Foreword
This very well researched monograph by the author deals with Islamic militancy in North East India. This needs to be studied in the context of a continuing demographic influx with communal overtones taking place in the region and the long-standing design of merging Assam with Bangladesh.
The unabated influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh poses a serious national problem for India. The Union Home Minister of India stated in the Parliament on 6 May 1997 that there were over ten million Bangladeshi illegal migrants in the country. It was estimated that over four million of these had come into Assam and the others had gone to the remaining states of the country. So far as Assam is concerned, almost one hundred percent of these immigrants happen to be Muslims. In the absence of effective measures to check this influx, the number of illegal migrants may now have increased substantially from the figures given out in 1997.
Communal politics started in the Indian sub-continent in the early years of the twentieth century with the formation of the All India Muslim League at Dhaka. A demand was made for Bange-Islam, merging Bengal and Assam. This was well before starting a movement for Pakistan in the West. While Bengal was a Muslim majority province, Assam was a marginally Hindu majority province. The population of undivided Bengal was about ten times more than that of Assam. The merger of these two provinces would have meant Assam getting engulfed by Bengal and the entire region becoming a large Islamic bloc. Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy of India, following the Imperial policy of Divide and Rule, announced the Partition of Bengal on communal lines in 1905. This led to the start of a widespread national movement, which became the starting point of our political struggle for freedom. In 1911, the British Government yielded and annulled the Partition of Bengal. Apart from communal politics having its beginnings in this region, violence as an instrument of politics also started in this part of the country. Jinnah’s Direct Action Day ignited the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946 followed by the massacres and atrocities in Noakhali. This was the beginning of the Partition holocaust resulting in millions getting killed and millions forced to flee their homes.
The influx of population from North Bengal into Assam started from the nineteenth century. The hard-working Bengali Muslim peasant contributed to reclaiming virgin land and putting it to the plough, thereby increasing food production in Assam. This helped in the economic development of the region. However, this influx started becoming a torrent and the British Census Superintendent of Assam in the 1931 census report for Assam compared it to an invasion by an army of ants. He expressed grave concern about the indigenous population getting engulfed by the land hungry peasants from North Bengal. With the introduction of provincial autonomy under the Government of India Act of 1935, this large-scale movement of population got linked to political considerations. Assam alternated between Congress and Muslim League governments. During the Muslim League government of Sir Mohammad Saadullah in Assam, a concerted effort was made to encourage the migration of Bengali Muslims by settling them on government land on the plea of helping in the “Grow more food” campaign. The cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 had provided for three groups, one each for Hindu and Muslim majority provinces and the third group comprising Muslim majority Bengal and Hindu majority Assam. Both the Congress and the Muslim League accepted the Grouping Plan but the leader of the Congress party in Assam, Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi, raised the standard of revolt. He rightly perceived that this grouping would lead to Assam becoming a part of East Pakistan. Mahatma Gandhi supported Bordoloi and the Grouping Plan got shelved. Frustrated in the design to incorporate Assam into East Pakistan, Pakistanis and now Bangladeshis continued to nourish hopes of somehow acquiring Assam. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in his book Myth of Independence wrote, “It would be wrong to think that Kashmir is the only dispute that divides India and Pakistan. One at least is nearly as important as the Kashmir dispute, that of Assam and some districts of India adjacent to East Pakistan. To these Pakistan has very good claims.” Even Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman before the formation of Bangladesh in his book Eastern Pakistan: Its Population and Economics wrote, “Because Eastern Pakistan must have sufficient land for its expansion and because Assam has abundant forests and mineral resources, coal, petroleum, etc., Eastern Pakistan must include Assam to be financially and economically strong.” At seminars in Bangladesh and in the writings of intellectuals in that country, a case is often made for free movement of labor along with goods across international borders as part of the globalization process.
It is unfortunate that the problem of illegal migration from East Pakistan, and now Bangladesh, has not been tackled by India in an effective manner. For considerations of vote bank politics, some political parties have been encouraging this influx. B.K. Nehru, a cousin of Indira Gandhi, who was Governor of Assam in the late sixties wrote, “The East Bengal Muslim was the main vote bank of the Congress party in Assam. Chaliha (then Chief Minister of Assam) doing as he did from the days of the freedom struggle, was governed by the value of that time. He placed the national interest above those of the party. But the High Command thought otherwise. The party interests were paramount. Chaliha was ordered to stop the nonsense forthwith. This was of course welcomed by the Government of Pakistan. It had always pretended, as Bangladesh does now, that there is no migration from its territory to Assam. In this statement there is as much truth as there is in Pakistani denial about its direct involvement in Kashmir.”
The Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act passed by the Indian parliament during the Congress regime in 1984, not only provides Indian citizenship to illegal migrants from Bangladesh who infiltrated into Assam from 1947 to 25 March 1971, but also facilitates further such illegal migration. This act applies only to Assam and not the rest of the country, which is governed by the Foreigner’s Act, in line with similar provision in other countries of the world. In the case of the IM (DT) Act, the onus of proof is on the state to prove that an individual is not an Indian citizen, whereas in the case of the Foreigner’s Act, it is for the concerned individual to provide proof of his Indian citizenship. To enable the Police to initiate action against a suspected illegal migrant, a report has to be filed by at least two citizens residing in the area of the same Police Station as the alleged migrant and a sum of Rs. 10 deposited with the report. Unlike in the case of the Foreigner’s Act, the Police do not have any powers of search and arrests. Even after conviction by a lower tribunal, an illegal migrant is allowed a grace period of thirty days for filing an appeal before the higher tribunal during which he cannot be arrested. Thus, there is ample scope at different stages for an illegal migrant to vanish or get lost. No wonder the IM (DT) Act, on the plea of safeguarding the minorities from harassment, has become a great facilitator of illegal migration. Since 1983, 300,000 cases were initiated under this act and only 1,500 ended in deportation.
