The silent invasion

Arindam Sarkar

His face wrinkled and eyes skewed, sitting inside his small, makeshift tea stall made out of tin sheets, Santosh Pal appeared as old as the small town of Bashirhat situated on the banks of Ichamati River in North 24 Parganas.

Bashirhat is no ordinary rural stop of Bengal. It is a moffusil town on the Indo-Bangla border from where goods and cows are exported to Bangladesh through the Land Customs Station at Ghojadanga and is a haven for illegal immigration. The place is infamous for infiltration of Bangladeshis who sneak into India without proper papers from Satkhira to Bashirhat by crossing the river and a small patch of land that connects the two countries.

The Supreme Court of India has described the infiltration or illegal immigration from Bangladesh as “silent invasion”. “Every month Bangladeshis illegally crossover through Ghojadanga. These infiltrators stay with their relatives and do odd jobs,” said 73-year-old Santosh Pal.

A little distance away from the tea stall is the Biryani House of Md Khurshed Alam Gazi. He said both Muslims and Hindus from Bangladesh were sneaking into India from Bashirhat. He claimed, illegal immigrants today occupy the stretch from RN Mukherjee Road to Ghojadanga in Bashirhat. “Since this is a border area, infiltration is a common phenomenon. Bangladeshis come here in search of a better livelihood,” said 50-year-old Khurshed Alam Gazi.

Bengal shares 2216.7 km of border with Bangladesh and Assam (263 km), Meghalaya (443 km), Tripura (856 km) and Mizoram (318 km) share the rest of the Indo-Bangla border. Since this border is porous, infiltration is rampant. Illegal immigration is a common occurrence in the world. Mexicans cross the Rio Grand River to enter the USA from Texas. Albanians enter Italy by crossing the Adriatic Sea. Iraqis illegally enter Kuwait and Rohingiya Muslims of Burma sneak inside Bangladesh. These infiltrators after being caught are sent back to their homeland.

“But India seems to take no measure against border infiltration,” alleged 65-year-old Md Najimuddin Mondol of Bashirhat. “The rising population of infiltrators is causing scarcity in our market and escalating the prices of commodities.”

According to a 1998 estimate, there are 1.8 crore Bangladeshi infiltrators in India, of which 1.2 crore live in Bengal. A sum of Rs 1,500 crore is spent to maintain the infiltrators, out of which Rs 1,000 crore is spent in Bengal alone. “These infiltrators have changed the demographic pattern of the districts situated along the Indo-Bangla border, put pressure on the State exchequer and made the border areas unsafe due to trafficking, smuggling and robbery,” claimed Md Najimuddin Mondol.

Bengal witnessed a major upsurge in infiltration from Bangladesh from 1980 onwards. Illegal immigrants entered various border districts and settled down. Panchayats turned a blind eye to these infiltrators and helped them to acquire ration cards and voter’s ID cards. Some infiltrators also obtained passports. Soon, they became an electoral vote-bank of the then Left Front Government.

In comparison to the Hindus, the illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh are much more in number. Result, there is an Islamic influence in the border districts and the Muslim population has increased significantly in the last three decades. Also, over the years, the infiltrators have acquired lands in their names here. In the districts of Uttar Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Birbhum, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas, Howrah and Midnapur, the Muslim population between 1951 and 2001 increased by more than 311 per cent. And the Hindus in the same period increased by 198 per cent.

POLITICS IS ALL about numbers. Having received shelter and patronage of the Left Front Government’s political masters, the illegal immigrants became committed supporters of the Marxists. In 2006 Assembly polls, the question of infiltrators became a crucial issue. The then Opposition leader Mamata Banerjee criticized the Marxists for using the infiltrators as a vote-bank and in 2005 she threw sheaf of papers at the Lok Sabha Speaker to protest against the infiltration from Bangladesh.

To consolidate the Hindu vote-bank in the border districts, during the 2014 Lok Sabha poll campaign, the BJP central leaders slammed the illegal Muslim immigrants and said they should be sent back and that the status of infiltrators and the refugees were not same.

