Bangladeshi Illegal Migrants Issue

CA 10/09/15

In the year 1826, under the Treaty of Yandabo, the then geography of what is now called Assam came under the British rule.
People of Bengal and of Assam lived within the same administrative jurisdiction.

Before the Partition of Bengal in 1905, there were many minor partitions which effected the demography of the region by displacing Bengali’s across the border between the present day Bangladesh and Assam.
Communal carnage post 1947 Partition resulted in much bigger displacement of people.
The internal political turmoil, coupled with communal riots first in East Pakistan, and then in Bangladesh, made sure movements across the boundary remained a regular feature even after 1971.

Redrawing of political map of Assam by the colonial rulers showing utter disregard to the sentiments of the Assamese and the Bengalis and political turmoil in East Pakistan, and later Bangladesh, are the root causes behind the perpetual communal violence.
Emergence of pressure groups and political parties with narrow outlook worsened the situation.
Emergence of All Assam Students’ Union and worsening situation
Assamese middle-class saw in the British actions of administering Bengali settlement on their own land an evil design of ‘linguistic hegemony’.
In a bid to retaliate, the Assamese elites began to treat Bengali settlers on Assam’s soil as ‘cultural foreigners’.
Slowly, anti-foreigner movements, spearheaded by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) took shape during 1979-85.
The metamorphosis of AASU into Asom Gana Parishad and its eventual victory in Assembly elections has practically worsened the situation.

The xenophobic movement launched by the AASU during the early 1980s was successful in convincing the Indian establishment that a ‘marauding infiltration’ by Bangladeshi nationals from across the border was putting the Assamese language and culture in great danger.
The six-year-long violent agitation culminated in the inking of the Assam Accord on August 14-15, 1985.
This tripartite memorandum of settlement between the Centre, the Assam government and the AASU leadership brought an end to the Assam Agitation.
The accord paved the way for the leaders of the agitation to form a political party and form a government in the state of Assam soon after.
The Citizenship Act, 1955 was suitably amended by the Parliament to incorporate Section 6(a), bringing in a special provision of citizenship for Assam.

Related acts like The Citizenship Act, 1955; the Foreigners Expulsion Act, 1946; the Foreigners Tribunals Order, 1964; and the Citizenship Rules, 2003, have all been very carefully crafted over the years to evict from Assam the Partition victims of erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh (Few call them as ‘Partition victims’ and other call them as ‘Bangladesi Infiltrators’. There is no clear methodology to distinguish between erstwhile Bengali settlers and Bangladeshi infiltrators. So even legal ones will face the brunt of NCR).
The Bengali speaking citizens in Assam allegedly face a new kind of terror from the Indian government.
State government is now active in the preparation of the National Register of Citizens.
It is alleged that NCR is aimed at labeling lakhs of Bengali-speaking citizens as ‘illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators’.

The stringent set of conditions attached to the process requires the Bengalis of Assam to prove their Indian citizenship solely on the basis of their or their ancestors’ names appearing on the electoral rolls published up to 25 March 1971 and the NRC of 1951, failing which they would be thrown out of the updated NRC.
To make things complicated for these people, such electoral rolls are found to be both incorrect and incomplete.
In the absence of any bilateral arrangement between India and Bangladesh, the latter is not ready to take the partition victims (Bangladeshi Infiltrators) back.
This implies that lakhs of such Indian citizens, who have had their names on the Indian electoral rolls for the past four decades, and who are in possession of Electoral Photo Identity Card, would be rendered stateless.

It is true that lot of Bangladeshi Infiltrators have illegally settled in India recently.
People from Bangladesh come to Assam for work on daily wage basis.
They don’t posses any work permits and the government doesn’t maintain a proper database of such workers.
These workers slowly settle in Assam altering the demography of the region.
When locals realize that they are become minorities in their own land, they start agitating which will finally lead to communal violence.
And finally government wakes up and tries to drive out the infiltrators (atleast in name).
But it doesn’t know who is the infiltrator and who is the legal citizen.
In confusion, it will add some legal citizens in the list of infiltrators and the real problem starts.

PMF IAS. Helping aspirant