A
region of rugged beauty and constant turmoil. This is how the seven
States or provinces in Northeast India have come to be regarded and
referred to, both within the country and outside. Encompassing an
area of 255,000 square kilometres, wedged between Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan and China, the region has
continued to be among South Asia’s many trouble spots. History,
geography, politics and economics have all contributed in making this
region India’s turbulent frontier. Home to 31.82 million people, north eastern India has a 4,500 km-long international border, but
is connected to the Indian mainland by a tenuous 22 kilometre land
corridor through Siliguri in the State of West Bengal - a link popularly
and evocatively known as the 'Chicken’s Neck'. The seven States
of the region came to be bracketed as the 'Northeast' after India
attained Independence. To those who do not reside there, they are
best known for separatist insurrections, sub-national assertiveness
and ethnic strife.
Much
of the turmoil in India's Northeast has been caused by continuous
trans-border migration, which has altered, or is threatening to alter,
the demographic profile of some of these States, particularly and
immediately, Assam and Tripura. The influx of Bengalis from the plains
of erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, has reduced Tripura’s
tribal population to a minority. According to the 1991 Census, the
indigenous tribes people of Tripura constituted only 28 per cent of
the State’s population of 2.76 million. Three decades earlier,
the tribals comprised two-thirds of Tripura’s population.
Movements
of people from East Bengal, later East Pakistan and then Bangladesh,
into Assam and Tripura, and onward to other States in the region,
have transformed vast tracts from land-abundant to land-scarce areas.
In a region known for lack of industrial activity, the large-scale
influx of people from across porous international borders has led
to a conflict between the migrants and the indigenous people over
natural resources, as well as employment, both in the government and
private sectors. Such clashes of interest have directly led to the
growth of violent tribal insurgencies, as in Tripura, with guerrilla
groups targeting the migrant settlers from the plains, who are seen
as land grabbers. The anger of these insurgent groups is also directed
against the Indian state, which has come to be accused by these outfits
as an ‘exploiter’, working against tribal interests.
In
Assam, similarly, the issue of migration has led to the growth of
Assamese sub-nationalism, at times bordering on xenophobia, mainly
because of a fear among the indigenous communities of being overwhelmed
by migrants from Bangladesh. The anti-foreigner (read anti-illegal
migrants or anti-Bangladeshi) uprising in Assam, from 1979 to 1985,
led by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) — by far the
most influential organisation representing the Assamese — was
perhaps among independent India’s largest mass uprisings. According to a conservative estimate, the number of people killed
during the agitation stood at more than 7000 with another two million
losing their homes. The issue is as alive today as
it was in 1985, when the agitation formally ended with the signing
of an agreement on August 15, 1985, in New Delhi, between the AASU
and the Central Government, then led by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The issue of migration and citizenship has, in fact, become the pivot
around which Assam’s entire politics has come to revolve —
an issue on which elections to the State Legislative Assembly can
be won or lost.
The British & Migration
Assam
came under British rule in 1826 with the signing of the Treaty of
Yandaboo that ended the Anglo-Burmese war. For 600 years beginning
1228 AD, and until the Yandaboo Treaty was signed, Assam was ruled
by the mighty Ahom kings. To British travellers like Major John Butler
of the 55th Regiment, Bengal Native Infantry, who had travelled
widely in Assam between 1837 and 1851, from the middle of the 19th century,
the State presented itself as a land ‘with vast expanses of uninhabited
land.’ In fact, the depopulated state of Assam’s society
found reflection in the arguments of Ananda Ram Dhekial Phukan, one
of the first well-known modern Assamese personalities. Phukan pleaded
in the early fifties of the 19th century that, in order to improve
the precarious condition of agriculture in Assam, European technology
and implements should be introduced, and that the government should
also import a sufficient number of men from Europe and Upper India
to Assam.
