 I am a mia. I turn waste marshy lands to green paddy fields to feed you. I carry bricks to build your buildings, drag your car for your comfort, clean your drain to keep you healthy. I have always been in your service, yet you are dissatisfied. Write down I am a mia, a citizen of a democratic secular republic, without any rights. My mother, a devotee, though her parents are in there. Saying mia may be an ethnic slur for you, but look, I am reclaiming the word. I am proudly declaring I am a mia. The mia poets have been harassed with police complaints. They have been called a threat to the asemais people and the security of the nation. In times like these, when something like this can happen, we have to begin with expressing solidarity with these poets. We have to say, write, speak, we are with you. There is the targeting of protest, the crushing of dissent. These are poems that Muslims of Bengali origin in Assam have written to describe the discrimination they face in their day-to-day lives. The power of this cultural resistance lies in drawing attention to actual experiences of discrimination. The power of this resistance lies in the languages used. Assamese, yes, but also dialects. The power of this resistance lies in the fact that it is not one or two poets, but many. And the power of this resistance lies in dignity politics. The poems are being targeted not only because of drawing attention to discrimination, but also because some of them are written in dialects that belong to the communities. At the heart of this country's diversity, at the heart of this country's culture is the fact of multilingualism. What happens to all these voices if they have to face the chauvinism of a standard or majority language? Our diversity, our culture that we like to boast about, will be torn to shreds. At the end of this month, Assam will publish its final national register of citizens. The plan is to identify undocumented migrants from Bangladesh. But the NRC will leave huge numbers of Indians stateless. The NRC has also targeted poor minorities of Assam, mostly Bengali Muslims and Hindus, who are easily stereotyped as Bangladeshi. Add to this the current prevailing ideology that is inciting multiple axes of chauvinism, language, community, caste. Together, the objective is to break up a united opposition to the NRC. That land is mine, I am not of that land. The land that makes my father Indian, that kills my brother with bullets, the land where my mother stokes in her heart, that land is mine. We have to combine cultural resistance with the resistance against the NRC. We have to resist all attempts to exclude our people from citizenship. And as part of this resistance, we must insist on our diversity of language, community level cultures, on freedom of speech and other constitutional rights.