Eastern Quarterly Vol. 7, Issues III & IV, Autumn & Winter 2011, pp. 104–13

Presence of Illegal Immigrants in Contemporary : Analyzing the Political History of the “Problem”

BITASTA DAS

The approach of the Indian state in resolving the complex issues of Assam through development and military means requires immediate revision. The problems faced by the state are no more localised, but carry national and global significance.

Assam witnessed yet another progression of violence in July–August 2012. About a hundred people lost their lives, several brutally wounded, villages set ablaze and thousands were displaced in a mere 30 days time. To rein in the deteriorating law and order conditions, the Union Home Ministry authorized Assam government to deploy as many as 116 companies of central armed police forces comprising of altogether 11,600 personnel. The central government grasping the magnitude of impairment announced a special assistance to the tune of Rs 300 crore; of which Rs 100 crore was for relief and rehabilitation, another Rs 100 crore for development programmes in the riot-affected areas and an additional fund of Rs 100 crore under Indira Awas Yojana for the riot- affected areas. However, what surfaced as a political quandary was the unprecedented repercussion of this violence in other parts of the country. The political jeopardy ensued a conundrum in deciphering and understanding pertinent questions regarding the state and law, security and rights and status of citizenship and foreigners in the country. The violence in Assam which had its epicentre mainly in only three districts of Bodoland Territorial Area Districts – Chirang, Dhubri and Udalguri – propelled an unheard of cataclysm in the major cities of the country. In Mumbai two persons died and 46 were injured when a protest against Assam riots turned violent. Demonstrators torched vehicles, pelted

104 stones, forcing the police to fire in the air and use batons to disperse the unruly mob. But what perhaps can be regarded as one of the drastic failure of the state in the recent times towards securing faith in the law among the citizens was the exodus of the people of north-eastern states from Bangalore in the fear of retaliatory violence against them. The mass panic that spread virally through SMSes and social media led thousands to leave their jobs and studies and flee for life as the state in futility struggled to assure security to the people. Newspapers and television flashed news and visuals of hundreds of people waiting anxiously in the railway stations to make their journey of over 68 hours back home. The fact that the violence in Assam is not merely a localized, isolated occurrence but has deeper rooted historical and political underpinning, have been laid open by these recent incidences. The specific violence is rather symptomatic of possibilities that have been persistent since a very long time and have not been translated in understanding the north-eastern region of the country in proper light. A revisit of the indices of the cause provides opportunities to unravel the issues that have clamored within the political and social fabric of Northeast .

REVISITING THE INCIDENT The present conflict was sparked off on July 20, 2012 when unidentified assassins reportedly killed four Bodo youths at Joypur Namapara in Kokrajhar of Bodo Territorial Area Districts. In apparent response to this, unidentified gunmen opened indiscriminate fire at Duramari village predominated by the Bengali-speaking Muslim population, which killed one and injured five. This triggered of a violent outbreak in Kokrajhar and spread to Chirang, Dhubri and Udalguri districts. Mobs burnt down houses, forcing thousands of people to flee. In this violent outbreak which continued for about a month, official figures said around a hundred people were killed, of which three died in police firing, over four lakhs people were displaced, rail services throughout Bodoland Territorial Area Districts were disrupted and there was a complete breakdown of law and order situation. The state enforced indefinite curfew from time to time and a large number of special security personnel were engaged to restrain the violence. The army staged flag marches in violence affected and sensitive areas. A rapid glance at the opinions raised during and after the incidence of the present violence forefronts that the malady is far from being transitory and envelopes several critical layers that lurk at the face of the region. The local and the national media reported the news under two general perceptions, as

105 the communal riots and (which is more commonly used to describe the conflicts in the north-eastern states) ethnic conflicts. Hagrama Mohilary, the chief of Bodo Territorial Council, declared that illegal immigrants were involved in the clashes. Calling it a political conspiracy to destabilize the council, he demanded immediate sealing of India-Bangladesh border. , the Assam’s chief minister, vehemently denied the involvement of foreign national. He said that it was an outcome of a sense of deprivation and conflict of interests among different communities. He told the press that such issues could be addressed only through development, which was their priority.1 L.K. Advani, the senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader, categorically stated that Assam was not facing Hindu versus Muslim conflict. Rather it was a conflict between Indian nationals versus foreigners. He accused both the central and the state governments of colluding with the infiltrators from Bangladesh. Several organizations including O-Boro (non-Boro) Surakshya Samiti urged the state’s Chief Minister to review the agreement signed between the government and Bodo rebels in 2003. According to them, the agreement, which they called a “Himalayan blunder” has provided political encouragement to the Bodo chauvinist forces to launch ethnic cleansing drives.