Lt. Gen. Jameel Mahmood, the then GOC-in-C, Eastern Command told me in 1992 that unabated illegal migration from Bangladesh into Assam and Bengal had been posing a serious problem for our national security. He said that he had repeatedly spoken to the CPI (M) Chief Minister in West Bengal and the Congress Chief Minister of Assam, that unless they took special measures to prevent this, the map of India in this region may have to be redrawn. I later found that he had also stressed this point in the Civil-Military Conference on 12-13 February 1993 and had sent his views on this issue to the Army Headquarters under his letter No. 103610/GS (I) Adm/CMLT of 3 March 1993.
As Governor of Assam in 1998, I submitted a comprehensive report to the President of India on illegal migration from Bangladesh, in which among other recommendations, I urged the repeal of the IM (DT) Act. This was welcomed by the bulk of the people of Assam including some eminent Assamese Muslims like the highly respected, octogenarian, Prof. Asghar Ali, former Principal of Cotton College, Guwahati and former Director of Public Instruction of Assam. However, most of the minorities and political parties pursuing vote bank tactics were up in arms against me. The National Democratic Alliance government in the Centre was in agreement with my views and even included this point in the President’s address to the Parliament in 2000. However, the political arithmetic in the Parliament did not permit the repeal of this act. Public interest litigation on this issue has remained stuck for years with the Supreme Court. As things stand, neither political nor legal remedy is in sight, while the influx of illegal migrants continues unabated.
The ULFA movement in Assam began on the basis of an anti-foreigner stance directed against immigrants from Bangladesh. Over the years, ULFA abandoned its ideology, bartering it away for support from Bangladesh and the ISI of Pakistan. Their anti-foreigner ideology has now got converted to an anti-outsider stand against non-Assamese Indians. This has been one of the contributory factors for the ULFA losing support.
We also need to take note of the developments that have been taking place in East Pakistan and now Bangladesh. In 1947, Hindus constituted 27 percent of the population of East Pakistan, which got reduced to 14 percent by 1991 and is now less than 10 percent. The plight of the minority community has been vividly brought out by Taslima Nasreen in her book Lajja. She has incurred the wrath of the fundamentalists and stands banished from her home country. There was some hope that under Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman, Bangladesh would emerge as a secular state. Those hopes got lost with his assassination and assertion of power by fundamentalist elements. A formal declaration during the rule of Ershad made Bangladesh an Islamic Republic. Pro-Pakistani elements that had been against the Mujib-led freedom movement are now in seats of power in Bangladesh. During the five-year rule of Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Mujib-ur-Rahman, the extremist outlook or anti-India sentiment had mellowed down a little. With her defeat, things have come back to square one. There was a spurt in atrocities directed against Hindus during elections in 2001 and after. It is unfortunate that in spite of India’s role in liberating Bangladesh in 1971 or India accommodating Bangladesh on the use of the Ganges water, by signing the Farakka agreement and settlement of the Chittagong Hill Tract controversy, there has been no reciprocation from Bangladesh. On the other hand, the genocide and atrocities by Pakistan during the Bangladesh war seem to have been forgotten. People in Bangladesh do not now appear to remember the mass killings of Bangladeshi intellectuals in Dhaka by the Pakistan army. This genocide was enacted to destroy the guiding hands behind the freedom struggle. Islamic fundamentalism and the urge for establishing Islamic rule have become all powerful influences in Bangladesh.
Islam is a religion of peace but some misguided Muslims have been distorting all the canons of this great religion. Global Islamic terrorism is a negation of the high values of Islam. After the attack on the Twin Towers in New York on 11 September 2001, the world realized the danger it poses to civilized society. India has been combating the menace of terrorism for a long time. It must be appreciated that only a small fraction of Muslims are terrorists and the vast majority are peace loving and respect human values. Yet it is an unfortunate and undisputed fact that most terrorists in the world are Muslims. India is a country with the second largest Muslim population in the world and has suffered most from Islamic terrorism.
By highlighting the activities of fundamentalist elements in the North East, Jaideep has done well to focus attention to the grave threat it poses to our national security. The geo-strategic importance of Assam in the North East is very significant. Today western Assam in the district of Dhubri has over 70 percent Muslim population, who are mostly Bangladeshis. Dhubri, adjacent to the tenuous Siliguri corridor, is of vital importance, as its loss will snap the only land-link between the entire North Eastern land mass and the rest of the country. It is imperative that we as a nation take effective measures to stop the large-scale demographic influx from Bangladesh and do not ignore the lingering urge for Brihot Bangladesh (Greater Bangladesh). Our large Muslim population needs to take up cudgels against the misguided jihadis. Both the central and the state government must go all out to stop the demographic influx in the North East. Our decision makers must effectively deal with the illegal migrants, the fundamentalists and the terrorists, whose shadow looms large over North East India and threatens our national integrity. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Raj Bhawan Srinagar
Lt. Gen. (Retd.) S.K. Sinha, PVSM
Governor
of Jammu & Kashmir