It
was in the middle of the 19th century, again, that it was
confirmed that there could be a large-scale production of tea in Assam
on a commercial basis. This 'discovery' led to an unimaginable
excitement in the London Stock Exchange: “a madness comparable
in intensity with that of the South Sea Bubble seized men’s minds,
and normally level-headed financiers and speculators began to scramble
wildly for tea shares and tea lands
in Assam.” Traces of oil, too, were then discovered.
This economic transformation was enough reason for the British colonialists
to encourage migration into Assam, a trend that continued through
much of the 20th century.
Two distinct categories of migrants came in large
numbers — workers for Assam’s tea plantations, who came
from present-day Bihar and Orissa, and oppressed peasants from East
Bengal. The massive migration of tribals from the Jharkhand region
(in Bihar and Orissa) significantly transformed the demographic structure
in Assam. Such massive migration made the State, demographically,
the fastest growing province in Colonial India. The population of tea garden employees
in 1921 was 1.3 million or one-sixth of Assam’s total population
of the time.
The
British, to fill the coffers of the Crown, imposed heavy taxes on
the peasantry, leading to a peasant revolt in Assam in 1861 and 1891.
Unable to enhance the rate of taxation any further, the colonialists
tried to bring in larger tracts of land under agriculture to boost
revenue generation. This amounted to encouraging the migration of
peasants to Assam’s wetlands from the thickly populated parts
of East Bengal, mainly from the districts of Mymensingh, Rongpur and
Pabna (in present-day Bangladesh). At that time, of course, this was an internal migration of a deprived
community in search of greener pastures.
Nevertheless,
fears about the adverse impact of migration could already be felt.
In 1920, the British tried to impose certain restrictions on migration
and introduced what was called the Line System. This regulation prevented
migrant peasants from purchasing land within specified areas and forced
a large number of them to the riverine areas (Chars
in the local language), segregating them from the indigenous people.
Being a loose regulation it failed to stop or check the influx into
Assam. In fact, two Assamese and a Bodo tribal member from among the
nine-member Line System Committee informed the British authorities
that “they did not anticipate that the new rulers (the British)
would invite foreigners to come in such large numbers so as to swamp
the indigenous population.” The note that these three members
wrote said that it was the government’s “sacred duty”
to protect the Assamese from this wave of East Bengali immigration.
Our Land, their living
space: Assam’s key fear
Demographers
have observed that Assam’s rate of population growth during 1901-1951
was the second highest (137.80 per cent) in the world, exceeded only
by Brazil (204.00 per cent). This trend of a high rate of population
growth continued in Assam in the years that followed India’s
independence. Sociologist Monirul Hussain observes:
It is a historical
fact that the rate of growth of population in Assam has been much
higher than that of India’s average since the colonial period.
Significantly in 1921, when the population growth rate was negative
for India, Assam had shown a tremendously higher growth rate, that
is 20.47 per cent. And the gap of growth between India and Assam was
as high as 20.77 per cent. In 1901, Assam’s population constituted
only 1.38 per cent of India’s total population. However, by 1971,
Assam’s share nearly doubled at 2.67 per cent.
By
this time, population watchers in Assam were getting restive. Slogans
like ‘our land, their living space’ were spreading fast
amongst the indigenous Assamese, making them uneasy to say the least.
The gravity of the situation was brought home by none other than the
then Election Commissioner, S.L.Shakdher. He declared at a conference
of the Chief Electoral Officers of States, in 1978, that reports from
the North East regarding foreigners being included in the voters’
list were, indeed, alarming. Shakdher went on to add:
In one case [Assam],
the population in 1971 census recorded an increase as high as 34.98
per cent over 1961 census figures and this figure was attributed to
the influx of very large number of persons from foreign countries.
The influx has become a regular feature. I think it may not be a wrong
assessment to make that on the basis of increase of 34.98 per cent
between the two census, the increase would likely to be recorded in
the 1991 census would be more than 100 per cent over the 1961 census.
