Nellie massacre

Nellie Massacre
Assam is located in India
Assam
Assam
Assam (India)
LocationAssam, India
Coordinates26°06′41″N 92°19′02″E / 26.111483°N 92.317253°E / 26.111483; 92.317253
Date18 February 1983
TargetImmigrant Bengal-origin Muslims[1][2]
Attack type
Deportation, mass murder
Deaths2,191+ , 10,000+ (unofficial)
PerpetratorA mob of a few hundred Tiwas[3]
MotiveXenophobia, Anti-immigration,[4] Anti-Bangladeshi Sentiments[4]
Part of a series on
Violence against Muslims
in independent India
Major incidents

The Nellie massacre took place in central Assam during a six-hour period on the morning of 18 February 1983.[5][6] The massacre claimed the lives of 1,600–2,000 people[7] from 14 villages—Alisingha, Khulapathar, Basundhari, Bugduba Beel, Bugduba Habi, Borjola, Butuni, Dongabori, Indurmari, Mati Parbat, Muladhari, Mati Parbat no. 8, Silbheta, Borburi and Nellie—of Nagaon district.[8][9] The victims were Muslim of Bengali origin.[10][6][11] Three media personnel—Hemendra Narayan of The Indian Express, Bedabrata Lahkar of The Assam Tribune and Sharma of ABC—were witnesses to the massacre.[12]

The violence that took place in Nellie by natives—mostly rural peasants—was seen as a fallout of the decision to hold the controversial state elections in 1983[13] in the midst of the Assam Agitation, after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's decision to give four million Bengali Muslims the right to vote.[8][14] It has been described as one of the worst pogroms since World War II and one of the deadliest pogroms against a minority community in post partition India.[15][16]

  1. ^ Kimura 2013, p. 1.
  2. ^ "There is a sharp difference between Bengal-origin Muslim in Assam and Bengali Muslim. Often I notice people from outside Assam confusing the two, including the national media in articles published outside the state. We identify ourselves as Bengal-origin Assamese Muslims. We are not Bengali. We are not Bengali Muslims. The Muslims in Assam’s Barak Valley often identify themselves as Bengali Muslims, not us. But we have not been able to make people from the outside see the difference." (Pisharoty 2019)
  3. ^ Vijayan, Suchitra (February 2021). Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. Melville House Publishing. pp. 133, 137. ISBN 978-1-61219-858-3.
  4. ^ a b "Nellie Massacre: 40 Years Later, a Cautionary Tale for Today's India". The physical violence flowed directly from the emotive violence generated by the agitation, which sought the expulsion of "illegal Bengalis/Bangladeshis" from Assam.
  5. ^ "...the majority of the participants were rural peasants belonging to mainstream communities, or from the lower strata of the caste system categorized as Scheduled Castes or Other Backward Classes." (Kimura 2013, p. 5)
  6. ^ a b Kokrajhar; Dhubri (24 August 2012). "Killing for a homeland". The Economist Banyan blog. Archived from the original on 25 August 2012.
  7. ^ "On February 18, 1983 about 3000 Muslims of East Bengal origin were killed in several villages around Nellie." (Kimura 2013:68)
  8. ^ a b "83 polls were a mistake: KPS Gill". Assam Tribune. 18 February 2008. Archived from the original on 7 February 2012. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  9. ^ Rehman, Teresa (30 September 2006), "Nellie Revisited: The Horror's Nagging Shadow", Tehelka, archived from the original on 11 November 2006, retrieved 19 February 2008
  10. ^ Kimura, Makiko (2013b), "The Nellie Massacre", in Meghna Guhathakurta; Willem van Schendel (eds.), The Bangladesh Reader: History, Culture, Politics, Duke University Press, p. 481, ISBN 978-0-8223-5318-8: "In this incident, the local people, including the Assamese and tribes... attacked the Muslim immigrants from East Bengal."
  11. ^ Mander, Harsh (14 December 2008). "Nellie : India's forgotten massacre". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 16 December 2008. Retrieved 9 October 2012.: "A crowd quickly gathered: the older men with checked lungis and beards could easily be distinguished as people of East Bengali Muslim origin."
  12. ^ Main Uddin. "Genesis of Nellie massacre and Assam agitation". Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  13. ^ "The purpose of this study is to assess the verdict, if any, of Assam's controversial elections which were held in February 1983, under conditions of widespread violence and obviously incompetent official arrangements of electoral facilities." (Dasgupta & Guha 1985:843)
  14. ^ Goel, Rekha. "25 years on...Nellie still haunts". The Statesman. Retrieved 8 December 2011.[permanent dead link‍]
  15. ^ Hussain, Monirul (1 February 2009). Sibaji Pratim Basu (ed.). The Fleeing People of South Asia: Selections from Refugee Watch. Anthem. p. 261. ISBN 978-8190583572.
  16. ^ "Nellie Massacre: 40 Years Later, a Cautionary Tale for Today's India". The Wire. Retrieved 30 April 2023.