The Hindu : Rites of passage

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 09, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Rites of passage

BY RAISING THE illegal immigration issue, L. K. Advani has reverted to a subject which evokes an obsessive interest and fervent passions within his party. If the Union Home Minister's call to throw out Bangladeshi and Pakistani citizens staying illegally in this country has a familiarly strident ring, it is because his party has been urging their deportation for many years now. Nevertheless, two things deserve to be noted in connection with Mr. Advani's recent remarks. First of all, the manner in which he attempted to link the issue of illegal immigrants with that of internal security was unwarranted, unsubstantiated and insidious. The challenges this country faces on the internal security front go well beyond that posed by illegal immigration. For those within the Sangh Parivar, conflating the two issues has been a customary way of addressing the problem of illegal immigration, thereby giving it a communal colour and an emotive character.

The other point to note about Mr. Advani's "throw them out" call is a pragmatic one — given the enormous nature of the issue, this is much easier said than done. Illegal Pakistani overstayers, who number a little over 10,000, are not the issue here but the poverty-stricken migrants from Bangladesh after 1971 who, according to estimates, number a staggering 15 million. Given that this migration has taken place over three decades, the task of distinguishing between Bangladeshis and (West) Bengalis is far from easy. The problem is compounded by the fact that (thanks to lax procedures and political patronage) many of the Bangladeshi immigrants now hold ration cards or voter identity cards (or both). Finally, there is the issue of Bangladesh's less than helpful attitude. With Dhaka sometimes giving the impression that the steady wave of emigration to India is a figment of New Delhi's imagination, the option of mass-scale deportation is rendered even less realistic. It was probably the recognition of the pragmatic and legal difficulties in detecting and deporting illegal Bangladeshi immigrants that made the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, last year to suggest that illegal Bangladeshi immigrants could be given work permits.

A number of factors have been responsible for the Bangladeshi influx into India. The steep rise in the Bangladesh population (which was 128 million people in the year 2000), the relatively better economic opportunities in India (and not, as many people imagine, a result of lebensraum) and the porous 4,000-km international border (which continues to be permeable despite attempts to stem the spate of illegal crossings). In its report submitted two years ago, the Task Force on Border Management estimated that three lakh Bangladeshi illegal immigrants enter India every year. Illegal immigration is a sensitive issue and it would be myopic not to see the serious political ramifications it has for India. For example, the Assam agitation between 1979 and 1985 was launched partly because of fears over the impact of Bangladeshi immigration; tensions in Tripura are also partially a result of the same phenomenon. However, rather than raising the deportation issue in a communally tinged way, the challenge is to find a way of firmly stopping further entry of illegal immigrants. Plugging the leaks along the porous border is one measure that needs to be implemented. National identity cards are another measure and the Centre has set up a pilot project for the issue of such cards in some States. But the purpose of issuing such cards must be only to discourage further illegal immigration. The procedure for issuing them should be fair and should not become a ruse to harass people by zealous advocates of deportation. Infiltration or illegal immigration is a reality that cannot be ignored. At the same time, it is important to see the issue for what it is and to refrain from exploiting it in a manner that is political, prejudiced and essentially divisive.

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