Author: M. Amarjeet Singh
Publication: Outlook
Date: August 11, 2008
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060811&fname=nagaland&sid=1
Nagaland does not share a direct land border
with Bangladesh, but illegal migrants are infiltrating into the state from
Assam, with which Nagaland shares a nearly 500-kilometre-long land border.
Unabated illegal immigration of Bangladeshis
into Nagaland is emerging as a major problem in the state, threatening to
assume proportions that have already disrupted populations and peace in the
Northeastern neighbourhood. Better economic prospects and a shortage of local
labour are compounded by a critical absence of mechanisms to prevent such
an influx. Despite their serious demographic, economic, security and political
ramifications on a tiny state like Nagaland, these developments continue to
remain substantially outside the realm of the security discourse in the country.
Nagaland does not share a direct land border
with Bangladesh, but illegal migrants are infiltrating into the state from
Assam, with which Nagaland shares a nearly 500-kilometre-long land border.
Areas around Dimapur town and the foothills
along the Assam-Nagaland border have emerged as the prime targets of migration,
spreading gradually thereafter into other distant locales. The very cosmopolitan
nature of the Dimapur area makes detection of illegal migrants a difficult
task. Worse, the illegal migrants are also in possession of valid official
documents like ration cards and voter identity cards procured from the states
of Assam or West Bengal, where these are available against a small bribe.
The fact that Dimapur town and its surrounding areas are not covered under
the Inner Line Permit (ILP) system, which prohibits all non-Naga outsiders
(including Indian citizens) to settle in the area, is visibly being exploited
by the immigrants before they trickle into other areas of the state.
Once in Nagaland, the illegal migrants manage
to get absorbed in widely available occupations, including agricultural labour,
domestic helps, rickshaw pullers, manual labourers in construction sites and
shop attendants. Besides, a section among the locals patronize them by providing
land for cultivation and temporary settlements. Bangladeshis, providing cheap
labour, have become the preferred option, rather than the relatively expensive
and inadequate pool of local workers.
Accurate estimates of the numbers of illegal
migrants staying in Nagaland are not easy to come by. Available estimates
vary between 75,000 and 300,000. Despite the absence of a precise figure,
these estimates underscore the magnitude of the crisis in this tiny state,
which has a total population of barely two million. Surprisingly, the Dimapur
area alone is believed to have more than 100,000 illegal migrants. Way back
in February 1999, the former Nagaland Chief Minister and currently the Governor
of Goa, S.C. Jamir said that there were about 60,000 Bangladeshis illegally
staying in Dimapur.
The continuing influx of illegal migrants
has created a serious threat of destablisation in the state, with migrants
progressively usurping the economic base of the Nagas. In major marketing
areas of the state like Dimapur, they have already secured considerable influence
in trade and commerce and this is expanding rapidly. Muslim migrants today
run almost half of the shops in Dimapur, the biggest commercial hub of the
state. In 2003, a local newspaper editorial noted succinctly, "There
is no denying the fact that on any Muslim religious day, at least half of
the shops in Kohima and some seventy five per cent in Dimapur, remain closed.
The point is that this is a clear indication of how much the migrants have
been able to make an impact on trading."
A survey conducted by the Nagaland state Directorate
of Agriculture in 2003 revealed that about 71.73 per cent of the total business
establishments in the state were controlled and run by 'non-locals' including
both legal and illegal migrants. According to the report, out of the 23,777
shops in the state, the local people own only 6,722 shops (that is 28.27 per
cent).While the report made no effort to separately identify illegal migrants
among the shop owners, there is a large body of supplementary evidence that
suggests their sizeable presence. Illegal migrants are also acquiring land
and other immovable properties in collusions with their local sympathizers.
The impact of Bangladeshi migrants is also
visible in the unstable demographic profile of the state. With a population
of 19,88,636 under the Census of 2001, Nagaland recorded the highest rate
of population growth in India, from 56.08 per cent in 1981-1991 to 64.41 per
cent in the decade, 1991-2001. Significantly, the population growth was been
uniform throughout the state. Several areas in the Dimapur and Wokha Districts
bordering Assam have recorded exceptionally high population growth. Wokha
district, bordering the Golaghat District of Assam, recorded the highest population
growth of 95.01 per cent between 1991 and 2001, the highest figure for any
district in the entire country. Evidently, the silent and unchecked influx
of illegal migrants in the District, has played a crucial role in this abnormal
growth.
Migrants marry locals to secure legal and
social acceptability for their stay in the state. As a result, a new community
locally called 'Sumias' has emerged in some parts of the state. These 'Sumias'
are estimated in the several thousands and are concentrated mainly in the
Dimapur and Kohima Districts. There are rising fears among locals that voters'
list are now being doctored to accommodate the "Sumias" as well
as other migrants. These apprehensions have been further reinforced by the
fact that, as the Census 2001 records, the population of Muslims in the state
has more than trebled in the past decade, from 20,642 in 1991 to more than
75,000 in 2001. Illegal migrants are widely believed to account for an overwhelming
proportion of this recorded increase.
Worried by such developments the vocal Naga
Students' Federation (NSF) has sought to impose restrictions on Naga girls
marrying illegal migrants. On August 10, 2003, a Naga student leader said
that the NSF has already imposed a ban on Naga girls marrying illegal migrants
from Bangladesh. However, he also regretted the fact that the ban could not
be strictly implemented. On some occasions, the student body also claimed
to have 'deported' illegal settlers from the state. Unfortunately, those deported
reportedly came back after a brief stay in neighbouring Assam. The state government
has also claimed to have deported about 20,000 infiltrators between 1994 and
1997, but most of them were again reported to have come back. In any event,
such claims of 'deportation' have little meaning as they involve nothing more
than dumping the illegal migrants from one Indian state to another.
The presence of large number of foreign nationals
has also created a vulnerable constituency for exploitation by hostile Bangladeshi
and Pakistani Intelligence services. The threat has been further compounded
with the emergence of several Islamist extremist groups in the region, who
secure support from Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence and the Bangladeshi
Directorate General of Forces Intelligence.
The debate on migration from Bangladesh has
been politicized in the past, contributing directly to demographic destabilization
in Nagaland and the wider Northeastern neighbourhood. Successive central and
state governments have proved ineffective in formulating workable measures
to stop the flow of illegal migrants into the country in general and the Nagaland
in particular, and this neglect is extracting an increasing price in social,
economic and security terms as time goes by, and threatens to secure the dimensions
of a major internal security crisis in the foreseeable future.
- M.Amarjeet Singh is Research Associate,
Institute for Conflict Management. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review
of the South Asia Terrorism Portal