UNRAVELING THE PROBLEM Assam has been a locale of continuous violence after independence. The fact that was divided into five different states testifies that there has been instability in accommodating and integrating the various ethnic groups within the new political framework. The trajectory that led to the formation of Bodoland Territorial Area Districts, an autonomous region, itself lays out many enmeshed issues prevalent in the region. The Bodos are the largest plain tribe in Assam. There had been a feeling of exclusion and negligence among them since a long time. “Economic, cultural and political marginalization” of tribals by the Assam government and the growing threats of land encroachment from “outsiders,” especially the immigrants population from Bangladesh (then East ), were among the reasons which led the All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU) and Plains Tribal Council of Assam (PTCA) raised the demand of carving the union territory of Udayachal for the Bodo people, first in the late 1960s. During the anti-foreigner Assam movement, many of the Bodo youth sided with All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) in the demand for detection and deportation of illegal immigrants from Assam. But when the post-Assam Accord enthusiasm waned, the tribals began to perceive that the Assam Gana Parishad (AGP) government’s stance towards the safeguard and development of the tribals was not much different from the previous governments.2 As

106 disenchantment spread among the Bodo youth, the ABSU took over the leadership and launched a movement in 1987 for the creation of separate Bodo state, “Bodoland.” In addition to this, there was the rise of a number of Bodo rebel groups like the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and Bodo Liberation Tiger (BLT). In period that followed, the Bodo inhabited area became an arena of violence and lawlessness. Finally by July 1999, the BLT declared unilateral ceasefire in response to the central government’s appeal for talks. In 2001, the BLT gave up its demand for a separate state and reconciled itself to the politico-administrative arrangements for autonomy under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian constitution.3 This led to the signing of a Memorandum of Settlement for the creation of Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) in February 10, 2003 between the representatives of central government, state government and a BLT delegation. The violence that occurred in July-August 2012 in the Bodoland Territorial Area Districts is in fact perceived as a direct response to the uncontrolled settlement of illegal immigrants in spite of securing a political territory exclusively for themselves by the Bodos. According to an Assam-based sociologist, the foremost factor that lies in the background of the recent violence is the massive change in Assam’s demographic landscape which has made the Muslim migrants of East Bengali (and later Bangladeshi) origin a dominant force in the state at the expense of the progressive marginalisation of the indigenous communities.4 The issue of immigration in the north-eastern states in general and Assam in particular has attained a magnanimous attention within the public discourse and politics. The issue, however, cannot be called contemporary.

TRACING THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION IN ASSAM Two of the most important developments that occurred in the political in the first decade after independence were the incorporation of the Sixth Schedule and settling of refugees from Pakistan (formerly East ). Gopinath Bordoloi, the then Chief Minister of Assam, advocated for the protective clauses of the Sixth Schedule.5 Bordoloi-led Assam government, however, fell-out with the central government, particularly with the then Prime Minister , over the question of settling further refugees in Assam. Nehru threatened to cut central assistance by saying that, “if Assam adopts an attitude of incapacity to help solve the refugee problem, then the claims of Assam for financial help (would) obviously suffer.”6 This was despite the fact that Bordoloi drew attention of the central government towards the growing pressure of the state’s cultivable land and the existence of as many as 1.86 lakhs landless Assamese peasants. This was also against the backdrop of

