Authorities in India's Assam state sealed a museum dedicated to Muslims - and many are asking why.
By Dilip Kumar Sharma in Assam and Zoya Mateen in DelhiMohar Ali was arrested a month ago after he opened a small museum in his house in a hamlet in Goalpara district in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam. The museum, he said, was dedicated to the culture of 'Miyas' - Bengali-speaking Muslims in the state.
Since coming to power in 2016, the governing Bharatiya Janata Party has rallied its vote base of Hindus and tribal communities by announcing policies that critics say are discriminatory towards Muslims. Several politicians, including current chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, have also targeted them in speeches.
"A museum is meant to preserve the cultural heritage of a community, but nothing like that is happening here," he said.But in Assam, the word is considered pejorative and used to describe thousands of Muslim peasants who migrated from parts of eastern Bengal that are now in Bangladesh. Assam shares a nearly 900km long porous border with the neighbouring country.
But over the years, many in the Bengali Muslim community have embraced their history, and tried to reclaim the term Miya as a distinct marker of their identity.The Miya museum in Goalpara, set up in a small room, housed a few traditional agricultural tools, fishing gear made of bamboo, and a gamusa - the traditional hand-woven garment of Assam - all of which, Mr Ali said, was part of the "culture of Miya people".
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