‘Cocktail of Hindutva and welfarism’: How Modi’s BJP is wooing Assam voters

Assam, India – Amoiya Medhi says attending an election rally organised by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in her hometown in India’s northeastern state of Assam is a matter of both religious compulsion and personal gratitude.

On March 29, Medhi was among thousands of men and women who thronged the rally held on the outskirts of Jagiroad, an industrial town in central Assam’s Morigaon district, ahead of the state assembly election scheduled on Thursday.

Nitin Nabin, the BJP’s national president and chief guest at the event, trumpeted the welfare schemes launched by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s government – schemes that Nabin claimed benefitted the Assamese people, especially women.

Medhi, 38, nodded in agreement as she listened attentively to the speeches. “This government has done so much for everyone, including women,” she told Al Jazeera. “I am going to only vote for the BJP.”

Like Medhi, dozens of women attending the rally said they were the beneficiaries of multiple government schemes, including Orunodoi, a direct benefit transfer scheme that saw nearly four million women receive 9,000 rupees each on March 10 – the largest such disbursement in the state’s history, which included a three-month bonus to mark the Bihu festival held in April.

The disbursement came barely a month before Thursday’s vote in which Sarma, 57, is seeking a third consecutive term for his party.

Since becoming the chief minister in 2021, Sarma has been accused of pursuing a hardline Hindu supremacist agenda (popularly known as “Hindutva”) coupled with a xenophobic campaign targeting Muslims. They constitute 34 percent of Assam’s 31 million population, according to the last census conducted in 2011. That’s the highest among Indian states, with only the federally-governed territories of Indian-administered Kashmir and Lakshadweep higher.

An overwhelming nine million of Assam’s 10.3 million Muslims speak Bengali and not Assamese. They historically migrated to Assam in waves – a majority of them moving during British rule, when Bengali-speaking Hindu and Muslim communities moved from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) to work in Assam’s tea estates and rice fields.

‘Protecting our Hindu identity’

For decades, the BJP and other Hindu groups have labelled the Bengali-speaking Muslims as “foreigners”, accusing them of being undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh. Assam founded special tribunals to try these Muslims, sending hundreds to detention centres built across the state.

Thousands of “miya”, as Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam are pejoratively called, have also been declared “doubtful” voters. The “miya” issue has shaped the BJP’s politics in Assam. Leading the charge against them, Sarma himself publicly admitted that he had instructed BJP workers to file an objection with the Election Commission of India to remove half a million Bengali-speaking Muslims from electoral rolls.

In 2024, Sarma told the state assembly that his government “will take sides” and “will not let miya Muslims take over all of Assam”. Two months ago, a 17-second artificial intelligence-generated video, produced and shared by the BJP on X, showed Sarma holding a rifle and shooting at pictures of two Muslim men, with the caption saying: “No Mercy”. The clip, titled ‘Point Blank Shot’, was deleted after outrage.

Champa Hira, another woman attending the Morigaon rally, said while the BJP’s financial aid and other welfare schemes have been a major draw, her support for the party goes beyond financial benefits.

“For us, it is also about protecting our Hindu identity,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Our Hindu religion is born out of the lotus,” Hira said, referring to the BJP’s election symbol. “We will let the lotus bloom once again for such schemes and also for our Hindu identities.”

In the run-up to the polls, the BJP’s political messaging on roadside billboards, wall graffiti and posters had the party showcase its anti-Muslim policies pursued in the past decade.

The party boasts about clearing around 20,000 hectares of government land – an area more than three-and-a-half-times the size of Manhattan – from the “osinaki manuh” (“strange people” – a veiled reference to Bengali-speaking Muslims). The eviction drives, which intensified after Sarma became the chief minister in 2021, are a part of the BJP’s “war” on Bengali-speaking Muslims to “reclaim every inch of land” allegedly encroached by them. Without providing evidence, Sarma has repeatedly accused the Bengali-speaking Muslims of a conspiracy to change Assam’s demography and reduce Hindus to a minority. The government’s crackdown also saw dozens of Muslims “pushed back” to Bangladesh – their alleged homeland – or their properties bulldozed.

Alongside such hardline policies targeting Muslims, the BJP also touted the launching of various welfare schemes for women and youth. And has promised an increase in financial aid from $13 to over $32 in the Orunodoi cash transfer scheme. In the Udyamita scheme, an entrepreneurial fund reserved for rural women to bootstrap their businesses, the increase is from $107 to $269.

Akhil Ranjan Dutta, who teaches political science at Assam’s Gauhati University, says the Hindu nationalist party is using a strategy that mixes “heightened polarisation and a developmental pitch” to woo the Assamese voters.

“To me, it is a cocktail of Hindutva and welfarism,” Dutta told Al Jazeera. “The BJP is experimenting with a brand of Hindutva by co-opting Indigenous armed struggle and cultural nationalism, while solidifying Hindu identity and othering the Bengali Muslims.”

BJP spokesman in Assam, Kishore Upadhyay, rejected the allegation, claiming the government’s eviction drives were not targeted at any community.

“It is directed only against illegal encroachment, irrespective of religion or identity. Unfortunately, successive Congress governments in the past allowed or even facilitated such illegal settlements, creating today’s challenges,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It is also important to highlight that this is about restoring land rights of indigenous and tribal communities, protecting forest areas and ensuring proper land governance.”

