[Reader-list] Virtual Citizens, Real Problems

[Naeem Mohaiemen]

The Telegraph
September 16 , 2008

VIRTUAL CITIZENS, REAL PROBLEMS
The Centre needs more pragmatic policies to deal with the influx of
Bangladeshi migrants into the north-eastern states, writes Sanjoy
Hazarika

Research over rhetoric

A high court judgment on illegal migrants from Bangladesh has once
again raised the thorny issue of influx into the Northeast,
especially into Assam, where it has always been a sensitive matter.
Underscoring the scale and the depth of the problem, which has been
troubling Assam and other north-eastern states for decades - and has
now created challenges in places as distant as Mumbai, Jaipur and New
Delhi - the Guwahati High Court has declared that illegal
Bangladeshis "have a major role in electing the representatives. They
have become the kingmakers". The basis of this statement is not
clear, but it may have been arrived at from various media reports and
from the fact that a Bangladeshi actually stood for elections to the
Assam state assembly in the Nineties, or even from the general view
prevailing in Assam that the Muslim vote holds the key to nearly one-
third of the state's 126 assembly constituencies. This is, in turn,
interpolated to mean that Bangladeshis are in a majority or are
critical to the vote in these constituencies - they often blur the
line between indigenous Muslims, who speak both Assamese and Bengali
and have lived in Assam for generations (and are bona fide Indian
citizens), and those who came to the state after the creation of
Bangladesh in 1971.

Much confusion arises from these issues. B.K. Sharma, a judge of the
Guwahati High Court, spoke of the need for strong political will to
tackle the situation and also of how easy it is to gain virtual
citizenship and outmanoeuvre the police as well as the legal
processes. The ruling - which came up in a case when the court
dismissed appeals by 49 persons, who had challenged a tribunal
finding that they were Bangladeshis and should be deported - has
triggered an outburst against Bangladeshis, perceived or real. A
surge of activism has been reported against alleged foreign nationals
and there are allegations that minorities have been harassed after
being labelled as Bangladeshis.

Vigilantism is no answer to such a crisis: it can exacerbate local
tensions and play into the hands of political groups, especially of
the Right, which seek to exploit such confrontations. It is important
that not a single Indian citizen is discriminated against on the
basis of religion, ethnicity or background. Detection and deportation
have to be done by the agencies of the State in consonance with law,
although public frustration on the issue and the failure of the State
over nearly 30 years are understandable.

Assam is a complex ethnic mix, not only does it have a wide range of
tribes but it is also home to different Muslim groups, just as it has
"indigenous" Sikhs and Buddhists. The division among the Muslims is
three-way: the older Assamese speakers who have strong affinities
with the Assamese Hindu majority; the Bengali-origin Muslims, many of
whom speak Assamese as their own language and have lived in Assam for
decades; and the Bangladeshi immigrants, who have been coming to
Assam since 1971, when East Pakistan broke away from West Pakistan in
the War of Liberation. While political and public antagonism is
largely focused at the last group, confusion sets in at times because
of the rhetoric that calls for the expulsion of "all Bangladeshis",
without making any difference between the pre-1971 group and those
who came afterward.

Indeed, Muslim populations in six districts of Assam - Dhubri,
Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Barpeta and Nalbari - have surged.
Migration is a major factor here; so are high fertility rates,
combined with poverty, poor education levels, low health access and
family planning measures. These high-growth districts were carved out
of the older districts of Goalpara and Kamrup, where there have been
extensive settlement of Muslims in the pre-Independence era.
According to the 2001 census, Assam's Hindu population has grown at
14.95 per cent against 29.30 per cent for the Muslims. The figure was
far higher between the Sixties and the Eighties, when large numbers
migrated to and settled in Assam.

The powerful All Assam Students' Union, which first brought the issue
to national and international attention in 1979, says the state and
Central governments have failed to protect Assam from "external
aggression and internal disturbance". Aasu's ire is also directed at
the Asom Gana Parishad, which emerged from its womb in 1985, and also
at the Left: all are guilty, it says, of supporting the influx
because they are dependent on these votes, and also because they
support cheap labour.

