Census: Assam now has 9 Muslim-majority districts

GUWAHATI: The census 2011 religion data has revealed Assam has nine Muslim-majority districts compared to six in 2001. But the figures do not say how the redrawing of the state’s internal map changed the demography in two of these three districts that made it to the minority-to-majority list.

In 2001, the districts with more than 50% Muslims were Barpeta, Dhubri, Goalpara, Hailakandi, Karimganj and Nagaon. Assam then had 23 districts.

According to the 2011 census, the Muslim population in these districts has increased by an average 5.26%.The increase appears sharper – by an average 15.16% – in the new Muslim-majority districts of Bongaigaon, Darrang and Morigaon.

In 2003, Assam got four new districts. While Kamrup Metropolitan district covering Guwahati and outskirts was carved out of Kamrup district, the tribal Bodoland Territorial Council created that year got three new districts – Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri.

Barpeta and Bongaigaon districts were almost halved to create Chirang. The northern parts of Nalbari and Kamrup districts formed Baksa while large swathes of Darrang yielded Udalguri.

“The latest data say Udalguri has 73.64% Hindus compared to 12.66% Muslims while Darrang now has 64.34% Muslims and 35.25% Hindus compared to 35.54% Muslims and 57.74% Hindus in 2001. If Darrang were undivided, the population distribution would have come to 53.39% Hindus and 39.92% Muslims,” a census officer said, declining to be quoted.

The case is similar for Bongaigaon district, which had 38.52% Muslims in 2001 compared to 50.22% now. But calculating the ‘undivided’ scenario is difficult since it yielded roughly half of Chirang (66.5% Hindus and 22.62% Muslims). The other half came from Muslim-majority Barpeta.

Chirang and Udalguri have seen most of the incidents of communal violence in Assam in the past five years. These often spilled over to Barpeta and Dhubri, where the population of Muslims went up from 74. 29% in 2001 to 79.67% in 2011 while the Hindu population shrunk to 19.92% from 24.74% during this decade.

Dhubri is one of two districts of Assam that borders Bangladesh.

The other is Karimganj, where Muslims are up 56.26% from 52.3% in 2001 and Hindus are down 42.18% from 46.7% in 2001.

Morigaon is the only undivided district where Muslims went from minority to majority (52.56% in 2011 compared to 47.59% in 2001).

Organisations such as All Assam Tribal Sangha have sought reclamation of the British-identified tribal blocks and belts to prevent the indigenous groups from being blanked out by illegal Bangladeshis, the politically correct term for Bengali-speaking Muslims who have allegedly encroached upon these zones.