The Iron Will of Assam

For decades, Assam was held hostage. Not by external enemies, but by internal rot. Vote-bank politics strangled development. Illegal encroachment devoured forest lands and heritage sites. Corruption turned government jobs into commodities. While the state burned, its leaders chose silence over action, appeasement over accountability. Then came Himanta Biswa Sarma. Since taking office as Chief Minister in May 2021, Sarma has executed a governance model so aggressive and uncompromising that it has rewritten the political rulebook of Northeast India. Where the Congress government sought consensus with encroachers, he brought bulldozers. Where they promised reform, he delivered results. Where they feared political backlash, he chose the rule of law. He, who sleeps only 1.5 to 2 hours daily to serve the people of Assam, derives his energy solely from serving them.

The most visible signature of Sarma's tenure has been relentless eviction drives targeting suspected illegal Bangladeshi settlers. Thousands of acres of government land, reserved forests, and illegally occupied heritage sites have been cleared. Bulldozers rolled into Gorukhuti, Dhalpur, Lumding, and beyond. Structures built on wetlands, riverbanks, and wildlife corridors were demolished without ceremony. The message was clear: illegal occupation will not be negotiated; it will be ended. Critics screamed communal polarisation. International NGOs cried human rights violations. Opposition parties labelled it demographic warfare. Sarma doubled down. This was never about religion. It was about restoring sovereignty over state land.

For years, illegal settlers had encroached on Hindu temples, Vaishnavite satras, and culturally significant sites with impunity, protected by appeasement politics under Congress rule. Sarma called it what it was: civilisational encroachment masquerading as demographic inevitability. The evictions were not random acts of aggression. They were legally grounded, survey-backed operations executed with administrative precision. Each eviction was preceded by notifications, satellite mapping, and district-level coordination. Crucially, they were tied to ecological restoration: reclaiming wetlands critical for flood control, clearing riverbanks to prevent erosion, and protecting forest cover from further degradation.

In Burachapori Wildlife Sanctuary, over 5,200 acres were cleared in February 2023. The area had lost ten rhinos to poaching and habitat destruction. Today, rhinos are returning. In Lumding Reserve Forest, 3,485 acres were freed. Nearly 200 elephants, along with leopards and other wildlife, have since been spotted in areas that were turned into farmland. In Orang Tiger Reserve, 7,163 acres were reclaimed, restoring critical habitat for one of India's smallest tiger populations. By January 2025, Sarma stated that the total land reclaimed stands at 1,45,000 bighas, approximately 47,850 acres.

While eviction drives grabbed headlines, Sarma quietly revolutionised governance across multiple fronts. In 2021, the government dissolved the State Madrasa Board and converted all 1,281 government-funded madrasas into general schools. By 2023, 800 madrasas had been closed or converted. Public funds would not support religious education; they would support schools, colleges, and universities that prepare students for modern careers.

Under Sarma's watch, Assam attracted investments ranging from food processing and electronics assembly to semiconductor-linked industries. The Advantage Assam summits became actual deal-closing platforms. Industrial parks came up in Jorhat, Guwahati, and Silchar. By his own account, projects worth Rs 1.78 lakh crore committed during the Advantage Assam 2.0 summit are being launched. In January 2026, Sarma became the first Chief Minister from Assam to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos. The state signed MoUs worth approximately Rs 1 lakh crore, reflecting strong global investor confidence.

Government recruitment in Assam had been institutionalised extortion under Congress governments. Sarma gutted the system.
He mandated fully digital, merit-based recruitment across all departments. Over 1.50 lakh government jobs were filled through clean processes by January 2026, more than the previous two decades combined under Congress rule. Young people who could not afford to pay middlemen suddenly had pathways to employment.

Infrastructure transformation complemented every reform. New bridges connected previously isolated regions. Highway expansions cut travel times in half. Prime Minister Modi laid the foundation for the 35 km elevated corridor in the Kaziranga section, protecting wildlife from vehicle strikes. Sarma expanded his secretariat to Dibrugarh, establishing it as Assam's second capital. A bench of the Guwahati High Court is also coming to Dibrugarh, reducing the burden on citizens to travel hundreds of kilometers for legal matters.

Himanta Biswa Sarma's tenure is not perfect. The eviction drives, while legally defensible, created humanitarian hardship. The aggressive enforcement generated political polarisation. But perfection was never the goal. The goal was breaking a system that had failed Assam for generations under Congress rule.

What Sarma demonstrated is that decisive governance—governance willing to confront entrenched interests and execute at scale, can achieve in years what decades of consensus-seeking under Congress governments failed to deliver. The mood on the ground is clear: people across Assam want him as Chief Minister for another term. They want him to complete what he started. They want him to finish the transformation of Assam from a state defined by decay and appeasement into a model of development, dignity, and decisive governance.

Himanta Biswa Sarma did not just change Assam's trajectory. He proved that leadership without apology, backed by execution and institutional courage, can rebuild a state from the ground up. That is his legacy, and it is one that will define Assam for decades to come.


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