In other words, a stage would be
reached when that State may have to reckon with the foreign nationals
who may be in all probability constitute a sizeable percentage if
not the majority of population in the State.
A
by-election called for in 1979 following the death of a Member of
Parliament (MP) was to trigger-off the first organised anti-foreigner
movement in Assam, and this, in fact, went on to become the immense
mass uprising known as the Assam Agitation. The circumstances of the
by-election provide interesting insights. The MP who passed away was
Hiralal Patowari, representing the Mongoldoi parliamentary constituency
in northern Assam. The Election Commission therefore ordered a fresh
poll to fill the vacancy. Soon, officials started the exercise of
revising the voters’ rolls for the Mongoldoi constituency.
The
exercise was reaching an end when the local electoral officer started
receiving complaints that the names of many Bangladeshis had been
included in the voters’ list.
In several weeks,
as many as 70,000 complaints were registered against illegal immigrants.
A tribunal was set up by the state government to investigate the complaints.
It upheld 45,000 complaints or sixty-four
per cent of the cases out of a total electorate of 6,00,000.
There were other voices, too, although there has been no group or organisation
in Assam openly backing illegal migration from Bangladesh. Religious
and linguistic minority leaders and organisations began to accuse the authorities of deleting
the names of bona fide Indian
minorities from the voters’ lists on the grounds that they were
Bangladeshis.
This
was the beginning of a whole new ‘politics of citizenship’
in Assam, and is an issue that dominates the State’s murky politics
to this date. “The organizations behind the Assam movement estimated
the number of ‘foreigners’ in Assam to be as high as 4.5
to 5 million, or 31 to 34 per cent of the total population of the
state in 1971.” The AASU galvanised the masses in Assam, successfully mobilising them
to come out onto the streets, and enforced general strikes and a boycott
of elections. No correct voters’ list (free from the names of
illegal aliens), no elections — this was the slogan the AASU
had put forward. The AASU-led anti-foreigner movement in Assam sought
to halt the illegal influx of foreign nationals from Bangladesh as
well as from Nepal, preventing these categories of people from taking
part in the electoral process, and eventually detecting and deporting
them. This was intended to protect the State, its people and culture
against what it called the 'silent invasion from Bangladesh'.
After
protracted negotiations, the Assam movement formally ended on August
15, 1985. The AASU and the Union government signed what came to be
called the Assam Accord. This Accord fixed a cut-off date to determine
who the illegal migrants in Assam were. This date was March 25, 1971,
the day Bangladesh was born. The Assam Accord states that all those
migrants who have come and settled in the State on or before this
date shall be regarded as citizens. And those illegal migrants who
are found to have arrived in the State after this date are to be detected
and expelled in accordance with the law.
The
government announced fresh elections in Assam for December 1985. The
student leaders who were at the forefront of the anti-foreigner stir
transformed themselves into political leaders by creating a new political
party called the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) or the Assam People’s
Party. The results of the polls that followed were on expected lines
— the AGP rode to power with an absolute majority on the euphoria
generated by the Assam Accord and on just one plank, ridding Assam
of ‘illegal aliens’.
The
December 1985-elections also saw the emergence of the United Minorities
Front (UMF), another product of the Assam Accord and the anti-foreigners
agitation. The UMF bagged 17 of the State’s 126 Legislative Assembly
seats and projected itself as a party dedicated to fight attempts
by the 'chauvinistic Assamese' to harass bona
fide citizens belonging to the religious and linguistic minority
groups by branding them 'Bangladeshis'. The UMF won these 17 seats
mainly with the support of minorities and settlers who were gripped
by a sense of fear of being subjected to possible harassment once
the AASU leaders-turned politicians came to rule Assam.
The
Assam Accord may have ended the movement but politics since then has
been revolving around the same highly emotive issues. It has created
a divide between communities and has also led to a mistrust among
the people. A superficial view would suggest that Muslims in Assam
are encouraging Muslim migrants from Bangladesh to come and settle
in the State, thus increasing the population of this religious group.
