The total geographical area of Assam is 78,438 square kilometres. This includes the Brahmaputra Valley, the Barak Valley, and the two hill districts. The Brahmaputra and Barak rivers, along with their more than fifty tributaries, give Assam a unique riverine geography. However, this very riverine nature has now become the cause of a severe land crisis in the state. According to the Economic Survey of Assam, recurring floods and riverbank erosion have reduced the state’s agricultural land and settlement-heavy areas, creating a serious imbalance in the human-to-land ratio.
According to various reports by the Rashtriya Barh Ayog (RBA) and the Brahmaputra Board, more than 4.27 lakh hectares of land in Assam have been permanently lost to the riverbeds since the great earthquake of 1950. This amount is approximately 7.5 percent of the state’s total land area.
Reports indicate that the annual rate of erosion in Assam is extremely alarming. Every year, an average of 8,000 to 10,000 hectares of fertile land is swallowed by rivers. As a result, more than 2,534 villages have been completely obliterated, and over 4,000 villages have been partially submerged in the riverbeds. Although official statistics for homeless and landless people are unavailable, it can be estimated from the number of submerged villages that 2.5 million to 3 million people have been rendered homeless and landless due to erosion in post-Independence Assam.
Erosion has devastated not only villages but also historic towns and tea gardens in Assam. Substantial parts of the historic towns of Sadiya and Palashbari have been washed away by rivers. Similarly, the protective embankment of Dibrugarh town in Upper Assam has been endangered a number of times. A vivid example of this is the complete submergence of vast tea gardens and agricultural lands in the Rohmoria region of Dibrugarh district into the Brahmaputra.
Due to the lack of proper government policies to resettle the millions of people made landless by erosion and floods, internal migration accelerated in the state. Furthermore, population pressure and deforestation have led to widespread encroachment on reserved forests, riverine chars (sandbars), and government khas lands. On one hand, the search for shelter by erosion-affected people has turned the problem of land encroachment across every corner of Assam into a complex social and political issue. Between 2021 and 2026, the Government of Assam launched an unprecedented, comprehensive campaign to “free from encroachment” reserved forests, wetlands (beels), satra lands, tribal belts-blocks, and government khas lands. According to data from the government and various human rights organisations, at least 33 largescale eviction operations have been conducted in the state within these five years. Consequently, more than 22,000 houses or structures have been demolished, and roughly 20,387 families comprising over 100,000 people have directly faced eviction.
Overview of Major Eviction Operations Across Assam
- Goalpara District: The Goalpara District Administration and forest authorities executed multiple largescale eviction drives across the district between 2024 and 2026. The operations began on Dec. 13, 2024, targeting settlements on forest lands in the Pancharatna area under the Balijan Circle. This was followed by a massive three-day drive from June 16 to June 18, 2025, at HasilaBeel, where authorities cleared 1,555 bighas of encroached government wetland, displacing over 566 families who were largely river erosion victims and prompting an immediate intervention by the Gauhati High Court to provide basic amenities for the victims.
Shortly after, on July 16, 2025, a high-intensity eviction drive was carried out in the Paikan Reserve Forest, resulting in violent clashes and death of a civilian during police firing as authorities demolished 2,700 structures.
Later that year, on Nov. 9, 2025, a drive cleared 476 acres of the Dahikata Reserve Forest. The scope of the evictions shifted to agricultural zones on Sep. 7, 2026, when the administration razed 73 homes across five villages in the Matia Circle. However, the Gauhati High Court strongly rebuked the rapid 24-hour notice and halted further operations.
Collectively, these drives displaced 2299 families, leaving communities in temporary makeshift camps while legal challenges continue.
- Dhubri District: Various char areas and villages under the Chapar revenue circle were cleared on July 8, 2025, displacing more than 1,400 families and leaving over 10,000 people homeless. These evictions were conducted to pave the way for Adani Power Ltd.’s large 3,200 MW coal-based thermal power plant. People who had lived there for generations were evicted without appropriate compensation or alternative rehabilitation, and the land was promptly handed over to the Adani Group.
