Assam’s Miyas are one of India’s most disadvantaged communities. And the past decade has made their lives even more precarious.
Voting is often the only chance that many of India’s marginalised groups get to express themselves. As national elections approach, Scroll’s reporters fanned out across the country to talk to groups with little socio-political power as part of a series called the View from the Margins. The aim: try to understand how the powerless and the voiceless have fared under a decade of the Modi government.
One evening in March, just after breaking their Ramzan fast, a small group of young men gather in a small room on the outskirts of Barpeta town in Assam to inaugurate a media collective.
“After every eviction, the Assamese media portray the evicted people as bideshi or suspected foreigners,” 31-year-old poet Kazi Sharowar Hussain, told the gathering, referring to the state government’s drive against alleged encroachment that had mostly targeted Muslims of Bengali-origin. “They celebrate the evictions and its victims are dehumanised.”
Hussain, however, wanted to fight back: “We will talk about our sufferings, culture and struggles through this platform.”
Hussain is part of Assam’s Miya community. Once used to disparage Muslims of Bengali-origin, the community reclaimed the slur, adopting it as the name of their community. Attacked on both the axes of ethnicity and religion, Miyas are one of India’s marginalised communities.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.