SK
Sinha
The ethnic-cum-communal violence in
Kokrajhar, resulting in 100 people brutally killed and four lakh rendered
homeless, has been a great humanitarian tragedy. The root cause for this mayhem
is the changing demographic profile of the region. Ethnic violence of greater
dimension took place in Assam during the 1983 Nellie massacre when over 2,000
Bangladeshis were killed in one night, but far fewer rendered homeless.
Assam has
been in the eye of East Bengal, now Bangladesh, for over a century. In 1905,
the Muslim League demanded “Bange-Islam”, merging sparsely populated Assam with
heavily populated Muslim majority East Bengal. Mass migration from East Bengal
into Assam continued. In the 1931 Assam census report, the British Census
Superintendent expressed grave concern over Assamese people getting engulfed by
this influx. During the Second World War, Sir Mohammad Sadaulla, the chief
minister of Assam, gave a big fillip to this influx. Lord Wavell in The
Viceroy’s Journal wrote that in the name of “Grow More Food”, Sadaulla was
“growing more Muslims”. The 1946 Cabinet plan placed Assam and Bengal in Group
C. Had this been accepted, Assam would be part of Bangladesh today. During a
visit to Guwahati in 1946, Jinnah confidently declared that he had Assam in his
pocket.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in The Myth of Independence, asserts that the dispute
between India and Pakistan is not only about Kashmir but also some districts of
Assam adjacent to East Pakistan. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in his book Eastern
Pakistan: Its Population, Delimitation and Economics, wrote, “Eastern Pakistan
must include Assam to be financially and economically strong.” Various
intellectuals in Bangladesh have been advocating lebensraum (living space) for
Bangladesh in Assam.
The Congress has been encouraging illegal migration from Bangladesh to build
its votebank. Dev Kant Barua, of “Indira is India and India is Indira” fame, as
Congress president declared that his party will always win elections in Assam
with the help of Alis and coolies; the former standing for Bangladeshi migrants
and the latter for tea garden labour.
B.K. Nehru, a respected member of the ruling family, was the governor of Assam
in the Sixties. He writes in his autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Second, that
three politicians from Assam in Delhi guided the Congress’ policy on Assam.
They were Dev Kant Barua, Moinul Haque Chowdhry former private secretary to
Jinnah and then a Cabinet minister and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, another Cabinet
minister who later became President. B.K. Nehru and B.P. Chaliha, the then
chief minister of Assam, took up the issue of illegal migrants from Bangladesh
but were restrained.
He laments, “Chaliha placed the national interests above the party but the
party high command thought otherwise.” Lt. Gen. Jameel Mahmood, the Eastern
Army Commander in the Nineties, advised Jyoti Basu and Hiteshwar Saikia, the
then chief ministers of Bengal and Assam respectively, that if action was not
taken against the Bangladeshi infiltrators, we would have to redraw the
boundaries of India in the Northeast. He also wrote to the Army Headquarters
that a Kashmir like situation would develop in Dhubri, abutting the narrow
Siliguri corridor.
On April 10, 1992, Hiteshwar Saikia stated that there were three million
Bangladeshi illegal migrants in Assam. Some MLAs threatened to withdraw support
from his government. This would have resulted in his falling. Two days later he
committed a volte face and issued a statement that there were no illegal
migrants in Assam.
Indrajit Gupta, the home minister told Parliament on May 6, 1997, that there
were 10 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants in India, of which three million
were reported in Assam. In 1998, as governor of Assam, I submitted a 42-page
printed report to the President, pointing out that these illegal migrants were
not only changing the demography of Assam but also posing a grave threat to our
national security.
I made 15 recommendations, including
effective border fencing, multi-purpose identity cards, updating national
register of citizens and repeal of Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal)
Act. The latter applied only to Assam and facilitated illegal migration. I also
recommended that as the Bangladesh government, including Sheikh Hasina, did not
accept the fact about illegal migrants, it was not possible to deport them.
They should be declared stateless citizens with no voting rights nor be allowed
to acquire immovable property.
Twenty Congress MPs from the Northeast appealed to the President to recall me
for dabbling in politics. No action was taken on my recommendations. Halfway
through my tenure in Assam, Tarun Gogoi became the chief minister. He issued
statements to the press about what he referred to as my constitutional
impropriety in raking up Bangladeshi migrants’ issue. He asked the Centre to
restrain me. He was unaware of any Bangladeshi illegal migrants in Assam. Today
halfway through his third term as chief minister, he seems to have become
wiser. He now admits that Assam is sitting on a volcano. He has even accepted
that there are 39,000 illegal Bangladeshi migrants in Assam.
The Supreme Court struck down the IMDT Act in 2005, quoting extracts from my
report to the President. The government brought back the IMDT Act through the
backdoor by amending the Foreigners Act. This, too, has been struck down. The
judiciary has referred to the Bangladeshi infiltration as “demographic
aggression”. Gauhati high court, in a judgment delivered on July 23, 2008, has
observed that Bangladeshi migrants have become kingmakers. Eleven out of 27
districts of Assam have migrant majority.
Two Muslims were killed possibly by Bodos on July 6. The migrant militants
retaliated by shooting four Bodo leaders. This led to widespread violence. Both
communities have suffered grievously. On July 20, the state government asked
for military help which ministry of defence approved on July 24 and the Army
got deployed on July 25. The blame game is being played between the Centre and
the state. Apart from accusing the Centre of delay, Mr Gogoi has even blamed it
for not providing intelligence. The latter, in such cases, is the
responsibility of the state government.
Neiphun Riyu, the chief minister of Nagaland, has been reporting that
Bangladeshi migrants are receiving arms training in the jungles bordering Assam
and Nagaland. This was ignored. The recent ethnic clashes in Kokrajhar show
new-found aggressive militancy among Bangladeshi migrants. The All-India United
Democratic Front is the second largest party in the state Assembly. It is
primarily a communal party of Bangladesh migrants functioning as rival of the
Congress. It has been garnering support from minorities all over the country.
The recent violence unleashed in Mumbai and Pune is also a result of this.
Apart from ensuring peace and rehabilitating the affected people of both
communities, the government must declare illegal migrants stateless citizens.
It has all the justification to do so. Over one lakh non-Muslim refugees of
1947 living in Jammu are still stateless citizens with no voting rights nor the
right to acquire immovable property. Elsewhere in the country these 1947
refugees were immediately given full citizenship, with two becoming Prime
Ministers and one deputy Prime Minister.
A pusillanimous and appeasement approach to the Assam problem is suicidal for
national security.
The author, a retired lieutenant-general, was Vice-Chief of Army Staff
and has served as governor of Assam and Jammu and Kashmir
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