- Darrang District: Evictions took place in Dhalpur villages No. 1, 2, and 3, and Gorukhuti (Sipajhar). Over 2,051 families were evicted on June 7, 2021 and Sep. 20 and 23, 2021, rendering more than 10,000 people homeless. Per Gauhati High Court directives, the process of allocating one bigha of land per family in Dalgaon has been progressing slowly, and many families still take shelter under cloth tents.
- HojaiDistrict: More than 550 families were evicted on Nov. 8-9, 2021 from the Lumding Reserved Forest, making roughly 7,200 tribal Garo, Chakma, and religious minority people homeless. Under the pretext of reclaiming ‘forest land’, no permanent government rehabilitation was arranged for the victims. The evicted people have had to spend their days in temporary tents amid extreme weather conditions and malnutrition.
- Kamrup Metropolitan District: Evictions were carried out on Sep. 9-12, 2024; Sep. 24-25, 2024 and April 14, 2025 in Kachutoli (Sonapur); on May 13, 2022; Feb. 27-March 2, 2023 and Sep. 1-15, 2023 in SilsakoBil, and on Nov. 27-28, 2017 in the Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary. In Kachutoli alone, over 650 families were displaced; inclusive of Silsako and Amchang, more than 3,000 families in total were evicted.
Legal battles are ongoing regarding the tribal belt evictions in Sonapur’sKachutoli. The High Court sought clarification from the government regarding a concrete rehabilitation plan for the 650 evicted families.
- Lakhimpur District: Between 300 and 500 minority families were evicted on Jan. 10-11, 2023 from the Pabha Reserved Forest (proposed reserved forest). No government rehabilitation or aid has been provided to the victims to date, forcing the displaced people to independently seek shelter in neighbouring char areas.
- SonitpurDistrict: Evictions in the Burachapori Wildlife Sanctuary, Chaiduar, and Jamuguri rendered 1,000 to 1,400 families homeless on Feb. 14-16, 2023. Most of the evicted individuals are scattered over riverine char areas or neighbouring districts without any government assistance or rehabilitation.
- Nagaon District: Evictions around Batadrava (land adjacent to the satra) and surrounding areas left roughly 300 to 400 families homeless during Nov. 2022. While a few families (identified as ‘indigenous’) were given alternative land, a vast majority of the affected minority families still lead a nomadic existence without any rehabilitation.
- GolaghatDistrict: Evictions around Rengma Reserve Forest (UriamghatSector: No. 1 Madhupur, Rana Nagar, Hatidubi, Haldibari) were carried out on July 29, 2025 and on Aug. 18–19 & 26, 2025, displacing about 2500 families without providing them any rehabilitation.
It is worthy to mention here that the eviction drive was halted for about six months throughout the state due to the bye-election in the minority-dominated Nagaon Loksabha Constituency on Oct. 6, 2026. The eviction drive restarted in full swing in many districts just after the declaration of the result of bye-election.
The Politics of Eviction: Selective Action and Polarisation
This process of clearing encroachments could have been welcomed from a legal standpoint if it had been applied equally and impartially to all. However, the nature of recent evictions in Assam suggests deep political bias. According to Opposition parties, human rights organisations, and civil society, these evictions are not merely meant to establish the ‘rule of law’; rather, a well-planned politics of ‘selective eviction’ is active behind them.
Observing the patterns of eviction in Dhalpur, the Lumding forest, Pabha, HashilaBil, or Kachutoli, it becomes clear that more than 90 percent of the affected people belong to religious minorities (Muslims). Critics argue that instead of touching other influential encroachers or large institutions in many places, the government has targeted a specific community [Muslims] to secure the majority vote bank.
Evictions have been used as a political issue to polarise society along religious lines. In some radical political rhetoric, evicted people are wholesale labelled as ‘Bangladeshis’ or ‘outsiders’, attempting to suppress the genuine problems of indigenous erosion victims – a development that is extremely dangerous for society. At the very time when poor people who fell victim to river erosion in their native land or lived there for generations are being branded as ‘encroachers’ and evicted from their humble shelters, the government has simultaneously adopted policies to allot thousands of bighas of government and agricultural land to large corporate capitalist groups in the state. This ‘corporate appeasement’ is unfolding under the guise of industrialisation and development.
Land Allotted to Major Capitalist Groups
The Government of Assam has systematically cleared vast tracts of public, industrial, and forest land to accommodate major corporate conglomerates.