This is far from the truth.
Dhaka,
though, is often accused of pursuing a hidden agenda —of Islamist
expansionism — in engineering a migration of its people into
Assam. Bangladesh’s 'hidden agenda' theory is frequently supported
by reiterating recorded statements by some prominent Pakistani politicians
in the past. Former Pakistan Premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s book,
Myth of Independence, is
often cited by commentators in Assam to highlight the fact that Pakistan
was keen on including Assam in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during
partition. Bhutto wrote:
It would be wrong
to think that Kashmir is the only dispute that divides India and Pakistan,
though undoubtedly it is the most significant, One at least is nearly
as important as the Kashmir dispute, that of Assam and some districts
of India adjacent to East Pakistan. To these, Pakistan has very good
claims...
Similarly, Bangladesh’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,
wrote:
Because Eastern Pakistan
must have sufficient land for its expansion and because Assam has
abundant forests and mineral resources, coal, petroleum, etc., Eastern
Pakistan must include Assam to be financially and economically strong.
A look into such passages reinforces the fear among the indigenous
people in Assam, and keeps the issue alive. In November 1998, the
Governor of Assam, Lt. Gen. (Retd) S.K.Sinha presented a 42-page official
report to the President of India on ‘Illegal Migration into Assam.’
Governor Sinha wrote:
As a result of population
movement from Bangladesh, the spectre looms large of the indigenous
people of Assam being reduced to a minority in their home state. Their
cultural survival will be in jeopardy, their political control will
be weakened and their employment opportunities will be undermined.
This silent and invidious demographic invasion of Assam may result
in the loss of the geostrategically vital districts of Lower Assam
[on the border with Bangladesh]. The influx of these illegal migrants
is turning these districts into a Muslim majority region. It will
then only be a matter of time when a demand for their merger with
Bangladesh may be made. The rapid growth of international Islamic
fundamentalism may provide the driving force for this demand... Loss
of Lower Assam [the area close to the Bangladesh border] will severe
the entire land mass of the North East from the rest of India and
the rich natural resources of that region will be lost to the Nation.
Sinha’s sweeping observations greatly angered Muslim politicians
belonging to different political parties, who called him a Hindu chauvinist.
These leaders castigated Sinha for virtually doubting the patriotism
of indigenous Muslims by suggesting that a day might come when the
districts bordering Bangladesh might witness the demand for a merger
with the neighbouring nation. That is another story, but the fact
that a top government functionary has decided to officially place
on record the possible consequences of cross-border human traffic
into Assam underlines the fact that the issue is, indeed, of paramount
importance.
Government
agencies in Assam, such as the Tribunals functioning in accordance
with the Illegal Migrants Determination Tribunals Act, 1983, (the
IMDT Act) have been going ahead with their job of disposing-off cases
concerning illegal migrants. Assam is the only Indian State where
the IMDT Act is in force to deal with foreigners. Elsewhere, the Foreigners
Act, 1946, is applicable. Under the IMDT Act, the onus of proving
one’s citizenship lies on the accused, whereas in the Foreigners
Act, the onus lies with the police and other government agencies.
Progress has, however, been extremely slow and the number of cases
disposed-off, and the number of people declared as illegal migrants,
has been negligible considering the figure of aliens living in the
State as estimated by the anti-foreigner movement leadership. The
Central Government's Ministry of Home Affairs has itself admitted
that the functioning of the IMDT Act has been “unsatisfactory”.
The Ministry has cited the following statistics, during a presentation
in mid-1999 in connection with a court case, to prove its assessment:
Ø
Total enquiries (of suspected illegal migrants) initiated: 3,02,554;
Ø
Enquiries referred to the Screening Committee: 2,96,564;
Ø
Enquiry reports referred to the IMDT Tribunals: 31,264;
Ø
Persons declared as illegal migrants by the IMDT Tribunals: 9,625;
Ø
Number of illegal migrants expelled: 1,461.
