BRAJAKHAL, INDIA - Like a fever, fear is spreading across India, a contagion fueling a message: Run. Head home. Flee. And that is what thousands of migrants from the country's distant Northeastern states are doing, jamming into train stations in an exodus challenging the Indian ideals of tolerance and diversity.

What began as an isolated communal conflict in the remote state of Assam -- a vicious if obscure fight over land and power between Muslims and the indigenous Bodo tribe -- has unexpectedly set off widespread panic among Northeastern migrants who had moved to more prosperous cities for a piece of India's rising affluence.

A swirl of unfounded rumors, spread by text messages and social media, had warned of attacks by Muslims against the migrants, prompting the panic and the exodus. Indian leaders have pleaded for calm, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared in Parliament on Friday to denounce the rumor-mongering and offer reassurance to migrants.

"What is at stake is the unity and integrity of our country," Singh said. "What is at stake is communal harmony."

The hysteria in several of the country's most advanced urban centers has underscored the deep roots of ethnic tensions in India, where communal conflict is usually simplified as Hindu vs. Muslim yet is often far more complex. For decades, Indian leaders have mostly managed to isolate and triangulate regional ethnic conflicts, if not always resolve them, but the public panic is a testament to how the old strategies may be less effective in an information age.

Earlier this month, the central government started moving to stabilize Assam, where at least 78 people have been killed and more than 300,000 have fled their homes for refugee camps. Then Muslims staged a large, angry protest in Mumbai, the country's financial capital, on the western coast. A wave of fear began sweeping through the migrant communities after several people from the Northeast were beaten up in Pune, a city not far from Mumbai.

By Wednesday and Thursday, the exodus had begun. So many people were pouring into train stations in Bangalore and Chennai that the Railways Ministry later added special services to certain cities. By Friday, even as some of the fears eased in the biggest cities, people were leaving smaller cities, including Mysore and Mangalore.

To many Northeastern migrants, the impulse to rush home -- despite the trouble in Assam -- is a reminder of how alienated many feel from mainstream India. The Northeast, tethered to the rest of the country by a narrow finger of land, always has been neglected. Populated by a complex mosaic of ethnic groups, the seven states of the Northeast also have been plagued by insurgencies and rivalries as different groups compete for power.

Here in Assam, the underlying frictions are over the control of land, immigration pressures and the fight for political power. The savagery and starkness of the violence have been startling. Of the 78 people killed, some were butchered. More than 14,000 homes have been burned. That 300,000 people are in refugee camps is remarkable; had so many people fled across sub-Saharan Africa to escape ethnic persecution, a humanitarian crisis almost certainly would have been declared.

"If we go back and they attack us again, who will save us?" asked Subla Mushary, 35, who is living with her two teenage daughters at a camp for Bodos.

Assam, which has about 31 million people, has a long history of ethnic strife. The current violence is focused on the westernmost region of the state, which is claimed by the Bodos as their homeland. For years, Bodo insurgent groups fought for political autonomy.

Resentments exploded in July and early August, after an escalating cycle of attacks between Muslims and Bodos. Soon entire villages were being looted and burned.

At the camps, life is increasingly miserable. One camp had 10 makeshift toilets for 4,300 people. At another camp, officials reported, more than 6,500 people were crammed into a converted high school, including 30 pregnant women.

Goi Mohammad Sheikh, 39, brought his wife and five children to a Muslim refugee camp, which houses 5,200 people, but was returning to their village at night to protect their home. It had been looted but not burned, he said, and he and a group of other men were standing guard.

"We want to protect our houses," he said. "In some villages, it will not be possible to go back. It is too dangerous. But we will not leave our village. If they kill us, let them kill us. How do we leave our motherland?"

In percentage term this is a very small problem. Even the death of 1 million Indians won't come to more than 0.01% of the population.

The problem with Indians, they sit on a festering problem until it blows out of control, then they try to manage the fall-out.  India has to address and manage issues before it blow-up in the faces.  This is why India seems to be going from one chaos to another.  Assam has been festering for a decade with migrants from Bangladesh.

The problem with Indians is not just limited to India. Linden has been festering for decades. The PPP has to address and manage issues before they blow up in its face. This is why the PPP seems to be going from one chaos to another. It's a common Indian decease.

No one went and take anything from Linden.  Lindeners sat on their hand for decades and did nothing to uplift themselves even with cheap subsidized power.  The GoG did a lot for Linden via these subsidies and signing deals with mining interest.  However, they expected more hand-out and when they don't get, they go into a loot and burn tantrum.

well out baseman.

As a Lindener I can categorically state that you are a liar. The people in Wismar especially had to put up with inhaling that toxic dust all their lives. The only benefit the region enjoyed was free electricity as an undeclared compensation for the dust.

  People in Linden have started various businesses. I know of people who went into farming. Growing vegetables etc is however not easy. The bauxite dust ruins the crop quite quickly if you are not outside the dust plume.

But to start a sizeable business instead of just a small holding you need start up capital. You can't get that from the bank unless you got contacts or collateral. The latter is in short supply.

Was that a contractual obligation on the part of the GoG?  Mining and dust goes hand-in-hand, no different than other mining which has their own hazards.

Regarding starting a business, you always have an excuse.  I know many people in Guyana start from a lil bottom-house operation, learn the ropes, made their errors and grow into substantial.  Even some of the big boys in GT had very humble beginnings.

If you wait for a bank to bank-roll you without you even demonstrating you understand the very basics of what you want to do, then sit on you hands for another generation and point fingers to those who move on.

As I said to Caribj, you always have a shitload of excuses for just doing nothing.

 Mining and dust ( or manufacturing for that matter)  does not go hand in hand. Poor environmental protection strategies, lack of concern by government and predatory companies doing what they are allowed to do is the reason for the dust. I lived next to an old rice mill in my youth and the folks that ran that mill had the "bussy" contained and he used wet jute bags as a low tech solution to the dust.

I do not care to respond to he rest of your nonsense since it alludes to the same crapola about black people not having initiative and Indians do. It cuts across your ignorance that the rise of the wealthy in Guyana is from the crooked class, the new businesses in GT are directly related to the smuggling business on the Mazuruni and Cuyuni rivers of the PNC era turned drug routes in the PPP. 

It was a symbiosis of black people doing the courier job and the Indians financing it and making the lions share. From Brahama to RK to Razak to the whole lot of mall builders and store owner you have the growth of wealth on drugs.  Compound that with an Indian government turning a blind eye to it even facilitating it. One of Guyana's primer  Commerce agency was  headed by one of Guyana's biggest drug lord! Guyana's newly wealthy came mainly from drug money and from corrupt PPP contracts.

Quit the crap about Caribj and focus on your own gross in your face racism. Now tell me how I ough to be drinking piwari instead of talking to you~

This Bodo tribe is Hindu.  That being said, they would not think twice about attacking other hindus from other parts of India how have migrated to their lands. In 1996 they attacked hindus who were migrants from Bengal and killed several of them. So they would also not think twice about attacking muslims especially illegal muslim migrants from Bangladesh.  It is about the Bodo Tribe protecting their tribal lands, women, children, their way of life and identity as a people.  That is how they see it in their minds.

Like Lindeners?? If not sure ask Mr T.

I am a lover not a fighter .

school burnt down now health clinic ..whats next ?

India is asking for help from US to find out who sent the threatening SMS's...cannot trust its own engineers.

And they want to send a rocket to Mars?

I'd bet all Indian rocket scientists want to migrate to the Anglosphere (America, Australia, Britain, New Zealand). so this Mars project it is one India project to get in their resumes and obtain a safe pass to the developed world.