Illegal Migration from Bangladesh
21 Aug, 2000 · 408
Brig S P Sinha (Retd) highlights the problems in deporting the large numbers of Bangladeshi immigrants from India
The danger to national security by illegal migration from
Bangladesh
has come into focus after the recent exercise conducted by the Delhi Police to identify and deport Bangladeshis living illegally in the capital for years. It is estimated that their numbers run into several lakhs. In the last few years even NOIDA, a satellite town across the Yamuna, has recorded a sharp influx of Bangladeshi migrants; their numbers according to the NOIDA authority has crossed the 30,000 mark. It is ironical that the consequences of illegal and unchecked migration from Bangladesh, mostly to the North Eastern States, West Bengal and Bihar was brought home to the governing elite only after the Delhi police found their involvement in the rising crime graph in the city.
Delhi
and
Bombay
.
Bangladesh
is extremely difficult. Firstly,
Bangladesh
refuses to acknowledge that there are any illegal Bangladeshis in
India
. Even Sheikh Hasina is reported to have said so. International law does not provide for unilateral deportation against the views of the origination of country. To illustrate how difficult it is to deport, I will quote a few figures taken from the report of the Governor of Assam to the President cited earlier. From 1993 to Sep 1998 the BSF tried to hand over 39745 illegal migrants to the Bangladesh Rifles. The latter accepted only 9253. The acceptance figures declined from 5799 in 1993 to only 55 in 1998 (upto Sep)
Delhi
, a Member of Parliament shot off a letter to the Home Minister complaining that "genuine Indian persons from
West Bengal
are being targeted." Earlier there was a fracas following the attempt to deport 34 Bangladeshi migrants from
Bombay
. It is quite obvious that detection and deportion exercises get stuck in the quagmire of vote bank politics. "In
Assam
the IIIegal Migration Determination (by Tribunal) Act, (1983) has proved ineffective in identify in illegal migrants, leading to their depuration. Under the IMDT Act the onus of providing that a person is an illegal immigrant lies on the complainant and not on the accused. Most Assamese have been demanding its repeal.
Earlier, in 1998, the present governor of Assam, Lt. Gen. S. K. Sinha (Retd) in his report to the President had warned of a much larger threat to national security than the increasing crime graph in Delhi, and stated that if the influx of illegal Bangladeshis is not checked, "they may swamp theAssamese people and may sever the North East land mass from the rest of India." Similar apprehensions were expressed by TV Rajeshwar, the former Governor of West Bengal and former Director of the intelligence Bureau who in a newspaper article "Creation of a New State" had warned that "there is a distinct danger of another Muslim country, speaking Bengali predominantly, emerging in the eastern part of India in future at a time when India may find itself weekend politically and militarily."
The contours of the danger to national security are beginning to emerge. In an episode of a new investigative programme on Zee News Channel "The Inside Story "telecast on 28 July 2000, the documentary pointed out that illegal Bangladeshi migrant are a factor in 20 Parliamentary and 120 Assembly seats in India, mostly in West Bengal, Assam and Bihar where the population growth in border districts much higher than those districts which are in the interior. The illegal migrants have changed the demographic profile in these border district but also in some constituencies of metropolitan cities like
Unfortunately, instead of tackling the problem, both the central and state governments have misled the people by holding back information. Every time the question if illegal infiltration of Bangladeshis is raised, the government announces its resolve to detect and deport them, as in the case of Delhi where the Lt. Governor is reported to have issued an order to the Delhi Police to detect and deport them within 30 days. In reality the situation is quite different. There are two reasons why deportation of illegal migrants from
The other difficulty is the politics of "Vote bank" There are some political parties that raise a hue and cry when police initiate action to detect and deport illegal migrants. The police is accused of communalism and targeting innocent Muslims. The action is lost in the debate on "Secularism vs Communalism." In the case of illegal Bangladeshi migrants in
The present Government, through in favour of repeal, could not see the passage of the legislation through Parliament to repeal the act due to the ambiguous stand of the Congress. The solution lies in preventing infiltration by improving border management and taking other measures to apprehend the infiltrators before they mingle with the population.
POPULAR COMMENTARIES
