It’s been a month since the BJP’s landslide electoral victory in Assam. Verification of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) data will begin shortly and the Sarbananda Sonowal-led government will be presented with it in about three to four months. But will this be the end of the illegal immigrants’ issue?
Senior Supreme Court advocate and Prabajan Virodhi Manch (an NGO) Convenor Upamanyu Hazarika recently said that the measures announced by Sonowal to seal the international border and update the NRC were not sufficient to protect the identity of the Assamese people.
In an interview with Anuraag Baruah, Hazarika says his sole mission is to throw out the illegal immigrants from Assam.
What has been the impact of the Hazarika Commission report that you submitted to the Supreme Court?
Nothing, absolutely nothing has come out of it and that is the unfortunate reality. The Supreme Court appointed me in May 2015 as a one-man commission to prepare and submit a report on various issues related to illegal immigrants in Assam. I submitted a 53-page report on October 5, 2015, to the Supreme Court which directed both the central and Assam governments to respond to the recommendations on November 5, 2015. Till date, I fail to see any concrete step taken by the Centre and the Assam government.
Did the Supreme Court give you the responsibility to prepare and submit a report or does it go much beyond that?
For some time, I had no clue how to go about tackling the issue. The moment came in August 2012 with the outbreak of disturbances between the Bodos and Muslim settlers. The violence was viewed as an ethnic issue rather than one between foreigners and citizens. After the National Minority Commission brought out a report that described Bangladeshis being minorities rather than foreigners first, 10 organisations got together. We worked to dispel the false impressions about the immigrants and now aim to educate the younger generation about the issue.
I prepared a detailed presentation in September 2013, which explored the demographic change in Assam and how the indigenous populations had been reduced to minorities. The objective was not to identify the problems as much as it was to find out ways which citizens could take recourse to, especially when successive governments had failed. Since the whole process of identifying foreigners and protecting the indigenous people is a legal issue, we focused on the enforcement of legal measures.
What about the popular rhetoric of “sealing the border”? Could that be a solution?
Bangladesh is not a hostile nation and hence security on the border is relaxed. In fact, a non-lethal policy is followed on the Assam-Bangladesh border in accordance with directions from the Union Home Ministry. The BSF is handicapped to take recourse to strict measures such as firing on transgressors. Meanwhile, it is impossible to seal the riverine part of the border.
What is this citizenship by birth issue and shifting cut-off dates (for recognition as immigrants or citizens) from March 25, 1971, to December 3, 2004? How is it related to the NRC?
This is because the updated NRC will confer citizenship on children born to illegal immigrants in Assam. These children will acquire citizenship by birth, which in itself is sufficient to turn the indigenous population into a minority. In the context of the 1985 Assam Accord, the two modes of acquiring citizenship in Assam are:
1) Those who came from Pakistan/Bangladesh (before 1971)
2) And citizenship by birth, which takes into account the following time frames:
a) Between January 26, 1950, to July 1, 1987: By birth and regardless of whether parents are citizens or illegal immigrants/foreigners.
b) Between July 1, 1987 to December 3, 2004: By birth with the condition that one of the parents is a citizen and implying that the other is an illegal immigrant/ foreigner.
c) After December 3, 2004: By birth, but both parents must be citizens, or one is a citizen and the other is not an illegal immigrant.
It implies that while illegal immigrants who settled in Assam after March 25, 1971, will be considered foreigners, the children born to them would be considered Indian citizens. With this, the cut-off date for granting citizenship to many illegal immigrants will shift to March 25, 1971, to December 3, 2004, resulting in lakhs of immigrants getting citizenship because of the NRC updating process.
What is the solution then?
The primary reason for which a Bangladeshi comes to Assam is land. Bangladesh’s population density in 2011 was 1,177 persons per sq km. The population density of Dhubri then was 1,171 persons per sq km. The border districts of Assam have high population density, somewhere around 800 and 900 persons per sq km and the immigrant-dominated districts of Nagaon and Marigaon attract new waves of immigrants.
So the only way you can tackle this issue is by depriving the Bangladeshis of any stake in resources and by going back to 1951 records. If we take 1971, then it is still possible for them to subvert it. Therefore, only if land and government jobs are reserved for citizens, residents of Assam in the 1951 NRC or otherwise residents in Assam, will Bangladeshis be discouraged from immigrating to the state.
The best solution is reservation of land resources and making the environment and the terrain inhospitable for immigrants. Such measures will ensure that they have no place to live.
For example, two localities in Shillong, Motinagar and Bishnunagr, were settled by Assamese prior to the formation of Meghalaya. But post 1971, the Assamese could no longer buy land and subsequently moved out. This restored the demographic balance.
What role have politicians in Assam played in the issue of illegal immigration?
Politicians and political parties have failed to deliver and vote-bank politics has led to the rise in the population of illegal immigrants in Assam. But we plan to organise public meeting across the state under the banner Prabajon Birodhi Mancha and a few other like-minded groups to sensitise the citizens. We demand early action against illegal encroachers on all government land.
(The interviewer is a Guwahati-based freelance journalist)
Also read:
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When Assam’s Indigenous Muslims Threw in Their Lot With the BJP
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