Bodo vs Bangladeshi

[G.Subramaniam]

Tehelka = First brought in by the British for their expertise in wetland cultivation, Muslims from the then East Bengal came into Assam to further the British policy of ‘grow more food’. As the Assamese fought to assert their language in a Bangla-dominated school system, they found political support from Bengali Muslims, who not only accepted Assamese as the medium of instruction in their schools, but also as their mother tongue. Realising that the Muslim community voted as a block, the Congress party seized the opportunity to nurture and cultivate a votebank by creating conditions that encouraged infiltration from East Pakistan from 1951 to 1971.