107 the central government refusal to the plea of Bordoloi government to consider Assam as a special case because of the extractive nature of the colonial economy, which had drained the region of its rich natural resources without any input of capital. Moreover the partition had severed the trade of the Northeast region with rest of the country and also the age-old economic relation with East Bengal. Underdevelopment, poverty and the increasing pressure on the cultivable land from the immigrants were some of the major factors that intimidated the inhabitants of Assam. The origin of the immigration, however, can be traced back to the colonial period. The continuous treatment of Assam as a land frontier of Bengal and colonial policy that encouraged immigration from the densely populated Bengal to scarcely populated Assam7 had since then instituted a tussle among the people of Assam and the Bengali speakers. The economic transformation that took place due to introduction of modern industrial agencies – tea plantation, petroleum drilling, setting up of the railways, etc. initiated an economic force that gave further impetus to immigration. The migration that took place during the British period, created competition for new political and economic opportunities, thrown open for the public. The people of Assam became highly apprehensive about the “educated Hindu Bengalis,” the “hardworking Bengali Muslims” and “the enterprising Marwaris.”8 Also, under the British rule, during 1826–1874, Assam was made a new division of Bengal Presidency. The lower rung of this order of administration almost wholly comprised of Bengali Hindus was imported mainly from Sylhet. It was then that the colonial rulers established Bengali as the official language of Assam.9 The Assamese intellectuals vociferously demanded that Assamese should be reinstalled as the official language in the administration and education of Assam. This was finally conceded in 1873. The boundary altercation between the states of Bengal and Assam continued till the independence. But the most significant corollary of this experiment with the boundary has been creation of the binary categories of the indigenous and immigrants that till the present time have vexed the socio-political health of Assam.

ARTICULATION OF “THREAT” FROM ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS S.L. Shakdher, India’s Chief Election Officer, on the eve of state elections in October 1978 stated as follows:

I would like to refer to the alarming situation in some states, especially in the north-eastern region, wherefrom reports are coming regarding large-scale inclusions of foreign nationals in the electoral rolls. In one case, the population

108 in 1971 census recorded an increase as high as 34.98 per cent over 1961 census figures and this figure was attributed to the influx of large number of persons from foreign nationals. The influx has become a regular. I think it may not be a wrong assessment to make that on the basis of the increase of 34.98 per cent between two census, the increase would likely to be recorded in the 1971 census would be more than 100 per cent over 1961 census. In other words, a stage would be reached when that state may have to reckon with the foreign nationals who may be in all probability constitute a sizeable percentage if not the majority of population in the state.10

This declaration in many ways affirmed the growing fear in the psychic of Assam’s population about the presence of overwhelming number of illegal immigrants. Subsequently, the six year long anti-foreigner movement was launched demanding the detection of the illegal immigrants and their deletion from the electoral rolls and deportation from Assam. The movement was ostensibly an upsurge of the “people of Assam” against the foreigner, citizens against the non-citizens; and indigenous against the foreigners. The native Assamese speakers, who started the movement, were supported throughout the Brahmaputra valley by tribes like the Bodo, Tiwa, Mising, Rabha, etc. The various sections of the population irrespective of their affiliations responded to the call and actively participated in the movement to drive out the illegal immigrants. Assam movement was, at the foremost, a protest movement against what was alleged to be a de facto policy of the Indian government of admitting and enfranchising “foreigners.” The agitators called it as “Assam’s last struggle for survival” against the “cultural, political and demographic transformation” of Assam by the onslaught of unchecked immigrants, which threatened to “reduce the indigenous to minorities in their own land.”11 In the words of , one of the leaders of the movement who eventually became the chief minister of the state, the “malady” of immigrants was as follows: The tussle has been in existence since a long time and has gathered cancerous roots. But the position has materially changed since 1979. The usurpation has been duly noticed and the dimensions or erosion and corrosion have been fully appreciated. The avowed objectives to cure the malady have been defined and the battle-lines are already drawn. The battle is going to be fought on all sectors—constitutional, legal, social, administrative and even military, if need arises. Actually, this tussle should have never occurred. But as the battle has been imposed, it shall have to be repelled with all the might that we can muster. Once it is won, it is all the better for the nation and for the people of Assam.12 The leaders of the campaign argued that immigrants from foreign countries – mostly from what was then and then became the sovereign

