Bangladeshi Migrants: Challenges Beyond Borders

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THIRD EYE

Bangladeshi Migrants: The Problem beyond Frontiers

The Bangladeshi migrants in India have long been a contentious and
controversial issue not only because they are here in droves but also
because we have failed so far to identify, detect and depart them
.We do not even know how many of them are here; some say it is 5 million,
while others like to assert it is much more. And Bangladesh keeps
proclaiming aloud that there are no Bangladeshi in India.

While head counting the migrants is impossible, it is easy to identify
them for there are certain characteristics about them that bear distinct
testimony to their origin from Bangladesh. They are visible all over
the hinterland with substantial presence in Assam, West bangle and
Tripura. In Assam, every third person is possibly a Bangladeshi migrant
with their concentration of up to 100 per cent in many pockets to
the state. Not all of them are however, foreigners; many of their
kindred have had their names recorded on the official palimpsests
to prove their Indian citizenship. This makes it even more difficult
to identify those among them who are illegally staying in India.

People tend to believe that all the migrants are infiltrators; it
is not so. Many of them are visitors to India with valid travel documents.
From 1972 to March 2005, 83,37,474(42,80,681 Hindus 40,04,785 Muslims
and 52,008 other groups) Bangladeshi came to India through West Bengal-Bangladesh
border immigration check posts bearing travel documents. Of them,
according to records 70,95,504(35,07,338 Hindus, 35,43,573 Muslims
and 44,593 other groups) have returned to Bangladesh but the remaining
12,41,970 continue to be in India without a trace. This is a huge
number and relate to west Bengal alone. Like them, there would be
many others remaining untraced after visiting India through various
immigration check posts spread along the 4,095-km –long border.

With their rate of multiplication in geometric progression, the
migrant population is a heavy strain on our limited resources and
the country would not have the capacity to continue to sustain them.
We have to identify and deport the non-citizen component among them
on a continuing basis to resolve this complex issue. The Delhi High
Court on a PIL had directed the Delhi police to identify and deport
specific number of Bangladeshi illegal migrants every month. In consequence,
the detection and deportation on Bangladeshis illegal migrants every
month. In consequence, the detection of Bangladeshis in Delhi from
2003 to2006 was the highest in the country (5,516 in 2003, 4,897 in
2004,5,731 in 2005, and 4,568 in 2006). In contrast, the corresponding
numbers in Assam were 270 in 2003, 173 in 2004,187 in 2005, and 120
in 2006. Total number of Bangladeshis deported from the entire country
from 2000 to 2006 was 86,681, making it an annual aggregate of 12,383.

It is significant to note that the detection and deportation by
Delhi Police far exceeded that of all other States consequent on judicial
activism, thereby confirming the truism that complacent executive
often requires judicial spur to propel into action. The figures given
out by States on the deportation of the illegal migrants normally
differ from the records of the Border security Force (BSF), which
is the only agency to deport them across the border.

When the supreme Court struck down the controversial IM (DT) Act
in 2005 and following it a year later, the Foreigners Order meant
specifically for Assam there was much jubilation among the AASU and
political parties like the AGP and BJP dismay in the minority camp
and the Congress. Experience, however, should tell them that there
is no reason to be either jubilant or despondent with the law on deportation
because it is not he law that acts; it only facilitates action by
the powers that be Right now, with only the Foreigners Act in force
in which the burden of proof of citizenship lies with the individual
unlike in the IM(DT) Act, there should have been a flurry of activities
to detect the foreigners; but that has not happened. The truth is
that regardless of the law in place, the deportation action will always
remain concomitant to the ground reality of party politics interplay,
and nothing else. This is the crux of matter, and the problem has
eluded solution despite changes of government.

Seemingly, it is easy to visualize forcing the illegal migrants to
Bangladesh, but one must remember that Bangladesh would not welcome
their migrant brethren. They oppose with all their might any action
to send the migrants back to their territory. There had been stands
off with the deportees stranded in full media glare on the border
and BSF and BDR engaged in mutual recrimination for precipitating
the crisis. At times, it borders on the realm of ridiculous, because
the BSF and the BDR toss back and forth the same set of people from
different sports, which results only in inflated deportation figures
devoid of substance.

Bangladeshi migrants are a peripatetic lot. They not only tread across
the length and breath of India, but also occasionally reach our western
border to cross over to Pakistan. There the same BSF , which takes
all the hardship to prevent them from entering India or to push them
back when detected in our territory , has to stop their leaving on
their own will because there can be no unauthorized cross-border movement.
We have to arrest them, prosecute them and feed them in jail for a
term at the end of which take them back all the way to eastern border
for deportation . May be , they will be pushed back by the Bangladesh
Rifles soon thereafter. It is a costly rigmarole.

India is spending huge resources in sealing the border with Bangladesh
and it is no longer as porous as it used to be earlier. The entire border
is under fencing-a two layer barbed wire structure mounted on the concrete
base with concertina wires strewn in between – which is quite a
formidable barrier. Then there is the BSF to constantly patrol the area
and check cross-border illicit activities in full measure. This has
no doubt reduced the infiltration substantially. Anyway, given the
system dysfunction where Bangladeshi visitors can disappear and merge
with the crowd without any fear of detection, it is not necessary for
them to take the risk of infiltration. They can visit here with travel
documents, destroy them , and move about with their compatriots already
here providing safely and support. It is a sad fact that we cannot prove
their Bangladeshi nationality to force Bangladesh to accept them back.
This our failure of greater consequence . A few heads must roll for
this kind of remissness in orer to cleanse the cobweb of lethargy,
indifference and inefficiency. Perhaps a recourse to right to information
Act by some activist will set an alarm bell and help create accountability.

Some people
want NRC update for preparing fresh electoral rolls free from non citizen
migrant. The NRC is an archaic document, which is over half-a century old,
with limited relevance to the present population data. Updating
it will be a flawed exercise. To find out the domiciliary authenticity
essential in determining the migrants’ citizenship the news is to prepare
a new NRC by door-to-door enumeration in a census like
operation by involving all the stakeholders. The next step should be to
issue identify cards to all the citizens. thereafter a comprehensive
revision of the electoral roll may follow. This process in itself
will help detect the foreigners and, though time consuming , it will
save the state from ethentic conflagration and civil strife.

The migrant community is a reality in our demographic atlas and the
Assam Accord has conferred Indian citizenship on those of them who
had come in 1971 and earlier. We cannot turn back the clock of history and,
more importantly , We must not bury our tomorrow in past conflict and
present confrontation . Let us weave a pattern of growth and development
together and make our future a fascinating prospect of prosperity and
amity by removing the dark clouds of doubt, distrust and divide.
The migrant citizens have nothing to fear because they form a part
of the plural and secular society; but they must realize that it is
in their own wellbeing that others who are not citizens do not fritter
away the State’s scarce resources. They must come forward to
identify the non-citizen migrants to create a better economic opportunity
and goodwill, and to live not in feud but in friendship with all.
And together in conciliation , not in confrontation , we can heal the
hurt which the successive governments have failed to mitigated.

(The
writer , a former Director General of the Border Security Force and
the National Security Guard , is currently the State Chief Information
Commissioner ,Assam)