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Pretence over IM(DT) Act
Pretence over IM(DT) Act
Author: Editorial
Publication: Sentinel Assam
Date: November 10, 2004
Having decided to retain a discriminatory
and anti-people immigration law called the Illegal Migrants (Determination
by Tribunals) Act, 1983, the UPA Government at the Centre and the Congress
Government of Mr Tarun Gogoi in Assam are beginning to feel the heat of
strong public resentment and public rejection. Statements are being made
with increasing frequency by Congress leaders and Mr Gogoi on illegal immigration
from Bangladesh and on the IM(DT) Act that cleverly distort the basic issues.
This is understandable because the sheer survival of the UPA coalition
by hook or crook is far more crucial to the Union Government than secondary
issues like the security and integrity of the country or the future of
a peripheral State like Assam and the destiny of its people. And the survival
of the UPA Government is bound to be further jeopardized by the Left if
the IM(DT) Act gets repealed or even diluted from its present form. After
all, at least four prominent CPM leaders are first-generation Bangladeshis,
and for them Bangladesh will never be regarded as a foreign country, no
matter what happens as a consequence of the large-scale illegal infiltration
into Assam from Bangladesh. They want a law that will make it impossible
to ever detect and deport illegal migrants at least from Assam. And the
double standards are so glaring. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharyya
has made it amply clear on more than one occasion that he will not have
the IM(DT) Act for West Bengal, even though introducing the law in his
own State entails nothing more than just a gazette notification. He will
do nothing of the sort because he knows what a bad and toothless immigration
law it is. But Mr Tarun Gogoi is an Assamese, and ought to know what the
IM(DT) Act is doing to his own State and people. True, he underscored his
Indian identity above all else a couple of years ago in an interview with
The Sentinel. However, it is important for him to bear in mind that he
is an Indian because he is an Assamese in the first place. What is happening
now is that in the perverse process of trying to justify the retention
of the IM(DT) Act he is being compelled to take shelter in the kind of
sophistry that stubbornly refuses to face the fundamental questions about
the black law. When the question hinges on the repeal of the IM(DT) Act,
the stock Congress response is who did not repeal the Act even though they
were in power at the Centre for seven years or in the State for ten years.
No one is answering the question about who brought in the Act in the first
place or how long the Congress (in one or the other of its avatars) was
in power at the Centre and in the State. Likewise, no one in the Congress
is answering questions on the discrimination that the Act imposes on the
people of Assam, or the fact that there is no other country in the world
with two immigration laws. This is a serious matter for the simple reason
that a second immigration law just for one State of the Union is a clear
sabotage of the existing immigration law for the rest of the country. Likewise,
there is no one in the Congress to explain to us how any immigration law
can function if the onus of proving nationality is not on the illegal migrant
but on the individual citizen who has to risk life and limb in making a
complaint against a foreign national in the jurisdiction of his own police
station. But worst of all, even the custodians of the law cannot deport
a known illegal migrant because the immigration law for Assam does not
permit them to do this. And so there is a mushroom growth of Bangladeshi
habitations all around the Kaziranga National Park, and the police force
must remain a mute spectator because the IM(DT) Act does not permit the
force to move a finger in respect of foreigners. And the State Government
will not allow eviction of encroachers because it is busy practising 'secularism'.
It was most amusing, therefore, to find Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi suddenly
discovering new statistics on the number of Bangladeshis deported from
Assam between 1985 and September 2004 that we have never come across before
this. Last Thursday, the Chief Minister said that after 1983, the influx
of Bangladeshis had gone down. But though he was able to discover the new
figure of 26,000 Bangladeshi infiltrators who have been pushed back, strangely
we do not find data of any kind on the number of Bangladeshis who have
infiltrated into Assam from year to year. How is it that the Chief Minister
has one kind of data and not the other?
Far more significant than the layman's
views (or even the Chief Minister's views) on whether the IM(DT) Act should
be retained or not, are the views of someone who has been actually connected
with the tribunals set up to carry on the pretence of detecting and deporting
the blue-eyed boys of the State. In fact, it is such views that the State
Government and the Centre should rely on to arrive at decisions that are
democratic instead of being aimed at keeping the ruling party in power.
Justice N.B.Asthana, the outgoing president of the Illegal Migrants Determination
Appellate Tribunal, who retired on October 31, has said that the IM(DT)
Act has failed to achieve its desired result, and that the controversial
Act should be repealed, with the Foreigners Act of 1946 coming back into
force in Assam (as in the rest of the country) to deal with the foreigners
issue. He blamed the lack of sincerity among all political parties (including
the AGP and the BJP) to make the law more effective. He was of the view
that the IM(DT) Act was so defective that it could not work effectively,
mainly because of the stipulation in the law that the complainant should
provide proof against a suspected foreigner. This observation of Justice
Asthana serves to underscore the reason why every civilized immigration
law stipulates that the onus of proving nationality should be on the illegal
migrant who claims that he is not a foreigner. But the greatest indictment
of the State Government came in the form of the allegation that of the
16 tribunals set up all over the State, six have not functioned at all
till today. He also referred to the Government's apathy towards improving
the condition of the lower tribunals and to provide assistance to public
prosecutors for smooth functioning of the IM(DT) Act. All such requests
have fallen on deaf ears. This is hardly surprising. The present Government
would prefer not to have any immigration law for Assam if it could have
its way. And yet Chief Minister Gogoi insists that it is the Congress that
is more concerned about the illegal influx of Bangladeshis than anyone
else! Wonders will never cease.
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