Kingshuk Nag | The Times of India | 21 August 2012
You don’t have to be a Sangh Parivar adherent to recognize that there is considerable migration of Bangladeshi migrants into India. Whoever does not agree is living in denial. True this migration is due to economic reasons: Bangladeshis come into India to look for economic opportunities. They do not move into India to alter the demographic profile in India. They do not migrate to become the vote banks of politicians and political parties. The migration is not only into Assam that has been in the news due to ethnic clashes in Kokrajhar in the Bodo autonomous area. There is greater migration into West Bengal (which has a 2216 km border with Bangladesh compared to a mere 262 km border with Assam; Tripura has 856 km, Meghalaya 442 km and Mizoram 318 km).
Nobody has statistics of this migration, although it can be safely asserted that the numbers who come are down from what their numbers were in the 1980s and 1990s. Economic growth in Bangladesh has had an impact: discovery of gas, successful dissemination of micro finance and development of the cotton textile industry that has led to boom in exports of textiles have created opportunities in that country. Remittances from Bangladeshis abroad have also significantly increased. Bangladesh is no longer a ‘basket case’ as it was in the first two decades after it became independent in 1971. The development has been uneven: concentrated more in big cities like Dhaka and Chittagong. This means that a significant number still live under poverty and look for means of livelihood. These are the guys looking for opportunities.
Bounded on three sides by India, this is the only country they can escape to seek their fortunes. A long porous border of 4095 km, allows easy migration. The border is porous because of the topography of the region – the border cuts through rivers, villages, agricultural fields and sometimes even houses and ponds. (This only demonstrates the sheer callousness with how the border was marked by Radcliffe and his team, at the time of partition of India in 1947.) The population pressure ensures that land right till the border is cultivated. Such a porous border is difficult to guard and more so because the villages on the border on both sides are tied together in economic relations. Smuggling is rampant and an informal cattle trade is flourishing. Corrupt BSF officials posted to man the borders contribute to make the process a tad easier: they are reputed to allow the movement of humans for a price. This makes migration even simpler. The total number of migrants from Bangladesh in the last three decades is unavailable( of course different people quote different figures but I am refraining from quoting them, because we don’t know how authentic they are). We also do not know how many of the migrants remained in the districts through which they entered India. With paucity of data it is impossible to profile them – especially as many of them have become Indian citizens by securing false ration cards and voter IDs. This has, of course, been possible due to help from politicians playing their vote bank politics. So there is no chance of catching them and deporting them, as strident elements from the right wing have been demanding. What is not practical is not possible.
So there is no point in talking about what has happened. Instead of focusing on that the effort should be on stemming this flow of illegal migrants. The easiest way is to give shoot at sight orders to the BSF. Anyone crossing the border will be just shot dead.This will immediately stop migration, no question. Not a single Bangladeshi will venture to cross the borders. But there is a moral question involved here. Pursuing this policy might have international repercussions and international human rights agencies might see red. Within India also it will raise hackles in some quarters. However some reports say that BSF had been following this policy but last year while in Dhaka for talks, then home minister P Chidambaram said that orders were given to BSF and this had percolated down the line that there would be no shoot at sight.
There is no doubt that the borders have to be strengthened. Efforts at this have been futile even though an Indo- Bangladesh border road and fencing project has been in the works since the mid -1980s. Even a quarter century later the project is yet to be completed. At first the progress was stymied by problems of land acquisitions. Then there was the usual problem of shoddy work. So much that by early 2001 it was discovered that at least half of the fencing that had been erected had been destroyed. Officially, of course, this was attributed to adverse climate conditions like floods (these factors too must have contributed to the problem). Meanwhile there is another project to be taken up: floodlighting of the borders.
Some analysts argue that if illegal immigration cannot be halted then part of it could be legalized by issuing work permits to a specified number of those coming year. Those with work permits will not be enrolled as voters. This will suit the immigrants too because none of them come into become voters, they merely come to look for opportunities for employment. The guys who enroll them as voters are the self- serving neta class. I do not know whether this policy can be successfully implemented but may be worth a try. But one thing is sure, if there is no illegal immigration from the western borders into India, the same must be ensured in the eastern sector. There is no need to become emotional about this and argue that the folks who live on this side of the border are the same as those on the other side. Yes, culturally they may be, but there are international borders and those on the other side of the border are foreigners. Foreigners are foreigners, though they may be close to us in many aspects. We owe it to our nation to keep foreigners away.