Migration in millions has kept our eastern front sensitive and prone to disputes; not just with our neighbor, but also within our own country. This article is second in the series of articles that try to analyze various reasons for migration from Bangladesh to India, in the pretext of history, present realities and future approach. We have already reflected upon how extreme poverty in Bangladesh contributes to appalling number of migrants in our country. In this article we will try to weigh the share of communal tensions and political uncertainty in increasing the migration from Bangladesh and how in turn it affects our politics.
If the land of Bangladesh could speak about the atrocities done on minorities, it would probably choke before it could even utter a single word. Time and again this land had become host to some of the worst genocide of the century. The uniqueness of genocides and mass killings associated with this land is that they are repeated not once but multiple times throughout the century starting from 1947, 1949, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1956, 1964, 1971, 1981, 1984, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992 and still not ending in 21st century. The result is huge migration of people to the most obvious destination - i.e. India.
When we trace the spark to this communal fire we again find the British sitting in the hot seat - the British who are masters of divide and rule policy. To pursue their political agenda in 1905 they divided this land on religious line - Hindu majority Western Bengal and Muslim majority Eastern Bengal. After widespread protests they reunited the two parts in 1912. But by then communal politics had already taken deep roots.
Just before the independence, the 'Noakhalir danga', where thousands of Hindus were killed, proved a dress rehearsal for the future of minorities. An era of state sponsored persecutions of minorities, especially Hindus began right after the Muslim dominated Bengal was carved out as East Pakistan for Islamic republic of Pakistan. East Pakistani Hindus were seen as pro Indians and corrupting the Bengali Muslims off their religion. State sponsored terrors tried to purify the land by either killing or forcing them to take refugee in neighboring India. To get some idea - in 1964, thousands of Hindus were killed in just one night in the city of Khulna alone!
Aside from the horrible treatment to the minorities, all the Bengali speaking East Pakistanis were given colonial treatment by Urdu speaking West Pakistanis. By 1971 their discontent boiled over, resulting in formation of Bangladesh. Just before the liberation of Bangladesh another set of terror operations were carried out by West Pakistan such as Operation Searchlight, Operation Search and Destroy and Operation Scorched Earth, targeting everybody except Urdu speaking and West Pakistan faithful. Result was migration of about 10 million people to India. About 70% Hindu population of Bangladesh also made India as their home.
There were hopes that the liberation of Bangladesh would bring justice to the minorities. Not so. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Awami League, the first president of Bangladesh, failed to recall the 'Enemy Property Act'. Massive land was seized from Hindus and other minorities, including famous land of Kali Mandir at Dhaka. Plus the charges against the war criminals, who participated in 1971 genocide, were dropped. They eventually found their way into Bangladesh's politics thereby again jeopardizing the peaceful existence of minorities. In 1988 Islam was declared as a state religion. In 1992, after the Babri Masjid demolition followed another genocide, account of which is given in Taslima Nasrin's book 'Lajja'. All this resulted in huge influx of Hindus in India. In 1947 the Hindu population in Bangladesh was 27% and by 1991 it was reduced to mere 10%. Other ethnic groups such as the indigenous Jumma people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts were forced to leave their traditional homeland in Bangladesh as well so that the Bangladeshi settlers could populate it.
So how is this a threat to our politics and nation? Firstly as already discussed in previous article Muslim illegal migrants continued to migrate in large numbers to India for economic reasons, almost throughout the century. Unlike Hindu migrants, Muslim migrants have a tendency to concentrate in one or two states such as Assam and Tripura. Very soon their numbers started looking disproportionate against the local population. For example Muslim population in Assam rose by 77.42% in the period of 1971 to 1991 against 41.89% that of Hindus. Four districts were already Muslim majority states by 1990s while three others were closely following the heels. Our politician like always eyed this group of Muslim migrants as a potential vote bank. They used covert ways to legalize them as Indian citizens and then used their votes to win elections. Result was corrupt people in power who in turn did more damage by facilitating more migrants from Bangladesh. When someone sees this as a problem, he is immediately termed as 'communal', without even considering the facts and figures.
Secondly for Pakistan, failure to get Assam in 1947 partition left many grudges. They more than anyone else would have been very happy to see Assam as a non Indian state. Pakistan's dream is to see Assam as a Muslim majority state. Thereby they can start a similar undertaking that they did for Kashmir - start a separatist movement, clear it off the 'unbelievers', spread terror, turn it as a 'special status' state and then finally slice it off from India. Separatist organizations like ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom) with support from Pakistan had already been demanding a sovereign and independent Assam for a while now. Bangladeshi politicians had knowingly turned a blind eye to this issue. They will be another set of happy men after the Pakistanis - of course to see yet another Muslim majority land i.e. Assam become a part of Bangladesh.
Bangladeshi Hindu numbers (legal citizens) affected Bangladesh's politics. They had to pay a price for that. Now Bangladeshi Muslim numbers (illegal migrants) are affecting Indian politics and sadly we Indians have to pay a price for that instead. To address this situation laws should be made to avoid concentration of migrants in one place. Work permits with statewise quotas are should be effective. Voting right should be immediately taken away from the migrants who got citizenship illegally. The trend will continue until we give it the seriousness it deserves.
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