109 state of Bangladesh, and some from Nepal – unless were explicitly given citizenship status in India, were ‘foreigners’ or illegal aliens. It was alleged that these ‘non-citizens’ were inappropriately enfranchised and were included in the electoral rolls. Along with the cultural and political threats posed by the immigrants, the movement also was instigated by economic reasons, as the immigrant communities were believed to have attained a strong hold on the jobs and businesses of Assam. This movement is also important not only in the milieu of Assam, but also in the entire north-eastern India as it catapulted a host of anti-immigrant strikes all over the zone.13 The directorate of economics & statistics of the government of Assam has revealed that in 1950–51, per capita income in Assam was 4 per cent above national average. In 1998-99 it came down to 41 per cent below the national average. While the Indian economy grew at 6 per cent over 1981 to 2000, the Assam’s State GDP grew only 3.3 per cent. Though the growth rate of the Indian economy accelerated in the 1990s over 1980s, Assam’s economy decelerated in the 1990s. The general public and public discourse relegate this economic retreat and large-scale underdevelopment and poverty to lack of industrialization and infrastructure, and pressure raised on land and jobs by the unchecked immigration.14 It is, however, important to review the relegation of economic backwardness and formulation of threat from foreigners in proper light. In The Assam Movement: Class, Ideology and Identity (1994), Monirul Hussain explained that the real motive of Assam Movement was to curb the emergence of the new political power – left-of-centre to which large section of the state’s tribal natives and immigrants of East Bengal origin had began to align themselves. The movement, according to him, was to polarize the constituents of the new political alignment that was emerging as an alternative to the ones, which represented the Assamese middle-class elite.15 Nilim Dutta16 maps the decadal population growth rate of Assam since 1951, as per the Census of India. He explained that the decadal growth rate of population of two districts of Assam, Dhemaji and Karbi Anglong have been twice that of Assam and substantially higher than even the “Muslim majority border district” of Dhubri. Yet, the Muslim population in Dhemaji and Karbi Anglong is minuscule. The Hindu population in these two districts is 95.94 per cent and 82.39 per cent respectively; scheduled tribes constitute 47.29 per cent and 55.69 per cent of their population respectively. Muslim constitute merely 1.84 per cent and 2.22 per cent respectively of their total population, in spite of having consistent high decadal growth rates – Dhemaji touching 103.42 per cent during 1961–71 and Karbi Anglong having a similar high of 79.21 per cent during 1951–61. He concluded that there could be reasons apart from illegal

110 immigration or having a Muslim population behind a high decadal growth rate of population. Even if the Census records revealed disparate information, the overwhel- ming perception of presence and threat from illegal immigrants has progressively seeped in the psyche of the people of Assam. In the public sphere within Assam often resentments are expressed towards the increasing frequencies of flash floods. The increased devastation and the rise in loss of life and property caused by the flash floods in recent times are commonly believed to be due to the unplanned and unchecked settlement in the river basin. The emergence of All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) headed by minority leader Badruddin Ajmal as the main opposition party in 2011 Assam Assembly elections has further deepened the suspicion of the Assam masses regarding the growing influence of the immigrant community in the state. AIUDF’s unabashed promotion of “Muslims for the rights of Muslims” is regarded as its success campaign on one hand, and aggravated the communal divide on the other, pushing the Congress party into an alliance with the Bodo People’s Front (BPF) and drawing the contours of a complex and loaded situation.17 It is, therefore, not the official figures but the mundane experience and observation and socio-political developments that have played roles in articulating the “threat” from the foreigners.

WAY BEYOND The north-eastern states connected to rest of the country by only a “chicken neck” corridor shares common geographical situation of bordering other countries. Besides sharing 4,096 km long border with Bangladesh in the west, the states of the region also share significant area of border with Bhutan, and Nepal in the north and Myanmar in the east and south. Unmanaged border are susceptible to threats by being points of ingress and egress. India’s borders with Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan are highlighted with difficult terrain of forest, rivers and mountains, which makes the guarding even more challenging. The socio-political development in one of the states of the region, Tripura is used as a common anecdote to articulate the fear from foreigners. Tripura is surrounded by Bangladesh in the north, south and west. The politics and culture of this state has been completely inundated by the migrant community from Bangladesh pushing the local tribal population to a mere 30 per cent. On the other hand, whose southern border runs entirely along Bangladesh has expediently developed tenancy law to oversee the influx of migrant labourers into the state by stringent registration and cross-checking of their antecedents. Assam falls in between Tripura and Meghalaya in terms

111 of its social and political future. The approach of the state in resolving the complex issues of Assam through quick-fix measures of coaxing by releasing developmental package and coercing through military deployment needs an immediate revision. The malady lies in manifolds – economic exclusion and lack of integration of all the ethnic groups into the national matrix. The fear of being overwhelmed by the immigrants is far from being obscure in such a situation. Flaring of repercussion in other parts of the country due to developments in pockets of Assam are evidences enough to prove that the malady of Assam has not remained a localized “problem.” The “problem” calls for an immediate review of the Indian policies regarding migration and labour laws. Renowned economist Ashok V. Desai, in a public talk,18 expresses the need to embrace an open and more relaxed trade laws between India and Bangladesh if the illegal entry to the north-eastern states is to be curbed. This will not only disable the burden of polarization by immigrants to this region but also the pressure on land and job will be lessened. It remains to be seen if the Indian state will adopt such an indifferent approach for long-term resolution or imitate its myopic relief responses of the past.

