Poets and activists are being booked for writing poetic compositions that are critical of the state in Assam. The poets who have been booked for articulating anti-state sentiments through their poems belong to a specific genre of poetry in Assam called Miyah Poetry. The form called Miyah poetry is distinctively political in nature and the larger part of the Assamese society is known to have been ill at ease with the genre.
The debate on the existence of Miyah poetry and whether or not it could be justified as a form has been long but the sudden arrest of ten Miyah poets in Assam due to their poetic compositions has once against enlivened the debate on the controversial genre. These ten poets had written about the citizenship row in the state through their poems.
Most of the Miyah poets who have been booked by the police are Muslim and trace back their origins to Bengal. According to the report carried out by The Indian Express, Guwahati Central Deputy Commissioner of police Dharmendra Kumar Das said that the poets had been charged under Sections 420(punishment for cheating) and Section 406(punishment for criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Copyright Act, 1959.
The person who first complained against the poem was Pranabjit Doloi, a journalist. The journalist has said that the poet Kazi Sharowar Hussein has depicted Assamese people as xenophobic and under bad light in front of the whole world.
In the last couple of years the genre of Miyah poetry has considerably grown and it has received widespread attention on social media platforms. The citizenship row in the state has inspired a range of Miyah poets to come up with critical poems against the state. The poetry seeks to highlight their painful predicament and express concern over their identities as the perpetual “other” of Assam.
In Assam there is a widespread debate about Miyah poetry and a large section of the Assamese population does not feel comfortable with its existence. It is distinctively political and expresses the discontents of a section of the population with the state. It takes up contemporary political themes such the citizenship bill, the denial of dignity to large sections of Muslims and so on. The state argues that this genre of poetry is divisive in nature and disturbs the state’s peace. The specific poem for which the ten poets were arrested was composed by Kazi Sharowar Hussein.