The Bengali-speaking Muslims say the BJP’s election promises have heightened their anxiety. In its manifesto, the party has promised more crackdowns on the community, including a proposal to implement a Uniform Civil Code, which, according to critics, will override Muslim personal laws on marriage, divorce and inheritance.

The Uniform Civil Code, a longstanding demand from Hindu groups, is already in place in two BJP-ruled states, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat. The BJP has also promised a pushback against “Love Jihad”, an unproven conspiracy theory floated by right-wing Hindu groups, under which Muslim men allegedly lure Hindu women into marriage and convert them to Islam.

A former Assamese parliamentarian from the main opposition Congress party, who requested anonymity fearing reprisal from the government, agreed with political scientist Dutta. “The BJP has managed to turn Hindus against Muslims and enjoy support,” he added.

Will welfare schemes help BJP?

Opposition parties and analysts say the BJP is mainly milking two cash transfer schemes – Orunodoi and Udyamita – to influence voters in this election.

In December 2025 and January this year, the government distributed cheques of $107 each under the Udyamita scheme. Additionally, it withheld a monthly honorarium of $13 for poor women under the Orunodoi scheme for three months, but handed it out last month in the run-up to the election.

Isfaqur Rahman of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said the Sarma government’s disbursement of cash only days before the polls will help it in securing significant numbers of female votes. “If cash is disbursed to them on the eve of the election after making the beneficiaries wait, it will help influence their choice to vote,” Rahman told Al Jazeera. “This is nothing more than vote buying by the BJP.”

Economist Joydeep Baruah agreed, saying that distributing a lump sum of money will “bear a positive political result for the ruling party”, as he estimated that that at least 10 to 15 percent of the scheme’s four million women beneficiaries could vote for the BJP.

“While the rural wages in Assam have been stagnant due to a growing unemployment, the Orunodoi financial aid converts into 10-15 percent of their monthly income,” said Baruah, who teaches economics at state-run Krishna Kanta Handiqui State Open University in Assam’s main city of Guwahati.

Baruah said such populist schemes help in sustaining pro-incumbency.

“That way, the BJP is establishing more of a patron-client relationship, with patrons being the BJP and the clients being the beneficiaries,” he told Al Jazeera. “Such a transactional relationship materialises on the ground.”

Dipika Baruah, a 34-year-old woman in Kathiatoli town in central Assam’s Nagaon district – who is not related to economist Baruah – said the government grants empowered her to live with dignity.

“The money helped me keep the flame in my stove going,” she told Al Jazeera as she shopped at Mama Bazar, a marketplace named after Sarma, who is fondly called “mama” (maternal uncle in Assamese and Bengali) by his supporters. “This was possible because of mama. Women will only vote for Mama.”

Pre-poll surveys in Assam also suggest that cash transfer schemes will help the BJP consolidate votes in its favour.

An opinion poll conducted by political research firm, Vote Vibe, revealed that 54 percent of respondents believe the government’s cash transfer schemes will consolidate and even attract opposition voters. The survey also showed 38 percent of female respondents saying the schemes had strengthened the BJP’s voter base, while 21 percent of females said the schemes will poach opposition votes.

BJP spokesman Upadhyay told Al Jazeera the allegations of influencing voters by transferring cash before the election are “factually incorrect and politically motivated”.

“It [Orunodoi] is a long-standing welfare initiative aimed at supporting economically vulnerable women-led households, not a last-minute electoral measure,” he said.

‘Kill us all at once’

Back at the BJP rally in Morigaon, where its leaders delivered fiery speeches calling for the expulsion of “infiltrators from Bangladesh”, Amir Ali remembered his sister Afsana.

On February 18, 1983, one-year-old Afsana was among an estimated 1,800 Bengali-speaking Muslims massacred by a Hindu and Indigenous mob in what came to be known as the Nellie massacre. The killings were in 14 villages, including Ali’s Matiparbat, a 40-minute drive from where the BJP rally was held.

Ali, now in his 50s, said he attended the BJP rally only to prove that he is not an “illegal immigrant” but a citizen of the state.

“When children were massacred, we had no choice but to vote to prove that we are not illegal Bangladeshis,” he told Al Jazeera. “Likewise, we have no choice now but to prove we are not infiltrators or ‘strangers’ as Sarma claims.”

In a quaint corner of Jagiroad town, Noorjamal shares Ali’s sentiments. Two years ago, he was rendered homeless after the houses of nearly 8,000 Muslims were bulldozed during a government eviction drive.

“The chief minister says he is evicting Bangladeshis from government land, but how are we Bangladeshis if my father and forefathers were born and died in India?” Noorjamal’s mother Maherbanu Nessa asked.

“The way Himanta ‘mama’ is bulldozing our homes, he might as well just kill us all at once.”

In a communication sent to India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, the United Nations Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) said on January 19 this year that Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam are facing racial discrimination, resulting in forced evictions, hate speech and excessive use of force by the law-enforcement agencies.

An investigation by The New Humanitarian, an independent news outlet, published on March 24 found that between May 2021, when Sarma became Assam’s chief minister, and early 2026, more than 22,000 structures were demolished and 20,380 families evicted in the state, an overwhelming majority of them being Bengali-speaking Muslims.

As Sarma’s BJP vows to “break the backbone of miyas” after the election, Ali and Nessa worry about survival amid such hostilities.

“We have nothing to resist this cruel government but prayers and our votes,” Ali told Al Jazeera. “But maybe, if not today, then someday we will find peace in this land. We are still hopeful.”