It
may be noted that the Demographic
Yearbook published by the Registrar-General’s Office, which
supervises census operations in India, said in its 1981 Report that
as many as four million persons, residents in India that year, had
reported their birthplace as Bangladesh. This excluded figures for Assam where the census
was not held in 1981 because of the anti-foreign nationals-agitation. Compared to such a large figure, the number of suspected illegal aliens
formally declared as foreigners by the IMDT Tribunals and later expelled
is indeed insignificant.
Students
under the banner of AASU, in their continuing effort to get the Assam
Accord implemented in letter and spirit, succeeded in persuading the
Indian government to come up with a definition of ‘indigenous
people’ of Assam. A definition was arrived at during a meeting
in April 2000 between leaders of the AASU and senior officials of
the Indian Home Ministry. 'Indigenous people' were defined as "those
whose names figure in the 1951 National Register of Citizens and their descendants." For the seven districts in Assam where
the NRC of 1951 is not available, the electoral rolls of 1952 were
to be taken as the basic document. In case of these seven districts,
those people who had their names enrolled in the 1952 voters’
list and their descendants will fall under the category of ‘indigenous’
or ‘Assamese’ people.
This
triggered a fresh round of controversy in the State. Several individuals and groups in the State are unhappy with this
development, and argue that the AASU is not the sole representative of the people
of Assam. They insist that it was unfair, to say the least, on the
Union Government’s part to
have worked on the exercise of evolving a definition of ‘indigenous
people’ of the State by sitting with 'a few student leaders.' The stage is set for a major confrontation
and, possibly, a legal battle as well.
The
search for a definition was necessitated by the demand of the AASU
for 100 per cent reservation in the State Assembly and the State's
seats in the Lok Sabha, for the ‘indigenous people of Assam'. This demand again had its
genesis in the anti-foreigner uprising (1979-85) and was sparked-off
by the fear that continued flow of illegal migrants could soon overwhelm
the indigenous Assamese, with the migrants coming to dominate the
State’s politics. This fear found echo in the Assam Accord, in
which Clause VI states:
Constitutional, legislative
and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, shall be provided
to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social and linguistic
identity and heritage of the Assamese people.
Any
move to protect or preserve the identity and heritage of the ‘Assamese
people’ is welcome and there can be no two opinions about it.
The dispute, however, is over the new cut-off date of 1951 (NRC) and
1952 (voters’ list) chosen to determine as to who would be regarded
as the ‘indigenous people’ of Assam. Already, the Assam
Accord provides for March 25, 1971, as the cut-off date for detection
and expulsion of illegal foreign migrants. This means that people
already residing in the State on or before this date are to be regarded
as citizens of India residing in Assam. Now, it seems that the government
has agreed to push back the cut-off date by another 20 years. These
attempts at redefinition have, moreover, created resentment among
a large number of ethnic and other minority groups in the State. Leaders
of ethnic groups such as the Bodos and the Karbis feel that a cut-off
date cannot be used to decide who is a native (indigenous) and who
is not. Minority organisations like the UMF say that it would totally go against
the interest of the post-partition migrants and the riot-affected
people from parts of Assam who had fled to East Pakistan only to return
later. An estimated 300,000 Muslims from western Assam fled to East Pakistan
in 1950, in the wake of communal riots. Following the Nehru-Liaquat
Pact later in 1950, these people returned to Assam in batches, till
about 1952. By this time the exercise of preparing the NRC of 1951
as well as the voters’ list of 1952 was already over. The names
of this category of people, the absentee Muslims, therefore, did not
figure in these two documents.
There
is another category of people whose names apparently do not figure
in the NRC of 1951. They are the Bengali Hindu refugees from East
Pakistan. A large-scale influx of this group into Assam began only
in 1950, and continued thereafter.
