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India's ticking immigrant time
bomb
By Ramtanu Maitra
There is little doubt among those in New
Delhi who have even a cursory knowledge of India's
northeast that it is a time bomb that will explode
sooner or later.
The
4,096-kilometer-long and porous India-Bangladesh border makes for
easy crossing. In Nagaland, the population of
Muslims, mostly illegal migrants from Bangladesh, has
more than trebled in the past decade - the
figure rising from 20,000 in 1991 to more than 75,000 in 2001.
Illegal migrants have settled in various Indian
states, including West Bengal, Assam, Bihar (in
the northeastern districts of Katihar, Sahebganj,
Kishanganj and Purnia), Tripura and even in Delhi.
The steady flow of illegal immigrants from
Bangladesh has significantly altered the region's
demographic complexion, particularly in the border
districts of West Bengal and Assam, and with
important political implications. In Assam illegal
migrants affect state politics in a major way,
having acquired a critical say in an estimated 50
of the state's 126 assembly constituencies.
At the same time, the steady growth of
radical and militant extremists spewing Islamic
jargon in Bangladesh since September 11, 2001, and
Dhaka's inability, or unwillingness, to tackle the
same has raised the stakes further for India. Yet
to date it has proved impossible for New Delhi to
get an action plan to deal with the problem off
the ground. The late national security adviser, J
N "Mani" Dixit, was reportedly aware and concerned
about these developments. But he did not find
eager ears in the Manmohan Singh cabinet to listen
and attend to this real danger. It is also known
that the US Embassy is aware of the danger, but
will not say anything lest it be construed as
interfering in another sovereign state's affairs.
Internal quibbling among the powers-that-be in
Delhi over threat perception priorities has
worsened the situation.
Meanwhile,
the 1983 legislation that stymied India's
historic immigration law, the Foreigners Act of 1946,
and seriously tipped the scales in favor of
the illegal immigrants - the Illegal
Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act (IMDT) -
was recently reinforced by the Congress-led
United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. For
illegal immigrants, many of whom could be anti-India
(or anti-Hindu, whatever fits the objective)
extremists and Pakistani Inter-Service
Intelligence (ISI) operatives, the playing field
remains better than level.
A loaded
act
One of the primary reasons the playing
field is favorable to the illegal immigrants is
the IMDT - put in place in 1983 by India under
Congress Party rule. Widely known in Assam as the
"Black Act", the IMDT made the detection and
deportation of illegal immigrants virtually
impossible. The law placed the onus of proving
nationality on the citizen who makes the complaint
and not on the migrant, thus encouraging illegal
migrants of other states to move to Assam because
it would be most difficult to be deported from
there.
The IMDT is, in fact, probably the
only immigration law in the world that puts the
burden of proof on the complainant to prove that
the individual in question is an illegal
immigrant. The complainant will even have to put
down money to make the complaint. The IMDT is also
unique in the sense that the enforcing authority
is not the executive, but retired members of the
judiciary serving as judges in a tribunal.
Under the provisions of this law, police
can serve notice to a person declared an illegal
migrant by the IMDT tribunals asking him to
"remove himself from the country" within a period
of 30 days. During the period, however, it is
almost impossible to keep the individual in
question under surveillance because of a lack of
adequate manpower. As a result, the immigrant can
simply shift to another location. There have, in
fact, been instances in which persons declared
foreigners by the IMDT tribunals even changed
their names; under such circumstances, it is
almost impossible to detect and apprehend them.
Moreover, as per the provisions of the act, the
police are not empowered to seize any documents or
raid the premises of the suspected illegal
migrants.
Demographic
change
Whether the illegal migration of
Bangladeshis in droves will collapse the 1.2
billion-strong Indian republic is not an issue.
The actual threat manifests itself in a different,
non-linear way. For instance, take the change in
the state of Assam's demography as a result of the
thrust of illegal immigration. The Assamese who
are losing land to these illegal migrants are
becoming increasingly unhappy and disaffected with
a New Delhi that apparently can do nothing to help
them. These Assamese are turning in large numbers
to secret support of the various anti-India
secessionist and separatist movements that have
spawned in the area. This is a serious danger to
India.