NOTES & REFERENCES

1 A Correspondent, “Violence not communal: Gogoi,” Assam Tribune, July 28, 2012. Available at http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/detailsnew.asp?id=jul2812/at06 (Ac- cessed November 21, 2012). 2 S.J. George, “The Bodo Movement in Assam: Unrest to Accord,” Asian Survey 34(10), 1994, p. 880. 3 This is a provision in the as to the administration of tribal areas in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, which allows constituting autonomous district and autonomous regions for the tribal groups. 4 Chandan Kumar Sharma, “Assam burning,” The Pioneer, August 4, 2012. Available at http://www.dailypioneer.com/sunday-edition/sundayagenda/middle-india-agenda/ 85432-assam-burning-.html (Accessed on November 22, 2012). 5 Though he hoped that, in the long run, the tribal communities while maintaining their cultural identities, would strengthen the political and cultural unit of Assamese nationality. 6 Quoted in Sanjib Baruah, India Against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, p. 85. 7 Sanjib Baruah, India Against Itself, Assam and the Politics of Nationality, 1999, p. 64. 8 H. Srikanth, “Militancy and Identity Politics in Assam,” Economic and Political Weekly 35(47), 2000, pp. 4-5. 9 This was done, as the Assamese saw it, under the influence of the Bengali petty officials of the East India Company who argued that Assamese was not an independent language but only a dialect of Bengali.

112 10 Quoted in Monirul Hussain, Assam Movement: Class, Ideology and Identity, New Delhi: Manak Publications (in association with Har-Anand Publications), 1994, p. 102. 11 The anxiety that stimulated the commencement of the Assam movement has been compiled through many personal interviews with participants of the movement, from the casual participants to the most ardent agitators. Some of them are: Dhruba Prasad Baishya (25.09. 2008), presently a member of BJP, was Chairman of AGP ministry in 1985. Jugal Kishor Mahanta (17.12.2008) participated the movement and surrendered ULFA member. Madhab Baishya (17.12.2008), student participant of the Assam movement who led the oil blockade in the 1980s. Finally, Rukmini Choudhury (27.11.2008), a student participant. 12 Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, The Tussle between the Citizens and Foreigners in Assam, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1986, p. 117. 13 “The anti-foreign movement spilled across the borders of Assam into the nearby states of Tripura and Manipur. In Tripura indigenous tribal groups launched violent attacks against Bengali settlers, who, by now, outnumbered the locals and controlled the state government. And in neighbouring Manipur, Manipuri students attacked Bengalis, Biharis, Punjabis, and the numerous and increasingly prosperous Nepali dairy cattle farmers. India’s entire northeast has been fragmented by the migrant- ethnic issue.” See, Myron Weiner, “The Political Demography of Assam’s Anti- Immigrant Movement,” Population and Development Review 9(2), 1983, p. 287. 14 “Economic Development of Assam,” The Assam Chronicle, December 15, 2010. Available at http://www.assamchronicle.com/node/27 (Accessed on December 11, 2012). 15 Monirul Hussain, Assam Movement: Class, Ideology and Identity. 16 A Correspondent, “The Myth of the Bangladeshi and Violence in Assam: Nilim Dutta,” Kafila, August 16, 2012. Available at http://kafila.org/2012/08/16/the-myth- of-the-bangladeshi-and-violence-in-assam-nilim-dutta/ (Accessed on December 11, 2012). 17 Seema Chishti, “Assam in the centre,” Indian Express, August 17, 2012. Available at http://www.indianexpress.com/news/assam-in-the-centre/989232/2 (Accessed on December 11, 2012). 18 “Large-Scale Economics: Epochs, Economics and Empires,” public talk at Centre for Contempoary Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, August 25, 2012. .

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