Bhargabi Das

A raging potato. Part-time anthropologist and a poet. Interested in poetics-politics of water, state, bureaucracy, affect, citizenship and everything in-between

[Bhargabi Das @nagging_citizen]

Using tropes of #eviction & #embankment politics, I write on how the majoritarian state using env systematically turns Bengali Muslims in Assam landless, deskilled & pol precarious. Just published in the Sociological Bulletin @societyinsoso

[Rokibuz Zaman @ZamanRokibuz_]

Assam, Nagaland and Centre signed a tripartite pact to "unlock energy reserves" along the contested Assam-Nagaland border

In 2024, Naga groups had opposed the Vedanta Group which had got approval to carry out oil and gas exploration in the ESZ of the Hollongapar Gibbon WS.

[Darab Farooqui @darab_farooqui]

Let me be honest about where I stand on CJP. Somewhere in the middle, and still moving.

I don't support them yet.

1. Mostly because I'm still not sure who or what they really are, and I'd want to know that before I lend my name to anything.

2. I'll admit I wonder about the AAP threads running through it.

3. For now, I'd rather watch how things breathe.

4. And maybe it's that I come from a minority, so my questions run deeper and slower. If I ever do come around, it won't be on a wave of feeling.

5. And anyway, my support or opposition means zilch.

And yet, I don't oppose them either.

1. In a democracy, surely everyone has the right to gather and speak in whatever shape suits them?

2. When I see how badly the young are hurting, I understand why they find themselves in CJP, why it feels like theirs.

3. Maybe it becomes something that matters. I can't rule it out.

4. And no one owns a people's movement. I can't shake the sense that India could use one right now.

5. And anyway, my support or opposition means zilch.

So yes, it could fail. Let it breathe, and let it fail if it must.

It could turn into another IAC. Even then, the people pouring into it have every right to try. And movements rarely stay the shape they begin in. They bend, they shed skins, they become things no one planned.

People keep asking about its ideology, and that's fair. But if I'm honest, ideology only ever moves a thin sliver of us. Most of us are moved by something we feel.

And yes, it could work as a pressure cooker valve.

And yes, all these scenarios are scary. But I am still not scared.

Because asking a democracy to be clean and certain seems a little naive. It was never maths. It's meant to be messy. It stumbles, and somehow that's how it learns.

What I keep coming back to is this:

When people gather, it tends to be good for democracy and uncomfortable for whoever holds power.

Win or lose, movements like these force the hand of power and wake people from their slumber.

And maybe that's not good enough, and maybe it is.

But the least it does is make people feel alive, and take a democracy beyond voting.

It makes people feel part of a massive machine called a nation.

[Rokibuz Zaman @ZamanRokibuz_]

“I am from Assam and I will go to Assam. I am not from Bangladesh,” Sakina Begum told @scroll_in. “The [Assam] police put me in danger by pushing me here. They should not have. I have not committed any crime.”

Read here:
https://t.co/Ml0aiquad6

[Rokibuz Zaman @ZamanRokibuz_]

Our second story on last year's forceful deportation.

An ‘indigenous’ Assamese woman was pushed into Bangladesh. A year later, she is still stuck there.

A family in Dhaka gave her shelter and care.

https://t.co/Ml0aiquad6

[Bhargabi Das @nagging_citizen]

@damrita Everything about Delhi University is currently a disaster. The 4 yr prog is simply a glimpse of it.

[Amrita Dutta @damrita]

BIG: Persons excluded in SIR will not get welfare benefits, says BJP government in Bengal

SIR continues to be weaponised against Indians.

https://t.co/AcyB2px0cO

[Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof]

This is a hard article to read, but I hope you'll do so. I've spent some time reporting on widespread rape and other sexual violence of Palestinian male and female prisoners by Israeli authorities, and the article is now published. The assault victims were warned not to give speak of what they endured -- they were sometimes told they would be killed or raped if they gave interviews -- but they found the courage to do so. One man described being raped three times in a single day in Israeli prison, the third time after he tried to protest. A young woman said the guards would come in at the beginning of each shift and strip her naked and abuse her. Another reported that she was shown photos of herself being raped and warned they would be released unless she cooperated with Israeli intelligence. Even three children who had been detained told me they had been sexually abused. Look, whatever our position on the Middle East, we should be able to agree on being anti-rape. Sexual assaults were horrific when Israeli women were targeted on Oct. 7, and they're equally horrific when Israeli authorities use them against Palestinians day after day after day. We should be able to find common ground in opposing rape. Here's a gift link to the article: https://t.co/aMMHId49OO

[Bhargabi Das @nagging_citizen]

@Anish_Tiwari 😑🙈

[Rokibuz Zaman @ZamanRokibuz_]

Apart from these 11, five more Muslim seats were scrapped and two were reserved for SC & ST.

All these were won by Cong - AIUDF in 2021.

After delimitation, NDA won these 19 seats this time.

How delimitation gave a boost to BJP and allies in Assam

https://t.co/yaNgkwTMlb

[Bhargabi Das @nagging_citizen]

@Anish_Tiwari ❤️

[Bhargabi Das @nagging_citizen]

@Anish_Tiwari Ah great!

[Bhargabi Das @nagging_citizen]

@Anish_Tiwari Don't much trust HT writings but will read cause I trust you

[Bhargabi Das @nagging_citizen]

@Sanskrita_B True. Hopefully he continues his politics. Though on a few notes, I disagree with him but that man has shown spine.

[Bhargabi Das @nagging_citizen]

@Sanskrita_B Of course, Jatiyotabaad & Hindutva are toxic bhai-bhai. Its been out in the open for long now. This make-believe anxiety resulting in never ending hatred has finally found its end game!

[CSDS, Delhi @csdsdelhi]

[INVITATION] Lecture by Aparna Agarwal on ‘Ecologies of Waste and Caste: Dependence and Value-Making at the Bhalswa Landfill in Delhi’ on 16 April 2026 at CSDS, Delhi. For Details, Click https://t.co/Ron1WXXeGi

[Bhargabi Das @nagging_citizen]

@Sanskrita_B writes this important piece at a time Assam has gone for elections and narratives of xenophobia and racism is at an all time high. Yours truly had given her two cents to it too. Do gv it a read.

[Sanskrita @Sanskrita_B]

As Assam goes to polls tomorrow, in Goalpara, I met families driven from forest land who now live on riverine sandbars (known as chars) with no homes, but still on voter rolls. My ground report for @Article14live.
Urging you to read this🧵

[Rokibuz Zaman @ZamanRokibuz_]

Nobody has given more pain and suffering to Bengali Muslims than the SC and EC.

In the last year, they've been repeatedly asked to prove their citizenship, expelled to Bangladesh, had their homes demolished, and votes deleted – with the SC remaining a mute spectator.