Page 92 - Changing Living Spaces

Haruhisa Asada

Figure 6 Land Use of Boro Rice-Cum-Fishery in Muslim Immigrants’ Village

of chemical fertilizers and diesel fuel for pumps is high, and the profit af-
ter selling the product is lower. Villagers must grow a certain amount of
boro rice to produce rice for home consumption and straw for livestock
feed. Boro rice cultivation is not very important as a source of cash income
because sufficient profits can be made from fish cultivation.

Interactions Between Muslim Immigrants
and Indigenous Hindus
From the results obtained, it can be concluded that the Muslim immi-
grants found the utility value in the ecological environment of the flood-
plains where the indigenous people did not live, and they achieved high
land productivity by developing technologies that did not exist in Assam.
Previous studies have argued that they threaten the livelihoods of indige-
nous communities because of their high productivity. However, from the
author’s field survey, Muslim immigrants and indigenous communities
are not always in conflict; rather, the livelihood activities of Muslim im-
migrants support the lives of indigenous communities.
An example is the production and supply of food. As mentioned ear-
lier, Muslim immigrants modify the original environment to grow fish,
boro rice, and other crops year-round, and they earn a cash income by sell-

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