A major initiative occurred on Jan. 19, 2021, when a formal concession agreement was signed with the Adani Group allowing it to assume full operational control of Guwahati’s LGBI Airport on Oct. 8, 2021, under a 50-year lease. Later, in July 2025 for Expansion of Aerotropolis, the Kamrup (Metro) district administration issued land acquisition notices for an additional 400 bighas of land near the Airport.
In 2024, 515 acres of land from the defunct Nagaon Paper Mill in Jagiroad was handed over to the Tata Group for a semiconductor facility.
For commercial agriculture, the state cleared 10 hectares of the Phulaguri Seed Farm for Patanjali Ayurved on Feb. 24, 2025, adding to Patanjali’s earlier acquisitions of 150 acres in Tezpur in Nov. 2016 and 3,624 bighas in Chirang.
Corporate expansion into sensitive zones drew severe judicial scrutiny on Aug. 12, 2025, when the Gauhati High Court rebuked the state government for the allocation of 3,000 bighas of protected Sixth Schedule land in Umrangso to JK Lakshmi Cement’s subsidiary, Mahabal Cements.
Following massive civil evictions on July 8, 2025, over 3,500 bighas in Dhubri’s Chapar Circle was secured for a major power asset, leading to a commercial agreement with the Adani Group and the laying of its foundation stone on Sep. 20, 2026.
Additionally, the government pushed forward a massive 6,000-acre proposed land allotment in the Karbi Anglong autonomous tribal region for a 1,000 MW Mega Solar Power Project in alignment with the Ambani Group (Reliance Industries), which triggered widespread local protests.
Together, these strategic allocations underscore Assam’s aggressive push toward corporate-led industrialisation at the expense of poor farmers.
Violation of Constitutional and Human Rights
The ongoing eviction process in Assam directly violates multiple core principles of the Constitution of India and international human rights charters. The Supreme Court has interpreted Article 21 of the Constitution (Right to Life and Personal Liberty) multiple times to clarify that the right to life includes the right to dignified shelter and housing. Evictions carried out without rehabilitation deprive people of this fundamental right.
In most evicted areas, the right to education for thousands of children (Right to Education – Article 21A) has been completely shattered. Due to demolished schools or an unconducive environment in relief camps, boys and girls are forced to drop out of schools midway.
Furthermore, India is a signatory nation to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 25 of the UDHR outlines every individual’s right to an adequate standard of living, including housing, food, and health. Yet, almost all evicted people have been denied the rights to housing, food, and health in clear violation of global human rights principles.
Recommendations for a Humane SOP
Before carrying out any eviction without violating constitutionally granted rights and human rights, the state government must adopt and enforce a strict and humane Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) as follows:
Advance Notice and Legal Process: Written notice must be given to every family at least three months prior to any eviction, providing them full opportunity to produce their land documents.
Prior Rehabilitation: The principle of ‘Rehabilitation first, eviction later’ must be made mandatory. Families cannot be removed from their old dwellings until alternative land and permanent housing documents are provided.
Minimum Conditions in Relief Camps: If emergency relocation is necessary, thegovernment must ensure safe drinking water, electricity, sanitation (toilets), and emergency medical services at the site, in accordance with Gauhati High Court directives.
Continuity of Education and Health: To prevent children’s academic years from being ruined by evictions, arrangements for enrolment in nearby schools or alternative temporary education must be made. Special nutritional food and healthcare must be ensured for pregnant women and children.
Corporate Social Responsibility: Before allotting land to capitalist groups, native or erosion-affected people residing on that land must be made stakeholders in the enterprise, and an agreement must be signed requiring corporate groups and the government to jointly bear the cost of their proper resettlement.
Assam’s land crisis has now taken on a terrifying form of social division. On one hand, thousands of people are rendered landless and turned into refugees every year due to nature’s wrath, while on the other hand, government eviction and capitalist land allocation policies have further marginalised the poor. If the government fails to implement a clear ‘land policy’ that balances the rule of law and human values, the socio-economic stability of Assam is bound to be completely endangered in the future.
[The author is a former member of the Assam Legislative Assembly. He may be contacted at 86387 89584.]