Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma & WB counterpart Mamata Banerjee engage in a bitter verbal volley over infiltration, identity & language

Guwahati: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee are engaged in a bitter verbal volley over the Bengali speaking, identity and demographic shift.

Banerjee stated in X, “The second most spoken language in the country, Bangla, is also the second most spoken language of Assam. To threaten citizens, who want to coexist peacefully respecting all languages and religions, with persecution for upholding their own mother tongue is discriminatory and unconstitutional. This divisive agenda of the BJP in Assam has crossed all limits and people of Assam will fight back. I stand with every fearless citizen who is fighting for the dignity of their language and identity, and their democratic rights.”

Sarma replied, “In Assam, we are not fighting our own people. We are fearlessly resisting the ongoing, unchecked Muslim infiltration from across the border, which has already caused an alarming demographic shift. In several districts, Hindus are now on the verge of becoming a minority in their own land. This is not a political narrative—it’s a reality. Even the Supreme Court of India has termed such infiltration as external aggression. And yet, when we rise to defend our land, culture, and identity, you choose to politicize it. “

He continued, “We do not divide people by language or religion. Assamese, Bangla, Bodo, Hindi—all languages and communities have coexisted here. But no civilisation can survive if it refuses to protect its borders and its cultural foundation. While we are acting decisively to preserve Assam’s identity, you, Didi, have compromised Bengal’s future—encouraging illegal encroachment by a particular community, appeasing one religious community for vote banks, and remaining silent as border infiltration eats away at national integrity—all just to stay in power. Assam will continue to fight to preserve its heritage, its dignity, and its people—with courage and constitutional clarity”.

Controversy started earlier this month when Sarma said that Assamese is the state language and there cannot be blackmail to it. He said that threats by some minority organizations that they will not write Assamese as their mother tongue in the census will only quantify the number of foreigners.

All Bodoland Territorial Council Minority Students Union (ABMSU) threatened to replace language in the census. He threatened to replace Assamese with Bengali following the state government’s eviction drive in Dhubri.

Sarma had said, "Language cannot be used as a tool for blackmail. In Assam, Assamese is permanent — both as the state and official language. However, if they write Bengali in electoral rolls or census, it will only quantify the number of foreigners in the state.”

ABMSU leader Mainuddin Ali said that Bengali-speaking Muslims would now choose to write Bengali — not Assamese — in public declarations, claiming that Assamese would no longer remain a majority language.

All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) affiliated workers' union, the Indian National Trinamool Trade Union Congress (INTTUC), staged a protest march against the National Register of Citizens(NRC) in Siliguri, condemning the alleged harassment and pushback of migrant Bengali-speaking individuals from several BJP-ruled states.

Muslims comprise 34% of the 3.12 crore population of Assam, of which 4% are indigenous Assamese Muslims and the remaining are mostly Bengali- speaking Muslims.