Conflicting figures float around as to the number of "Bangladeshis"
in Assam, as well as in India. But there is little doubt that there
are no less than 20 lakh illegal migrants in Assam (a figure
extrapolated from fertility rates and demographic growth of different
religious groups), with a majority being Muslim. This is a
substantial number, about seven per cent of Assam's total population
of 30 million. It is also larger than the populations of small states
such as Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh in the Northeast,
which comes to a total of 40 million. The overall figures for illegal
migrants in India is said to be not less than 20 million. Some assert
that this is a conservative figure.

Yet, development and the potential of conflict and violence are
intertwined. If the state and Central governments do not wake up to
the abysmal human development index levels in Lower Assam (and that
covers both tribals like the Bodos, groups like Koch-Rajbongshis, as
well as Muslims), the populations there - Bangladeshi or not -may be
tempted to align with groups that are inimical to the interests of
Assam and also of India. It is in our short- and long-term security
interests to bridge service delivery gaps. This is the soft
underbelly of the Northeast and of India, a 4,000-km belt that
stretches from the narrow foot of Mizoram that plunges into the tri-
junction of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, up to the Sunderbans and
the Bay of Bengal. The issue today is not that there are a large
number of illegal migrants in India. The question, more importantly,
is what can be done about them.

For 30 years, various movements in Assam have demanded vigorous
action against immigrants. Although a national concern, the issue
gets little more attention than a district problem. Bangladesh
conveniently declares, on the one hand, that none of its nationals
migrate to poor countries like India (of course, they only work as
street-cleaners and waiters in the United States of America and
Europe!) and, on the other, through its founding father, Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman, proclaims that the "fertile lands" of Assam are a
Lebensraum for its people, who now are packed at 1,400 persons per
square kilometre, the highest population density in the world.
Despite the Assam Accord of 1985 after the student-led movement
against Bangladeshis, the number of those ousted is barely a few
thousand. There are several reasons for this, the predominant one
being that Bangladesh denies that any of its nationals slip into
India illegally. Thus, the shrillness of the campaigns against
Bangladeshis fails to turn up specific answers. Even a Bharatiya
Janata Party-led coalition failed to do anything about deportation.
It is better, in my view, to develop a three point action plan that
has the support of all political parties and groups instead of
continuing to agitate without end or put off a decision for as long
as possible, as the government is doing now.

Provide constitutional guarantees to enable political control of the
state and its future by ensuring reservations of not less than 65 per
cent for all local ethnic groups in perpetuity. There is no need to
quibble over what constitutes an "Assamese" - provide the protected
status to all recognized scheduled tribes, scheduled castes, other
backward classes and to general citizens who are voters, but who can
also be traced through the 1951 National Register of Citizens matched
with the 1971 electoral lists. It is here that the definition of Asom-
bashis (residents of Assam) by the United Liberation Front of Assom
becomes maybe more appropriate than Asomiyas - efforts to define the
latter has tied governments and organizations up in knots for decades.

Back this up by issuing multi-purpose identity cards to all who
qualify under the process and then provide temporary work permits to
those of Bangladeshi-origin who are already here. The TWPs would not
be a license to settle down, but only provide access to work and
incomes for a fixed time, as in a visa regime - one year to start
with, to be extended to a second but non-extendable further - since
the northeast region is a labour-strapped area, constantly depending
on labour from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Bangladesh. The TWPs could be
issued to groups of not more than 25. The individuals in the groups
could be identified through software that gives each person a unique
identity through finger-printing and eye detection.

An alternative to the TWP, and a simpler one, is to develop a
separate category of identity cards, as proposed by Prakash Singh, an
eminent police official, with a different colour coding for
Bangladeshi/foreign nationals.

It is better to temper rhetoric with research and realism and develop
"implementable" policy approaches instead of continuing to live
either in denial or repeating the story of the past 30 years. Far too
much time has passed, and too many lives have been expended.