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COMMENTARY
The case for more
fences
By B Raman
Since the
last week of January, tension has been building on the
Indian-Bangladesh border over the question of continued
illegal immigration of Bangladeshi nationals into India.
The attempt of India's Border Security Force
(BSF) to push back into Bangladesh a group of 213
illegal migrants was resisted by the Bangladeshi
security forces, resulting in a confrontational
situation. Instead of appreciating the need for
effective action against illegal immigrants, the
so-called secular parties in India, with the Marxists in
the lead, have criticized the action of the BSF. As in
the past, the action of the central government has been
projected as anti-Muslim.
Where immigration
controls are lax, terrorism grows and internal security
is weakened. This has been the experience of not only
India, but also of many other countries such as
Pakistan, the Philippines, the West European countries
and the United States.
Over the years, some
parts of Pakistan, including the city of Karachi in
Sindh province, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP)
and Balochistan Province, have become practically
ungovernable because of large-scale illegal migration
from Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The change in the
demographic composition of Balochistan in general and of
Quetta, its capital, in particular, has been dramatic
due to the large-scale migration of Pashtuns from
Afghanistan into the province. In many districts, the
Balochis, the sons of the soil, have been reduced to a
minority and Quetta stands in danger of becoming a
Pashtun city one day. Fears over this prospect led to
Balochi-Pashtun clashes in the 1990s.
The
frequent outbreak of violence in Karachi and its
becoming the epicenter of sectarian and pan-Islamic
jihadi terrorism have been due to the unchecked influx
of Afghans, Bangladeshis, Arabs (particularly Yemenis)
and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar into the city during
the past two decades. After Bangladesh became
independent in 1971, the total Bengali-speaking
population of Karachi came down to an estimated 10,000.
By 1995, it went up to 1,626,324, nearly one-tenth of
the population, according to The News of November 3,
1995. In addition, Karachi had 654,693 Pashtuns from
Afghanistan, 204,448 Rohingya Muslims, 2,320 Iranians,
70 Sri Lankan Tamil Muslims and an unestimated number of
Arabs, mainly Yemenis.The Bangladeshi population of
Karachi has surely grown even more in the time since,
but no fresh estimates are available.
This
large-scale influx was partly due to its encouragement
by the regime of the late Zia ul-Haq in order to weaken
Sindhi and Balochi nationalists, who started clamoring
for independence after the birth of Bangladesh.
Moreover, the Islamic religious parties patronized by
Zia opposed any action against Muslim migrants from
other countries. They projected Pakistan as the natural
sanctuary and protector of persecuted Muslims from all
over the world, from both Islamic and non-Islamic
countries.
In a secret report submitted to
Benazir Bhutto, then the Pakistani prime minister, in
1995, the inspector-general of police in Karachi at the
time pointed out that the activities of different
terrorist groups could not be controlled unless action
was taken to stop further illegal immigration of Muslims
into Karachi from other countries and those already
living illegally there were expelled. He expressed
concern over the alarming increase in the influx of
Bangladeshis through India and cautioned that if this
continued, in another 20 years, Bengali-speaking people
would overtake the Urdu-speaking Mohajirs as the largest
ethnic group in Karachi and that this could lead to a
demand for a second Bangladesh.
Alarmed by his
report, she ordered the arrest and deportation of all
Bangladeshi migrants in Karachi. The Khalida Zia
government, which was then in power in Dhaka, refused to
accept them and sent two planeloads back to Pakistan.
Her action created tension in Pakistan-Bangladesh
relations and was criticized by the religious
fundamentalist parties as anti-Islam. She was ultimately
forced to abandon it.
If today's Karachi has
emerged as a safe sanctuary for Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda and other pan-Islamic jihadi organizations, it
has been partly due to the total failure of different
governments, whether led by political parties or by the
army, to act against illegal migrants due to fears of
provoking the religious fundamentalist parties.
India is soon likely to face a similar situation
if it does not act against the influx of illegal
migrants from Bangladesh, as well as from Pakistan.
While no accurate estimate of the influx is available,
many reports put the influx from Bangladesh alone at
over 20 million. The influx from Bangladesh has been due
to economic reasons and from Pakistan due to the
persecution of Mohajirs in Sindh. This uncontrolled
influx has changed the demographic composition of many
districts along India's borders with Bangladesh, as well
as Pakistan (in the Rajasthan and Gujarat sectors).
Thousands, if not millions, of Bangladeshis have spread
to other areas of India too and settled there, including
in New Delhi.
At almost every annual conference
of the directors general of police from different Indian
states, they have projected the failure of different
governments to act against this influx as posing a major
threat to the country's internal security, particularly
in West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. Unfortunately, no
government has been able to act against it because the
so-called secular parties and organizations and large
sections of the so-called liberal media have projected
any action as anti-Muslim. The secular parties,
particularly the Marxists, also look upon these illegal
migrants as useful additions to their vote banks.
The Philippines is another example of what could
happen if immigration controls are lax. The failure of
the governments of the 1980s to act effectively against
large-scale movement of jihadi Muslims from Pakistan
into southern Philippines contributed to its emergence
as the hub of pan-Islamic jihadi terrorism in Southeast
Asia.
One of the important lessons learnt by the
US and Western Europe after September 11 is the need for
effective immigration control, particularly over
migrants from the Islamic world. Unfortunately, the
Islamic countries have been, in a large measure, the
sources of illegal migration to the rest of the world.
While the majority of them have nothing to do with the
spread of terrorism, this influx is exploited by
pan-Islamic jihadi organizations and transnational crime
groups to spread terror and crime. It is the realization
that there cannot be effective internal security without
effective action against illegal migrants, which has
been responsible for the strong action taken by the John
Howard government in Australia and by the Bush
administration in the US.
The procedures for the
compulsory registration in the US of migrants from
"countries of concern", all of them Muslim, including
Pakistan and Bangladesh, have been justified on grounds
of national security. Despite the Bush administration's
strong backing for the Pervez Musharraf regime in
Islamabad, it has rejected its request for exempting the
Pakistanis from this requirement. Its attorney-general
has rightly taken the stand that where national security
is concerned, no relaxation can be allowed for any
reason, political or otherwise. Large sections of the
political and public opinion in the US have backed the
stand of the government.
The problem posed by
the large-scale illegal immigration of Muslims from
other countries into India, and particularly from
Bangladesh, is much more serious than in any other
country of the world. The government has at long last
woken up to the need to stop this. All right-thinking
persons concerned by the deterioration in internal
security over the years should strongly back this action
by the BSF. Our national security is more important than
good relations with Bangladesh.
B
Raman is Additional Secretary (ret), Cabinet
Secretariat, Government of India, and presently
director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai; former
member of the National Security Advisory Board of the
government of India. He was also head of the
counter-terrorism division of the Research &
Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency,
from 1988 to August, 1994.
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