These are the ‘displaced persons,’ and the Assam Act XVI
of 1951 made elaborate provisions for granting rehabilitation loans
to them, thereby formally welcoming them into the State.
Nevertheless,
infiltration has always been a problem in Assam. As early as June
27, 1962, the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, speaking to the
Assam State Committee of the Congress Party in Parliament, said:
You refer to Pakistani
infiltration. This is perfectly true. But you will appreciate that
this infiltration from Bengal to Assam has been taking place for a
very long time past... this infiltration should be stopped and effectively
dealt with… Probably it will be difficult now to deal with illegal
immigrants who came before 1952. We might, therefore, fix 1952 as
the date of our enquiry.
The AASU or even the Union Government may now find Nehru’s 1952
cut-off date proposal handy. But, the document that is proposed to
be taken as a reference point to determine who is a native of Assam
is the NRC of 1951, whose legitimacy in a court of law may be disputable.
Legal opinions vary on whether the NRC can at all be accepted by a
court as evidence under the Indian Evidence Act in support of a person’s
claim to Indian citizenship.
For
readers outside Assam or an international audience, these events or
developments in a remote part of India may appear to be too local
or even too intricate. But they demonstrate just how an issue like
cross-border migration has come to dominate almost the entire politics
of a strategically located State of over 22 million people.
Tripura: Tribal Resurgence
In
May 2000, the north east Indian State of Tripura that juts into Bangladesh
from Assam’s southeast, witnessed political developments that
can have a far-reaching impact on the State’s already tense natives-versus-aliens
conflict. A rag-tag political party of tribals, called the Indigenous
People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), won the little-noticed elections
to the 28-member Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council
(TTAADC), an administrative structure established in 1982 to cater
to the interests of the State’s dwindling tribal population.
The element of news here is that the IPFT, according to media and
police reports, is backed by the outlawed National Liberation Front
of Tripura (NLFT), a dreaded, tribal separatist, guerrilla
group that is fighting for an independent tribal homeland outside
India. The main grouse of indigenous tribals and militant groups like
the NLFT is over the increasing pressure on tribal lands and culture
as a result of the ever-growing population of Bengali migrants from
the plains. The tribals’ anxiety in Tripura is the same as that
of the natives of Assam — the invasion by ‘outsiders’,
and is, in a sense, far more acute since the indigenous groups have
already been reduced to a minority. The rise to power of a rebel-supported
political party like the IPFT for the first time since the formation
of the Tribal Council is a definite sign of tribal resurgence in the
State. Tripura could well be among the few places in South Asia where
the natives have been reduced to a minority by hordes of migrants
in a span of under 50 years. B.G. Verghese observes:
Tripura is the Northeast’s
nightmare being a state whose demographic transformation has rendered
its original inhabitants a minority in what was once a proud tribal
kingdom ruled by a succession of 183 Tripuri princes who held sway
over a land that finds mention in the Mahabharata
and Ain-i-Akbari and whose history
is recorded over the centuries in the Rajamala, the state chronicle.
The
Maharaja or the King of Tripura enacted legislations in 1917 and 1925
to acquire lands for tea cultivation. This encouraged migration. Moreover,
Tripura rulers had adopted Bengali for running their administration.
This attracted Bengalis from East Bengal to the area.
Artisans followed.
Poverty, famine, landlessness and the exploitation of zamindars (land-lords) drove Bengali peasants and others in distress
to Tripura. By 1931, the number of immigrants from various other regions
had risen to 114,383, the vast majority from Bengal or Assam.
Even at that time, the rulers of the day had anticipated trouble for
the State’s tribes people. The Maharaja in 1931 and again in
1943 reserved land for use in agriculture by five tribal groups in
the State: Tripuris, Reangs, Jamatias, Noatias and Halams.
