Politics of identity

A book on Assam with an activist intent, Rites of Passage combines extensive fieldwork with a deep sense of personal commitment, says SUBARNO CHATTARJI.

ILLEGAL migration from Bangladesh and the concomitant political and human fallout in terms of identity politics, riots, and misery has been a subject of debate and controversy. Political parties in Assam and at the centre have viewed this problem largely in the context of "vote banks" and regional solidarity. Sanjoy Hazarika's Rites of Passage is a welcome intervention in a field mired in myth and exaggeration.

The activist intent of the study is expressed early in the Introduction: "[...] I want the book to engage people and provoke them, not to languish in some distant library. I want it to force a debate, to shake up governmental and societal approaches to the issue of migration" (p. 5). While the latter goal might be overly ambitious, Hazarika's book is certainly engaging and provocative. He combines extensive fieldwork (apparent in the detailed appendices dealing with statistics of migration patterns and population growth and differentials) with personal narratives and a deep sense of personal commitment.

Hazarika's familiarity with the topography and mental landscape of his home state, Assam, contribute to the authenticity and density of the book. A broad theoretical framework coupled with facts, nails many lies, half-truths, and myths about the scale of immigration from Bangladesh into Assam. For instance, he offers a scathing indictment of the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983, whereby only 1, 461 illegal migrants were physically expelled as of 1999. The criticism of the IMDT is based not only on its inability to stem and/or reverse the tide of migration but also in it's being bad law and contributing to the then Congress Party's desire to nurse the "minority" vote.

Rites, however, is not only an exercise in number-crunching. "Rites of Passage is an effort to give migration a human face, merging narrative and analysis" (p. 6). The narrative takes on two dominant forms. The first is the author's first person narrative of events (there is a chilling account of the Nellie massacre), personal recollections of childhood, meetings with individuals (such as Myron Weiner to whom the book is dedicated), and descriptions of travel in the Northeast and Bangladesh.

The second narrative strain consists of the stories told by migrants and settlers such as Keramat Bhai. Keramat Bhai's story is illustrative of the symbiotic relationship set up by the massive volume of illegal immigration. Bangladeshis are essential for certain sectors of the Assamese economy (construction workers, rickshaw pullers) and yet their presence highlights the desperation of migrants driven by poverty from their homeland to another third-world country. The legitimate desire for a better lifestyle is fulfilled through illegitimate means. These migrants often have two homes and move easily across porous and corrupt international borders. These narratives are a necessary corrective to the fashionable academic representation of "hybridity" whereby the intellectual elite pretends that globalisation is indeed a boon and reality for all who wish to traverse international boundaries. Hazarika mentions the paranoia besetting most western states and the increased policing of national boundaries. In the case of India, policing is not only inadequate, the deportation of illegal migrants is not an option since Bangladesh does not recognise them as such and take them back.

There are many threads to this issue. The background of arbitrary colonial boundaries which blissfully ignored geographical and historical realities as well as intimate ties of kinship and community are one skein. The pressure of a burgeoning population on land and resources is another. The importance of this scarce land for an impoverished rural populace is a third. Land scarcity is a major factor in ethnic conflict. For instance, the Tripuris have been reduced to a minority community in their region and a vibrant tribal culture destroyed by Bengali migrants. They have retaliated through violent means. The irony of Bangladeshis voting for the AGP is a fourth.

Hazarika is not content merely to document and narrate. Prescriptive, normative points conclude the book. These include the debarring of politicians for 10 years if they allow illegal migration, the debarring of migrant labour from voters lists, and the legalising of illegal border trade (illegal imports from India amounted to half a billion US dollars in 1993-94, as compared to $413 million legal imports). Appendix O sets out a possible Work Permit System which might "create a sense of space and tolerance" among the host community. Hazarika attributes the problems not to the failure of "our instruments" (the Constitution, for example), but to "the visible failure of governance around us" (p. 267). This is undeniably true and the WPS an ideal "solution," but how are we to overcome the "failure of governance?" There is an element of naive idealism that underlines an otherwise unrelenting analysis. This is infinitely preferable to the cynicism of the political class or the waffle of well-meaning academics.

Hazarika straddles the various worlds of journalism, social analysis, and international relations. Apart from occasional absurdities such as "I carried no ideological baggage or prejudice" (p. 155-56), he is able to weave a down-to-earth, coherent analysis with moving human narratives. Rites of Passage is an important book of social and cultural analysis without the pretension. That in itself is a laudable achievement.

Rites of Passage: Border Crossings, Imagined Homelands, India's East and Bangladesh, Sanjoy Hazarika, Penguin Books, 2000, p. 347, Rs. 295.

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