Assam’s land sale ban between Hindus and Muslims may be unconstitutional – but it’s happening anyway

Sanidul Islam, a 25-year-old driver living in Barpeta in Assam bought a small parcel of land in 2019. But actually registering the sale became a nightmare. The reason: an unofficial bar on Hindus selling land to Muslims in Assam.

“I can’t count how many times my father went to the circle office,” Islam told Scroll. “But every time he got the same reply. They say that Muslims are not allowed to buy land from Hindus anymore. After the Himanta government came, it became an unofficial rule and the registration was totally stopped. We are under lots of stress.”

On March 7, the Assam government made this practice legal, issuing a notification that prohibited the sale of land between people from different religious communities for the next three months. According to the notification, the Assam government had received intelligence inputs of “several cases of attempt of transfer of land by fraudulent means” in the state due to which land has been forcibly transferred “to some religious communities from some other religious communities”. The notification also alleged that such transfers are aimed at stoking communal tensions in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.

According to legal experts, this notification is unconstitutional for discriminating on the grounds of religion. However,...

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