The
tribals in princely Tripura, where the ‘Excluded Areas’
and ‘Inner Line’ provisions were introduced “only in
the 1940s through the creation of a tribal reserve, were the most
apprehensive about a possible large-scale influx of Bengalis.” Their fears came true with the Partition of India and Pakistan, which
brought about a dramatic transformation of Tripura’s demographic
profile. Tripura acceded to India on August 13, 1947 and a complete
merger with India took place on October 15, 1949. Waves of migration
from what became East Pakistan started into Tripura on a day-to-day
basis. “Attacks on Hindus in East Pakistan in the 1960s led to
many refugees settling in Tripura. One estimate says that 600 persons
fled to Tripura every day after the assaults.” This in-migration forced the State government
to seek de-notification of the lands reserved earlier for the tribals.
The systematic process of land alienation had begun, and with it the
bloody conflict between the natives and the aliens or settlers.
By
the mid-sixties, the tribals in the State were getting more and more
restive. A tribal political party, the Tripura Upajati Juba Samity
(TUJS) was formed in 1967. In the neighbouring province of Mizoram,
tribal chieftain Laldenga had formed a separatist guerrilla group
called the Mizo National Front (MNF). The formation of the MNF stirred
the imagination of Tripura tribals, and men like Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl
established the Tripura National Volunteers (TNV) in 1978. The activities
of the TUJS were, thus, both political and militaristic. In the words
of an analyst,
On the one hand [it
carried out] mass action through rallies and meetings and on the other
[made] a concerted effort to build up a large body of volunteers trained
in guerrilla warfare. Harangkhawl was the crucial link in the delicate
chain, the bridge between the party's legitimate and underground activities.
By mid-1979, the TNV carried out a series of attacks on the settlers
as well as what they considered as the symbols of governmental authority,
such as the security forces. The declared aim of these activities
was to protect the distinct identity of the tribals from the ‘invaders
from outside.’
Tripura
has also witnessed a sizeable infiltration of Buddhist Chakma refugees
from Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts. As Verghese notes:
One of the components of the Bangladeshi influx is the Chakma refugees originally
numbering around 70,000. These Buddhist tribals fled the Chittagong
Hill Tracts in the 1980s after the Bangladeshi government settled
thousands of plains Muslims in this relatively sparsely populated
hill region.
For the State of Tripura, the influx of
Chakmas created a dual set of problems. In the words of Partha S.
Ghosh, a noted social scientist:
On the one hand it [had] to live with the problem of the intermittent flux
of refugees… On the other, the disturbed atmosphere on the border
has encouraged its own extremist elements, particularly the TNV, to
carry on their activities with impunity from their hideouts across
the border.
A look at the official census figures tell Tripura’s
story. During the first census of independent Tripura (1876-77), the
tribal population stood at 67,906 as against the province’s total
population of 91,759. In 1901, Tripura’s total population was
173,325 and 92,477 were tribals. A look at Tripura’s census figures
from 1951 to 1991 clearly shows how the migrants have outnumbered
the indigenous tribals:
|
Year
|
Population
|
Growth rate
|
|
Total
|
Tribal
|
Total
|
Tribal
|
|
1951
|
639,929
|
237,953
|
24.6
|
36.8
|
|
1961
|
1,142,005
|
360,070
|
78.7
|
31.5
|
|
1971
|
1,556,342
|
450,544
|
36.3
|
25.0
|
|
1981
|
2,053,058
|
583,920
|
32.0
|
30.0
|
|
1991
|
2,757,205
|
853,345
|
34.0
|
46.0
|
Source: ANNEXURE-I of the Memorandum Submitted by the
Tripura Upajati Juba Samity to Union Home Minister L.K. Advani, Agartala,
March 27, 2000.
Today, violence is the order of the day in this State. From April 10,
1993 to December 31, 1999, a total of 1,018 persons (656 non-tribals
and 362 tribals) have been killed and 2,001 (1,663 non-tribals and
338 tribals) kidnapped in the state.
