Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: April 18, 2005
It is hardly surprising that the
issue of illegal migration from Bangladesh featured prominently at
the conference of Chief Ministers on internal security last Friday.
As many as seven Chief Ministers-those of West Bengal, Mizoram, Manipur,
Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Maharashtra-urged upon
the Centre to take strong steps to curb the influx which posed a
grave threat to national security.
That none of them belonged to the
BJP, which first brought the issue of illegal influx to the forefront
of the national security discourse, is significant. It firmly underlined
the fact that the matter is one of national and not partisan concern.
The scale of the influx and the size of the population of illegal
migrants in India, which, according to various Government reports,
varies between 12 and 15 million, are alarming. More, it has caused
significant demographic changes in some of the States, particularly
in their border districts. In 2001, Muslims accounted for 30.9 per
cent of Assam's population against 28.43 per cent in 1991.
Between the same two years, the
West Bengal's Muslim population increased form 23.61 per cent to
25.24 per cent of the total. Of Assam's 27 districts, Muslims are
in a majority in six-all along the Bangladesh border. In sharp contrast,
the rise in Muslim population in the interior districts has been
markedly less, which clearly indicates that the composition of border
district populations is a result of virtually unchecked increase
in the influx from Bangladesh.
What gives this influx a sinister
dimension is the ISI venture, code-named Operation Pin Code, to carve
out, in collusion with Bangladesh, an independent Islamistan out
of India's Northeast by accelerating the influx of illegal Bangladeshi
immigrants into Assam's lower districts. The first step in frustrating
the ISI design is, therefore, stanching the influx into Assam and
the northern districts of West Bengal, which constitute the rest
of the country's gateway to the Northeast.
Unfortunately the Centre, which
is ultimately responsible for protecting the country's borders, is
guilty of gross dereliction of duty in this respect. Nothing underlines
this more sharply than its decision on October 27 last year, not
to repeal the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act of
1983, which has turned out to be the single biggest hurdle in the
way of the identification and deportation of illegal Bangladeshi
immigrants. It doubtless applies only to Assam. But the latter has
the largest population of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants among all
States-an estimated 50 lakh. Besides, as Nagaland's Chief Minister,
Mr Neiphiu Rio stated at the conference, "Assam has almost become
a breeding ground for illegal migrants as they are procuring documents
like ration cards there and then coming into the hills."
Assam's Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi
has publicly claimed that it was the State Government that had persuaded
the Centre not to repeal the IMDT Act. And it does not take exceptional
intelligence to recognise that this in turn was the result of his
party's vote-bank politics. One hopes that the demand by the seven
Chief Ministers would make the Centre see the sinister implications
of its decision and also the need to deal firmly with the problem
of illegal migration.
It must also speed up the construction
of border fences. The report in last Thursday's Bangladeshi newspapers
that it had agreed not to construct barbed wire fences within 150
yards of the border on the Indian side, is disturbing. The Centre
would do well to clarify the position immediately.
