My uncle Khwaja Ahmed Abbas wrote a story in 1948 titled Sardarji. He read it out to a circle of friends in Srinagar at a writers’ workshop. Everyone was stunned by the powerful narrative. But when the story started appearing in Urdu and Hindi journals in India and Pakistan, a storm began to brew. The Pakistani press declared him wajibul qatl (meriting death). The Indian press followed suit.The story was based on a real-life incident. In Karol Bagh, an old Sikh neighbour saved his brother and his family and took the bullet shots on his own chest. No one bothered to read and understand the irony of the narrative which concluded with the line, ‘It was not Sardarji who died but it was I, Burhanuddin who had died’… hence the alternative title, Meri Maut.Both the newly partitioned countries thought he had insulted them. Both countries gave him death sentences. After several months of anguish and suffering, when readers on both sides bothered to read the story until the end, Sikhs all over the country – from the courts to the military dug-outs in Kashmir – embraced him with flowing tears. The Pakistani media, shamefaced, retracted its diatribe.I have inherited his grit and my family’s humanism.Assam is a state I have loved not only from my frequent visits during my tenure with the National Commission for Women and Planning Commission, but from back in 1954 when I saw Abbas’s film Rahi with Dev Anand and Nalini Jaywant. It was about tea garden workers who were brutally oppressed by their colonial masters. The song ‘Ek kali aur do patiyan’, which I heard as a child, still rings in my ears.Abbas wanted to shoot his film in Assam. He writes, “The British tea garden owners chased us out of every garden we visited. Finally we shifted to Nilgiris, an Indian owned plantation near Ooti.” That became the venue for the location shooting. Music and lyrics by Anil Biswas and Prem Dhawan became immortal. The Indian manager, servant of the Brits, wielded his whip and the song ‘Ek kali aur do patiyan jaanen humri sab batiyan’ rose in defiance from every slope of tea gardens.It was against this background that I visited almost all districts of Assam from 1997 to 2014 during various offices I held. My shelves have many reports and my albums have many photographs. I have friends in several districts, lifelong friends. And suddenly in July 2025, 70 years after I fell in love with Assam, this edifice of love crashed.On August 23, 2025, six of us embarked on a journey. The mission was to see with our own eyes the mass eviction of Bengali Muslim families from various parts of the state. The team visited Goalpara and Borduar. A public meeting followed the visit. Prashant Bhushan, Wajahat Habibullah, Jawhar Sircar, Harsh Mander, Fawaz Shaheen and Syeda Hameed. We all spoke about our experiences. After the meeting, we descended the stage into the arms of the Assamese media. They asked and we responded. Our stand was that all humans should be treated with humaneness. Whether they were Muslims, Bengalis or Bangladeshis. Insaniyat and Bhupen Hazarika’s humanism were the lessons we had grown up with, even towards purported enemies. I did not realise that even the polite Assam media had not understood me. I have always loved Assam and had spoken to Assamese media for almost a quarter century. That night the barrage began in the Assamese press.We reached Delhi and as per practice, the next day was the press conference at the Constitution Club. As I was about to get down from the car, young women thrust mikes almost into my mouth, screaming a volley of questions. I tried to say, come to the conference and ask your questions there. The mike thrusts were unstoppable. I said, ‘Look, I am like your mother. Would you do this to her?’ With difficulty I got inside. The meeting began. What happened next is common knowledge; a crowd entered the Deputy Speakers Hall, flinging placards at me which could have hit any of my colleagues on the stage. Some sported skull caps, some were saffron clad. All young men. Our own young friends made a cordon around the podium. The crowd shouted, they threatened and finally left. At that moment two images flashed in my mind. One was the communal riots in 1947; second was 1989, Safdar Hashmi shot in Sahibabad. Was the mob searched for guns before they entered Constitution Club?Despite the onslaught, our testimonies continued. Not a single one of those microphone wielders entered the conference hall. Two hours later, the meeting ended and I walked out. They were all there, young men and women with their mikes poking in my face. Suddenly a woman’s voice rose like thunder, ‘Will you stop it!’ A pair of hands propelled me to the car. ‘Go,’ said a male voice in my ear. As the car moved I heard him scream at the crowd of media-mongers.People have read the words the honourable Assam chief minister spoke to the media, including that I subscribed to ‘Jinnah’s dream to turn Assam into a part of Pakistan’ and ‘I would not personally file an FIR against her. It would help her raise money for her legal defence and enrich herself but if she returns we will deal with her.’ Other invectives were hurled at me by the minister of parliamentary affairs and by the Assam Students Union.I want to end with my great grandfather, the poet Maulana Altaf Husain Hali, who wrote these lines in 1874 having experienced the first war of independence in 1857:Tum agar chahtey ho mulk ki khairNa kisi hum watan ko samjo ghairHo Musalmaan us me ya HinduBodh mazhab ho ya ho Sikh bandhuSab ko meethi nigaah se dekhoSamjho aankhon ki putliyaan sab koThat is my inherited and imbibed creed. Now, at the end of my life, I regret that I will never visit my beautiful Assam. If I am ‘dealt with’ as the chief minister has said, my friends from all over India (including Assam) will be anguished and distraught. But Assam’s two leaves and a bud will go to my grave.Syeda Hameed is a writer and the founder chair of the Muslim Women’s Forum.