While addressing an election rally at Krishnanagar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi raked the contentious infiltration issue and said illegal immigrants from Bangladesh have to go back. “Even the Supreme Court has said there has been large-scale infiltration. I have no hesitation in saying this is an aggression against India,” Modi thundered.

At Barasat, Modi added: “Refugees and infiltrators are not same. There is room for refugees in all corners of India. They have come to find a shelter here…but the infiltrators have come to control India.”

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also supported Modi on the infiltration issue. Rajnath Singh said all those sneaking into India post-1971 were illegal immigrants and were destabilising the border areas. Jaitley alleged the illegal immigrants from Bangladesh were a vote-bank of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her mainstay.

BJP has all along opposed infiltration from Bangladesh. In 1998 election manifesto, BJP claimed there were 1.7 crore illegal immigrants and that the unabated infiltration from Bangladesh was destabilizing the North-East. In 2004 manifesto, BJP said they would put an end to infiltration from Bangladesh by pursing the 3D Formula – Detect, Delete and Deport. In 2009 document, the BJP urged they would systematically detect and deport the illegal immigrants as they have emerged as a major source of homegrown terror. In 2014 poll manifesto, BJP mentioned about illegal immigration across the eastern border and that punitive measure would be introduced to check infiltration.

However, Mamata Banerjee took a complete U-turn from her earlier stand against infiltration. Instead of singing along with Modi, since she had protested against infiltration from Bangladesh, this time she ignored the infiltration issue and threatened to rock New Delhi if anybody touched them. Politics of vote-bank is predictable.

FENCING AND PATROLLING by the Border Security Force (BSF) does not deter the infiltrators from Bangladesh to take the help of middlemen to sneak into India. Till June 2013, the BSF arrested 1,333 infiltrators in the districts of North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Murshidabad and Malda. In 2012 and 2011, the BSF arrested 1,999 and 1,663 infiltrators respectively.

Many infiltrators have been killed by the BSF when they tried to cross the border surreptitiously. Bangladesh has alleged that BSF is violating human rights and expressed concern about BSF atrocities against the illegal immigrants. The Daily Star of Dhaka reported that from 2000 to 2012, around 954 people lost their lives to the BSF firing. The Daily Star reported that Dhaka has complained that the BSF indiscriminately shoots down infiltrators even after they have surrendered.

To prevent infiltration and smuggling across the border, India is erecting permanent fence, floodlights, increasing Flag meetings between Border Guards of Bangladesh and BSF and improving border management. But given the difficult terrain and the porous border, infiltration remains a menace.

This is proved by the rise of the Muslim population in the border districts by 201.72 per cent between 1951 and 1991. In 1951, the Hindu and the Muslim population of Bengal was 79.4 per cent and 18.63 per cent respectively. In 2001, this changed to 72.9 per cent Hindus and 25.37 per cent Muslims.

In the last one decade, the population of illegal Muslim immigrants has increased so much in the border districts that today they decide the electoral fate in 53 out of the 294 Assembly seats of Bengal. This vote-bank comprises Muslims and also the illegal Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh who fled from their country because of persecution and the draconian Enemy/Vested Property Act.

“For Muslims, poverty and unemployment and in the case of Hindus lack of fundamental rights and fear of persecution in Bangladesh perpetuates infiltration,” said Senior Fellow of Maulana Azad Institute of Asian Studies Professor Amiya Chowdhury.

In 1971, because of migration, the Hindu population of Bangladesh stood at 9.6 million instead of 11.4 million. Experts believe the Hindu population should have been 19.5 million instead of 11.4 million in 2001. But systematic eviction of Hindus from Bangladesh decreased their numbers.

Conspiracy theorists postulate that Bangladesh has launched a silent attack against India by clandestinely increasing the Muslim population in Bengal’s border districts. Apparently, Bangladesh is also encouraging infiltration into Bengal and the North-East because they do not have adequate space to accommodate a population of 20 crore in the 21^st century.

Summing it up, Professor Jayanta Ray of Institute of Foreign Policy Studies of Calcutta University observed unless Bangladesh is able to fulfil the aspirations of their poor and protect the minorities, infiltration would continue unabated through the porous eastern theatre.