INFILTRATION
M.V. Kamath on Infiltration
The most immediate prospect facing India is the rising population of Bangladesh. Its population density at 849 per sq. k. is among the highest in the world. Population density in India as a whole is 257 per sq. km. Tue, population density in West Bengal, adjacent to Bangladesh is 766 which is high enough. Should Bangladesh's population move over to West Bengal there cannot be a worse calamity. And the calamity would be doubly worse because the Bangladesh population that would emigrate to West Bengal world be Muslim. It was this very same population which once voted for Pakistan. It would bring with it to West Bengal and then to India as a whole problem that would be hard to tackle.
It is important to remember that Bangladeshi invasion of India is already on. Several districts in West Bengal and Assam bordering on Bangladesh now have a majority Muslim population. Districts like the 24 Parganas and going up to Islampur of West Dinajpur. Kishanganj district which was part of Purnea district earlier which is contiguous to West Bengal also has a Muslim majority. (They) decisively influence over 52 Assembly constituencies, while in another 100 they can appreciably influence election outcomes. In other words, in about half of the 294 Assembly constituencies in West Bengal, the Bangladesh immigrants can play an important role. According to T.V. Rajeshwar, a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau and a former Governor of West Bengal, a contiguous mass of land with a population of nearly 2.8 crore (28 million) has a Muslim majority. Rajeshwar says: "This crucial tract of land in West Bengal and Bihar, lying along the Ganga/Hooghly and west of Bangladesh should cause anxiety for any thinking Indian".
In 1991 the Muslim population in the border districts of West Bengal accounted for 56 per cent in Murshidabad, 54 per cent in Malda and 60 per cent in the Islampur sub-division of West Dinajpur. Muslim population, since then, has risen faster.
There will be many 'secularists who will take umbrage at Rajeshwar. They would say: "So what if the Bangladeshis come to India? Aren't they human? Aren't they poor?" Yes, they are human and they are poor. But once the nature of demography changes, the Hindu- Muslim equation will change for the worse. Again, the secularists will say: "What does it matter? Muslims in India are different!" Muslims in Pakistan were also once Indian. But once they got a majority, they have seen to it that Hindus have been hounded out of their homes or else life has been made so difficult for them that they the Hindus - had no option but to leave their ancestral hearths and homes and migrate to India.
(Source: The Organizer, 17 March, 1996)
Anita Katyal on Foreigners' Issue
The North-East region is a cauldron constantly on the boil. The vexed issue of influx of foreign nationals, which had led to innumerable bloody clashes in the past, is threatening to erupt again with the call by the insurgents of the All-Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) to launch "Operation Oust" from July 1 and forcibly deport persons who came to the state after 1949.
Influx of foreigners, is an issue which will never cease to rouse passions in the region, but which remains unresolved till date. The original tribal population in Tripura today finds itself in a minority and dispossessed of all rich and cultivable land in the state.
It is, however, to be seen how the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which in its incarnation of All-Assam Students Union (AASU), led a bloody battle on the issue in the late seventies, will deal with this problem during its second stint in power.
AGP leader and Assam Chief Minister, Prafulla Mahanta, is going to do a tightrope walk. On one hand, he is under pressure from AASU and, on the other he is ill-afford to alienate the minority community which now forms large chunk of his vote bank.
The AGP has demanded that the legal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act (IDMT Act), being implemented as per the provisions of the Assam Accord, be scrapped since it has been ineffective in dealing with the vexed issue. Instead, it is demanding the extension of the Foreigners' Act to Assam. As per the Act, the onus of proving that one is not a foreigner is on the accused.
The Home Ministry had admitted in Parliament (from) December, 1995 the implementation of this has been slow and that out of a eight million suspected foreign nationals in Assam, the tribunals had disposed of 13,450 cases while declaring 9,170 as illegal migrants.
(Source: The Times of India, 9 June, 1996)
