Guwahati: In the southernmost corner of Assam, where the Kushiyara River marks a porous border with Bangladesh, a simple name change has triggered a storm of resentment, violence, and historical reckoning.
What began as Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s bid to honour Rabindranath Tagore by renaming Karimganj district as Sribhumi in November 2024 has escalated into fiery protests. Clashes on September 6, 2025, left journalists injured, police on high alert, and over 100 detained.
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Critics decry the move as an attempt to erase the region’s Muslim heritage, while supporters hail it as reclaiming pre colonial glory exposing fault lines in a district where shifting demographics and migration anxieties shape everyday politics.
The renaming traces back to November 19, 2024, when the Assam cabinet approved the change. Sarma, invoking Tagore’s century old description of the area as Sribhumi “the land of goddess Lakshmi” framed it as restoring lost heritage.
“Over a century ago, Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore described modern day Karimganj as ‘Sribhumi,’ symbolizing prosperity and beauty,” Sarma posted on X.
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But the announcement struck a raw nerve. Carved out of Cachar in 1983, Karimganj has always been tied to Sylhet’s cultural mosaic. Before Partition, it was part of Sylhet, which in 1947 voted amid allegations of fraud to join East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Karimganj alone remained with India to preserve connectivity with Tripura.
It’s very name, “Karimganj,” derives from Muhammad Karim Chowdhury, a 19th-century Bengali Muslim landowner who built a bustling market along the Kushiyara. For many locals, erasing this legacy feels like erasing their identity.
Demographics sharpen the controversy.
According to the 2011 Census, Muslims comprised 56.36% of Karimganj’s 1.2 million residents, Hindus 42.48%. Political leaders now claim the Muslim share has surged to nearly 80% a rise they attribute to high birth rates and alleged infiltration from Bangladesh, though fresh census data remains pending.
Such claims, amplified by leaders, fuel narratives of “demographic warfare” across Assam’s border districts.
Sarma, however, has doubled down. During a Barak Valley tour last week, he dismissed critics: “I did not give the name Sribhumi; it was given by Rabindranath Tagore. Is there anyone above Tagore? Did your leaders win a Nobel Prize? Have they become such great scientists to challenge him? Oh father, I bow down to him here!”
Despite this, opposition has grown steadily. Petitions with nearly 300,000 signatures were submitted in December 2024, and protest committees formed earlier this year. On September 6, 2025, a 12-hour bandh called by the Karimganj Zila Naam Paribartan Pratirudh Samiti spiraled into violence.
Demonstrations at N.C. College turned ugly as agitators mainly students attacked journalists and clashed with police. A mild lathi-charge followed, with 110 people, including a professor, detained under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Supported by Congress, Left parties, and local citizens’ groups, protesters argue that “Sribhumi” undermines the district’s secular, multicultural ethos. As one student shouted, “This is not just about a name. This is about our identity, our history, our dignity.”
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The unrest also underscores Barak Valley’s broader vulnerabilities, flood-prone, economically lagging, and perched on India’s most sensitive international border. Security was already tightened days earlier, with DGP Harmeet Singh reviewing border arrangements on September 4.
For Sarma, the renaming is about honouring Tagore’s vision of prosperity. But for many in this Muslim-majority enclave, it is a spark on a “sulgata aag” a smoldering fire that could engulf a region long divided by history, faith, and identity.
With no reversal in sight, the name Sribhumi may endure, but the wounds of this row are likely to run far deeper than the Kushiyara River that separates Assam from Bangladesh.