Protestors in Tinsukia. | Special arrangement.
For more than a week now, the entire populations of two Upper Assam villages – around 3,000 men, women, children, most of them belonging to the state’s Mising tribe – have been camping in Tinsukia town, next to the deputy collector’s office. They have vowed not to move till their demands are met: of being given new lives in a new place.
“It is biting cold and we have been living and eating like pigs, but we are not going anywhere because we don’t have anywhere to go,” said 65-year old Rajaram Pait, a resident of Dodhia, one of two villages. The other is Laika. “Maybe this is where our cursed existence will come to an end.”