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Space invaders

Space invaders

Author: Bibhuti Bhusan Nandy
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: February 14, 2003

Decades of uncontrolled illegal immigration from Bangladesh acquired the proportions of a demographic invasion years ago.

Thanks to bureaucratic ineptitude and the lack of political will, successive governments slept over the problem. The presence of 15-20 million aliens - besides signalling a total breakdown of border management and immigration control - has imposed a crushing socio-economic burden on the country and is posing a serious threat to India's national security.

By its cynical and insistent denial of the very existence of illegal immigration, Dhaka has reiterated its non-cooperation in dealing with the problem, adding a sinister dimension to the not-too-happy-at-all India-Bangladesh relations. Migration occurs when the right conditions of life in a country become endangered for some reason or the other. In Bangladesh, unrelenting persecution of the religious and ethnic minorities and pauperisation of the landless rural masses are powerful 'push factors' that force people out of their homeland.

At the other end of the spectrum, 'pull factors' like job opportunities, access to public distribution system, social security benefits, free education, easy acquisition of immovable property, enlistment as voters and, above all, a congenial socio-cultural atmosphere attract Bangladeshi migrants to India. The high stakes of some political parties in captive immigrant vote banks, unbridled corruption in the BSF, and organised rackets on both sides of the border promote cross-border infiltration on a massive scale.

Dhaka's facile disclaimer of the problem is easily trashed. An incisive analysis of 1991 census statistics by Sarifa Begum, a Bangladesh demographer, showed that the estimated 104.7 million population of Bangladesh had excluded 9-10 million from the computation. Additionally, the census figure was at odds with the Bangladesh government's own projection of 112-114 million and the UNDP estimate of 116-117 million.

Sarifa Begum rightly attributed the 'missing millions' to unregistered 'out-migration'. Clearly, no fewer than 14 to 15 million Bangla-deshis had sneaked into India during the 1981-91 inter-census decade. The much higher growth rates in the Indian districts bordering Bangladesh and significantly lower growth rates in the adjoining areas, extremely low growth in Hindu-concentrated districts and population explosion in urban pockets of West Bengal confirmed the finding.

Some statistics tellingly illustrate the point: Greater Jessore and Greater Khulna districts in Bangla-desh registered 1.97 per cent and 1.58 per cent growth respectively as against 3.16 per cent in the adjoining North 24 Parganas. Greater Mymensigh district in Bangladesh had a growth rate of 1.82 per cent against 3.84 per cent in the adjacent Eastern Garo Hills district in Meghalaya. Greater Comilla district (Bangladesh) showed 1.89 per cent growth against 3.36 per cent in Tripura. There is a population explosion in many semi-urban areas of West Bengal - Gobardanga (8.64 per cent), Khardah (9.5), Raiganj, (13.93), Ashoknagar (7.45), Mekhliganj (7.98) and Tufanganj (22.45) per cent - against the 2.45 per cent state average.

There is also a sharply lower growth against the national average (2.02 per cent) in the Hindu-concentrated districts of Bangladesh - Baisal (1.2), Gopalganj (0.9), Munshiganj (1.1), Faridpur (1.2), Chandpur (1.2), Khulna (1.6) - confirming a heavy Hindu exodus. The number of stranded Bihari Muslims - who had opted for Pakistan after the creation of Bangladesh - has sharply fallen from 1.1 million in 1971 to 250,000 in 1991. The missing 850,000 found their way to greater Calcutta and the Katihar-Purnea-Samastipur belt of Bihar.

There is no knowing the exact size of the current Bangladesh immigrant population in India. Considering that there has been no significant change in the objective demographic situation since 1991, however, the government estimate of 20 million is an eminently acceptable figure. Prior to 1947, job seekers from East Bengal used to come to Calcutta and the relatively thinly populated Assam and North Bengal districts. In the immediate post-Partition years, a pervasive sense of insecurity pushed Hindus in droves to West Bengal and other border states in North-east India.

Since the 1974 famine in Bangla-desh, Muslims migrating to India far outnumber Hindu immigrants, roughly at a 1:3 ratio. This has changed the demography and the communal balance of the border population, generating inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions. In West Bengal, many Hindus of remote villages in the border belt have been relocating themselves in towns for better security and protection. Migration to border states having reached the saturation point. Many migrants, mostly Muslim, have moved to urban centres in other states in search of wider job opportunities.

Illegal Muslim immigrants have been living in large concentrations in Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Ajmer, Lucknow and many other cities and towns of the northern and western states. Many of these migrants often clandestinely visit Pakistan. Armed with all the trappings of Indian citizenship - ration cards, local birth and domicile certificates, voter identity cards et al - the second generation immigrants are no longer content with the underclass status of their families. They have set higher sights. Many have joined government services including the police and para-military organisations, armed forces and even other sensitive security agencies.

The presence of nearly 15 per cent of another country's population in India underscores the significant erosion of our national sovereignty. So much so that India has no say in who comes and who stays in this country. In Assam and West Bengal, votes by foreigners decisively influence election results in an increasingly large number of parliamentary and state assembly constituencies. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism and spread of the jehadi spirit in Bangladesh have turned the illegal immigrants into a potent source of subversion.

In the early Nineties, pseudo-Left Bangladeshi intellectuals had demanded lebensraum - living space - for their country's excess population in the sparsely populated North-east. At least two heavyweights in Begum Zia's first government (one a present cabinet minister) had openly supported the demand, which was in line with maverick mass leader Maulana Bhasni's dream of a 'Greater Bengal'.

The Indian government's recently announced plan to identify, detect and deport the 20 million illegal immigrants is overambitious. A more pragmatic approach would be to aim at preventing further infiltration and concentrate on deporting in phases the relatively new arrivals. Implementation of even such a modest agenda is sure to run into fierce resistance from vested interests within the country and Bangladesh once deportation gets underway.

Much will depend on the government's ability to take the public on board. The agreement reached at the chief ministers' conference last week to implement the plan is a good augury to be used to warn Dhaka that it can ignore India's resolve to address the problem at its own peril.

The immediate priorities of a coordinated action plan are:

A time-bound exhaustive census of the immigrant population and their locations.

Streamlining of border management and immigration control focused on expeditious border-fencing and smashing of immigration and smuggling rackets by liberally using powers of preventive detention under the National Security Act.

Disciplining the BSF with emphasis on weeding out of the corrupt. The force leadership at the top should be shown the door should they fail to carry out the cleansing act within a given deadline.

Creating a separate immigration service and putting in place a long-term national immigration policy.

Sustained diplomacy geared to enlisting international support for the programme and commensurate public education campaigns at home and abroad. Do we have the will and tenacity to execute this agenda? That, really, is the question.

(The writer is former additional secretary, Research and Analysis Wing and retired Director-General, Indo-Tibetan Border Police)
 


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