Mood of Assam: 56 per cent Hindus express concern over communal harmony, compared with 49 per cent Muslims

A 7-percentage point gap separates Hindu and Muslim anxieties about Assam's social fabric, with the India Today–CVoter Mood of the Nation poll conducted in January 2026 revealing that 55.8 per cent of Hindus express concern over communal harmony compared to 48.7 per cent of Muslims—an unexpected pattern where the majority community shows higher worry than the minority facing systematic marginalisation, exposing how differently communities experience threat as the state heads toward March-April 2026 elections.

Overall, 53.4 per cent of respondents express concern about communal harmony, while only 17.9 per cent are not concerned and 28.7 per cent remain uncertain. The religious breakdown reveals the divergence: among Hindus, 55.8 per cent are concerned and 16.4 per cent not concerned, with 27.9 per cent uncertain.

Among Muslims, 48.7 per cent express concern, while 21.3 per cent are not concerned—a notably higher 'not concerned' figure—and 30 per cent remain uncertain. The 'Others' category shows 86.1 per cent concerned, though this represents smaller sample sizes of respondents outside the Hindu-Muslim categories.

The gap defies conventional expectations about which communities should feel most threatened. For Hindu respondents, particularly those identifying as indigenous Assamese, anxiety about communal harmony reflects fears of demographic change, illegal immigration from Bangladesh, and perceived threats to cultural identity. These concerns have been consistently amplified by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's rhetoric, positioning Hindus as a community under existential threat from Muslim population growth and cultural practices.

For Muslim respondents, the lower concern level—despite being targets of eviction drives, inflammatory rhetoric, and state surveillance—reveals a more complex reality. The 21.3 per cent 'not concerned' figure, higher than Hindus' 16.4 per cent, could indicate resilience in Muslim-majority areas where communities feel relatively secure, psychological adaptation to chronic marginalisation, or perhaps a different understanding of what 'communal harmony' means when your community faces systematic targeting. The 30 per cent uncertain response rate among Muslims, the highest across all groups, suggests either strategic silence on sensitive topics or genuine confusion about how to assess relations when discrimination has become normalised.

The survey's findings reflect a year marked by recurring violence. In late December 2025, West Karbi Anglong district witnessed explosive violence when protesters demanding eviction of alleged encroachers torched homes and shops, leaving two dead and over 70 injured, including 60+ police personnel. In January 2026, Kokrajhar experienced communal tensions following an alleged rape, leading to bandhs shutting down markets and transport. In October 2025, armed assailants attacked nearly 100 houses in Golaghat district's disputed border area, targeting mainly migrant Muslim families with guns and grenades.

Throughout 2025, aggressive eviction drives in districts including Goalpara, Dhubri, Nagaon, Lakhimpur, and Kokrajhar displaced thousands, particularly Bengali-speaking Muslims branded as illegal infiltrators. Critics documented rising hate speech and mass evictions targeting Muslim communities. Yet these direct attacks haven't translated into higher Muslim anxiety about communal harmony in the survey—at least not as measured by this question. The disconnect between actual vulnerability and expressed concern reveals how communities process threats differently.

Sarma's public statements have shaped these anxieties in distinct ways. His June 2025 claim that newly arrived Muslims have weaponised beef consumption and prayer calls to drive out local Hindus, his July reference to Bengali-origin Muslims as suspected Bangladeshis, and his May 2025 announcement to issue arms licenses to indigenous residents in five districts with significant Muslim populations all frame Hindus as threatened defenders rather than the dominant majority. His statement that he wanted the situation in Assam to be explosive and that Assamese people could only survive if armed directly feeds Hindu anxiety captured in the 55.8 per cent concern level.

Ethnonationalist organisation Bir Lachit Sena echoed this rhetoric, stating they'd conduct evictions themselves if police failed. Such mobilisation creates a climate where Hindu respondents genuinely believe their community faces existential threats despite holding political power, while Muslim respondents may be numbed to surveys asking about harmony when they face active discrimination. The nearly 29 per cent overall who remain uncertain—spanning 27.9 per cent of Hindus and 30 per cent of Muslims—reflects widespread ambivalence about openly assessing communal relations in an increasingly contentious environment.

Historical events shape current anxieties in opposing directions. The 1983 Nellie massacre killed nearly 3,000 people, mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims. The 2012 Bodo-Muslim riots displaced 400,000 people. The National Register of Citizens exercise excluded 1.9 million from the 2019 final list. The Citizenship Amendment Act deepened communal divides. These events produce different contemporary fears: Hindus worry about being demographically overwhelmed, Muslims worry about state-sanctioned targeting. Both anxieties claim legitimacy from historical trauma, but they point in opposite directions.

The BJP's aggressive stance on immigration and identity has consolidated Hindu support by validating demographic threat narratives, reflected in the 55.8 per cent concern level. Opposition parties attempting to unite eight parties face an impossible challenge: Hindu voters and Muslim voters worry about communal harmony for opposite reasons. Hindus fear Muslim demographic growth and cultural change. Muslims fear Hindu majoritarian politics and systematic exclusion. No single message about communal harmony can address both sets of anxieties without triggering the other.

As assembly tenure ends May 2026, the India Today–CVoter survey exposes how 'communal harmony' has become an empty phrase meaning radically different things to different communities. When 55.8 per cent of Hindus worry about harmony while their community holds political power and conducts evictions, and 48.7 per cent of Muslims worry about it while facing systematic marginalization, it reveals that concern about communal relations has become decoupled from actual vulnerability. The 7-percentage point gap isn't about who worries more—it's about what they're worried about. In contemporary Assam, that depends entirely on whether you fear being displaced by demographic change or displaced by bulldozers, whether you're anxious about cultural erosion or physical eviction, whether communal harmony means protecting your majority status or surviving as a targeted minority.