Letter to The Statesman, 12 May, 2000

The article "Migrant Issue" by Sanjoy Hazarika (11 May, 2000) leaves the issues involved, suspended in thin air, he fails to propose or define the essentials of the 'legal regime' he would like the Government of India to institute to govern migration. He also makes no distinction between the migrants from other parts of the country and the immigrants from Bangladesh. He mixes up the immigrants with refugees and he forgets that the Assam Accord was nothing but an attempt to lay down a legal regime.

The question one must answer is: should all States of the Union be protected in the same manner from internal migration as Jammu & Kashmir and some States in the N.E. are? Wouldn't that militate against the unity of the country? Wouldn't it deprive in the long run the protected peoples from benefitting from the growing national economy?

The Bangladeshi issue has two aspects: identifying the persons of Bangladeshi origin who have come in, at least since March 1971, and having a formal agreement with Bangladesh for their repatriation and for regularisation of seasonal entry and exit in the future. The legal process to identify the foreigner having proved to be siow and time-consuming, one has to consider how to improve its efficiency, without permitting continual harassment of those who qualify to be citizens or disenfranchising them. Assam is the only State where nearly 4 lakhs voters continue to be disenfranchised because of suspicion about their status.

In this context, I endorse the idea of issuing voter  cards to those who are or qualify to be citizens and of identity cards-cum-work permits to the immigrants who do not qualify.

Disenfranchising those, who supposedly came in during 1951-71, and their descendants or 100 per cent reservation in the legislature for the Assamis will not work, for the simple reason that the Assami-speaking people in fact form a minority group, though they enjoy an artificial majority because Bengali-speaking people recorded Assamese as their language. 2001 Census is not far off. Proportional reservation in legislature and public employment may then be introduced for all social groups on the basis of their population.