India Creates Its Own Border Crisis
The government has decreed that nearly two million people in Assam aren’t citizens. So now what?
The campaign seems targeted at Muslims.
Photographer: David Talukdar/AFP/Getty ImagesIndia’s far northeast is beautiful, friendly and one of the most ethnically, religiously and linguistically diverse places on earth. Multiple distinct ethnic groups share the hills, dales and great valley of the Brahmaputra River with indigenous tribes, tea garden workers originally from central India, ethnic Nepalese, and Bengalis -- both Hindu and Muslim -- from the Gangetic delta.
As in other heterogenous parts of the world -- think of the Balkans -- old grievances have festered and new ones have been found over the years, leading to a sad succession of separatist movements, anti-“outsider” agitations and ethnic massacres. Now, the Indian government has decided that almost two million residents of the northeastern state of Assam may not be Indian citizens, and the state, region and India itself confront a crisis of their own making.