibility for their neighbourhoods. No one knows their localities better than those who live there. Whenever the governments needs to do something in a neighbourhood, these local groups should interface…” The water at Dighali Pukhuri, meanwhile, is cleaner, while those watching the saviours of Dighali Pukhuri at work are perhaps a little more inspired to keep Guwahati clean. Besides the pukhuri, a bronze coloured statue of Bharat Ratna Dr Bhupen Hazarika, Assam’s famous singer-songwriter stands quiet but watchful. “Thor loga beel khoni, tomar xuwoni dapon,” he had once written of Autumn, that the still waters of a lake are her mirror. Thanks to the Sunday Saviours of Reclaim Guwahati, that mirror is now being cleaned and polished, with a whole lot of love, labour and laughter. Bhupenda must be proud…