Guwahati, Sept. 7 -- 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 asSribhumiin November 2024 has escalated into fiery protests. Clashes on September 6, 2025, left journalists injured, police on high alert, and over 100 detained.

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...