THE COWS THAT NEVER CAME HOME

An ambitious dairy project curdles into an embarrassing scandal, as state BJP brass are shown to have vamoosed with prize Gir cows

- By Nandita Borah and Achintya Patangia

IT WAS IN THE CRUEL SUMMER OF 2021, amidst the second wave of Covid-19, that the bulldozers arrived in Gorukhuti. Encroached land, they called it. By the time the dust settled on this corner of Assam’s Darrang district, hundreds of families—mostly Bangla-speaking Muslims of suspect citizenship—had lost their homes. On the cleared land was to be sown an ambitious promise: the Gorukhuti Bahumukhi Krishi Prakalpa (GBKP), a model project for indigenous farmers. Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma painted a vision of agricultural renaissance rising from the ruins of displacement. Three years later, that vision has curdled into scandal.