How indigenous land was grabbed for a solar power plant in Assam

Since March 2020, a struggle has been waged by Karbi and Adivasi farmers of Mikir Bamuni Grant village in Nagaon district of Assam against the forceful takeover of their lands to construct a solar power plant by Azure Power Forty Private Limited. In each formal statement, Azure Power continues to parrot that they are not in violation of the law, as they have legally purchased the land in question on a willing seller-willing buyer basis and are not in contravention of the law.

This, despite several news reports and other interactions pointing out to them that their “willing sellers” did not have the legal right to sell them the land in the first place. The question of land and the system of land rights is central to the story of the conflict in Mikir Bamuni. Delving deeper into this question and a close look at the documents, as well as testimonies of the residents of Mikir Bamuni, this article exposes the web of lies, manipulations and underhanded manoeuvres coordinated between the local administration, landholders and police forces that together orchestrated the theft of peoples’ lands. While stating this, it is equally important to reiterate that this does not absolve Azure Power, a nearly 400-million-dollar company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, of responsibility in the gross violation of the rights of the cultivators. Despite being in the know of the legal provisions of the Assam (Temporarily Settled Areas) Tenancy Act 1971, it appears their legal team has not yet bothered to understand the documents, which, contrary to what they believe, do exist and are in possession of the cultivators. All they had to do was ask. But more on Azure Power later.

Last year, December 29 witnessed the latest round of police aggression against the protesting farmers with one of them, Buku Mardi, allegedly beaten senseless and arrested in the daytime, followed by a midnight raid where police personnel are then said to have forced themselves into the homes of the farmers in the middle of the night, with faces covered, and arrested Sikari Rongpi, Lakhiram Mardi and Bhaity Timung.