Rough estimates suggest that more than
16 million migrants, mostly Muslims but also some
Hindus, have found shelter since 1972, mostly in
Assam and West Bengal. The August 2000 report of
the Task Force on Border Management placed the
figure at 15 million, with 300,000 Bangladeshis
entering India illegally every month. In a more
recent report, published in the Asian Age on
September 28, 2003, India's defense minister told
a seminar on "Integrated Management of Security"
in Chandigarh that about 100,000 illegal
Bangladeshi migrants are entering India every
month.
A month ago, on December 10,
the Indian Supreme Court issued notices to the
central government and the Election Commission of
India seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation
probe into the presence of nearly 20 million
illegal Bangladeshi migrants in the country and
striking their names off the electoral rolls in
various states. The Supreme Court notice was the
result of a public interest lawsuit filed by the
Image India Foundation (IIF), a non-governmental
organization. The IIF lawsuit stated that 85% of
the total encroached forest land in Assam was
found to be in the hands of illegal Bangladeshi
migrants, and that they have a major say in 43 out
of 126 of the state's assembly constituencies.
Two immigration laws and a vote
bank
The lawsuit asserted that
Indian authorities believe there is a close nexus
between the illegal migrants and the extremist
groups operating in the northeastern states. The
IIF lawyer explained that as a result of the
population movement from Bangladesh, the
indigenous people of Assam are being reduced to a
minority in their home state and affected states,
including Bihar, West Bengal, Delhi, Tripura,
Nagaland and Maharashtra. The former governor of
Assam, Lieutenant-General (retired) S K Sinha,
warned explicitly in 1998 that if the demographic
invasion of Assam was not tackled properly, the
Assameses' "cultural survival will be in jeopardy,
their political control will be weakened and their
employment opportunities will be undermined".
At the time the IMDT was passed, Sinha
reported in the following manner to the president
of India on the ground situation: "As a result of
the population movement from Bangladesh, the
specter looms large of the indigenous people of
Assam being reduced to a minority in their home
state. Their cultural survival will be in
jeopardy, their political control will be weakened
and their employment opportunities will be
undermined. This silent and insidious demographic
invasion of Assam may result in the loss of
geostrategically vital district of Lower Assam [on
the border of Bangladesh]. The influx of these
illegal migrants is turning these districts into a
Muslim-majority region. It will then only be a
matter of time when a demand for their merger with
Bangladesh may be made. The rapid growth of
international Islamic fundamentalism may provide
the driving force for this demand ... loss of
lower Assam [the area close to Bangladesh] will
sever the entire land mass of the northeast from
the rest of India, and the rich natural resources
of the region will be lost to the nation."
In hindsight, the governor's
assessment was right on the mark. But precious little
has been done about it. In fact, the Manmohan
Singh government explicitly endorsed the continuation
of the IMDT. On December 14, addressing the Lok
Sabha (the lower house of the Indian parliament
attended by members elected by the people), Home
Minister Shivraj Patil said: "The [formerly
ruling] NDA [National Democratic Alliance]
government was in favor of repealing the IMDT Act.
But the UPA government wants that it should remain
in the statute books." It almost sounds as if the
current UPA government welcomes illegal migration
in order to change Assam's demography. Some
suggest the policy is dictated not by national
interest but by the compulsion of "vote banks"
(the illegal migrants vote for the political party
that protects them).
Besides
increasing the danger that a significant number of
anti-India terrorists have been sent in to India's
northeast from Bangladesh by the Pakistani ISI and
other terrorist outfits, the IMDT contradicts, and
in fact violates, the Foreigners Act of 1946,
the official, long-standing immigration law of
India that is still in effect.
The Foreigners
Act states: "According to the Foreigners (Report
to the police) Order, 1971, made under the
Foreigners Act 1946, every householder or other
person shall report to the officer in charge of
the nearest police station the arrival or presence
in his household or any other premises occupied by
him or under his control of any foreigner, if he
knows or has reasons to believe that he is a
foreigner." It also adds that non-compliance with
this order will attract punitive action under the
Foreigners Act of 1946 of up to five years of
imprisonment, or a fine or both.
Ramtanu Maitra writes for a
number of international journals and is a regular
contributor to the Washington-based EIR and the
New Delhi-based Indian Defence Review. He also
writes for Aakrosh, India's defense-tied quarterly
journal.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
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