Illegal migration from Bangladesh has been a problem for decades. Why did no one act?

The Government of India has finally woken up to the problem of illegal immigration from Bangladesh. There are reports from different states about local police identifying the Bangladeshis and deporting them. In Delhi, during the last six months, at least 770 immigrants have been deported; some were airlifted to Tripura and the rest sent by the surface route. In Assam, the state government is systematically tracking down individuals declared illegal foreigners by the Foreigners' Tribunals and pushing them back into the no man's land between India and Bangladesh. It is reported that 30,000 people who had been declared foreign nationals by the Tribunals in Assam have just disappeared. There are reports of deportations from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana.
Whatever action is being taken, however, amounts to a trickle compared to the very large number of Bangladeshis settled in India. In the wake of Partition in 1947, many Hindus crossed over to India from East Pakistan to the adjoining states of Assam, West Bengal, and Tripura. Later, however, when the Pakistan Army started persecuting the Bengalis, a large number of Muslims also crossed over to India. After the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, it was expected that the new regime would maintain communal harmony. However, that did not happen, and Bangladeshis continued to pour into India, partly due to religious discrimination but mostly for economic opportunity and in search of a better life. According to the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, nearly 3.5 million people 'disappeared' from East Pakistan between 1951 and 1961 and another 1.5 million between 1961 and 1974. Some Bangladesh intellectuals justified the mass migration of people to India as lebensraum – the legitimate movement of people from high-density to low-density areas. The Government of India's response was half-hearted. Migration slowed down only after India started fencing the 40967.7 km long border with Bangladesh.
The Task Force on Border Management, headed by Madhav Godbole, in its report submitted in August 2000, said that 'there is an all-round failure in India to come to grips with the problem of illegal immigration'. The report went on to say that 'facts are well known, opinions are firmed up, and the operating system is in position, but the tragedy is that despite this, nothing substantial happens due to catharsis of deciding in this regard due to sharp division of interest among the political class'. The Task Force estimated that there were about 15 million illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in the country and that about 3 lakh Bangladeshi nationals were entering India illegally every year. The Task Force report was never placed in the public domain because it was brutally honest.
The very next year, in February 2001, the Group of Ministers, in their recommendations on national security, while taking care of Bangladesh's sensitivity in the matter, reiterated that 'the massive illegal immigration poses a grave danger to our security, social harmony and economic well-being'.
The Supreme Court of India, in a landmark judgment in Sarbananda Sonowal v. Union of India (2005), observed that 'there can be no manner of doubt that the State of Assam is facing 'external aggression and internal disturbance' on account of large-scale illegal migration of Bangladeshi nationals' and that therefore, it is 'the duty of the Union of India to take all measures for protection of the State of Assam from such external aggression and internal disturbance as enjoined in Article 355 of the Constitution'.
All these warnings by the Task Force, the Group of Ministers and the Supreme Court remained unheeded. There was no plan of action to deal with the problem.
Now that our relations with Bangladesh have soured, the Government of India has started deporting the Bangladeshi illegal immigrants. The total number of illegal immigrants deported so far would be a couple of thousand only. The drive must continue — with greater vigour — whether the Bangladesh government cooperates or not.
It is relevant that the US is deporting all illegal immigrants from different parts of the world. Even Pakistan has repatriated 1.3 million Afghanistan nationals back to their country. There is no reason why India should be hesitant or have any reservations about acting against illegal immigrants from any country.
Meanwhile, the chief minister of Assam has given a new angle to our relations with Bangladesh when he said that Bangladesh has 'two of its own chicken necks'. One is from Dakshin Dinajpur to South-West Garo Hills, and the other is the Chittagong Corridor from South Tripura to the Bay of Bengal. The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) inhabited by the Chakma tribes, who are mostly Buddhists, are in a state of turbulence. There are serious problems of ethnic identity, land rights, and cultural preservation of the indigenous tribes. Thousands of Chakmas have fled to India and have been settled in the north-eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Mizoram. Was Himanta Biswa Sarma speaking on his own, or was he acting as the Centre's mouthpiece? In any case, there is food for thought.
The writer is a former Member of the National Security Advisory Board and Director General, BSF

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