The situation is one of a bitter ethnic feud between the tribals and
the settlers from the plains. The tribals are clearly on a fight-back
mode, both politically and through an unlawful armed struggle. Union
Minister for Home Affairs, Lal Krishna Advani, visited Tripura over
March 27-28, 2000, to make an on-the-spot assessment of the situation.
Tribal leaders representing the TUJS presented a memorandum to the
Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the burden of which was the protection
of tribals’ rights. The TUJS articulated the following major
demands:
Ø
More power to the TTAADC.
Ø
Barbed-wire fence along the State’s 856 kilometre long border
with Bangladesh to check the influx of aliens.
Ø
Implementation of the Indira-Mujib Pact (the agreement between Indian
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Bangladesh’s main architect
Sheikh Mujibur Rehman) in terms of which the post 1971 migrants from
that country are to be pushed back.
Ø
And the introduction of an Inner-Line Permit system to check the entry
of plainsmen to the Tribal Council area.
Simply
put, the tribals in Tripura today are bent on ensuring that their
population in the Tribal Council area does not come below the existing
70 per cent (as already mentioned, the overall tribal population in
the State is as low as 28 per cent).
Tremor in Arunachal, on the Chinese Frontier
Sandwiched between three foreign
neighbours (China on the North, Myanmar on the East and Bhutan on
the West), Arunachal Pradesh is by far the remotest of the Indian
States. Arunachal’s recent history of administration dates back
to 1838 when the British extended their administration to the frontiers
that now form this province. The area was inhabited exclusively by
tribal communities, with diverse cultures, values and socio-religious
norms. The British made sincere efforts to preserve these tribal societies
in their pristine form and to protect them from any outside interference.
Later, the Constituent Assembly of India, while preparing India’s
Constitution, considered the aspect of immigration vis-à-vis what is now Arunachal Pradesh. The members of the Constituent
Assembly noted that the hill people were extremely nervous about outsiders,
and felt they were greatly in need of protection against encroachment
(of land) and exploitation. They attached considerable importance
to existing regulations, such as the Chin Hills Regulation. The Constituent
Assembly considered that the fears of the hill people regarding unrestrained
liberty to outsiders was not without justification, and recognised
the depth of their feelings.
The Constitution of India too, which came into force on January 26,
1950, recognised the exclusivity of the area and the need for special
protection of its indigenous people. From the status of a Union Territory
directly under Central rule (through a federal representative), Arunachal
Pradesh was conferred full Statehood on February 20, 1987. Until then,
what is known as the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873, was
in force in the area. This Regulation provided that no person other
than local natives shall pass through the tracts without a ‘pass’
and that no person who is not a native of the district (later Union
Territory) shall acquire any interest in land or the produce of land.
When Arunachal Pradesh became a State in 1987, the Inner Line Permit
system was retained, keeping in view the sensitivity of the area.
The employees of the State Government, Central Government, public
enterprises, business community and labourers, all Indian citizens,
were given Inner Line Permits by virtue of their service within the
State, but have to leave the area when the contractual work is over,
in view of the fact that they cannot reside or settle as per the laws
applicable to the area. These provisions give a clear indication of the exclusivity of the
area and the protective cover devised by the government for its people.
Otherwise an island of peace in the insurgency-hit Northeast region,
Arunachal Pradesh, too, has been gripped by a xenophobic fervour over
the past three decades. It all started with the arrival in India of
the Buddhist Chakma and the Hajong refugees from the Chittagong Hill
Tracts (CHT) and the Mymensingh districts of erstwhile East Pakistan.
These refugees came to Tripura and Mizoram over the period 1964-1969,
partly to escape the alleged religious persecution in East Pakistan
and partly due to their forced displacement as a result of the construction
of the Kaptai Dam in that country. Verghese Notes:
It was not possible to hold
these refugees in Tripura in the aftermath of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan
war and the Mizo insurgency which had had a fallout in the CHT and
Tripura. The central government accordingly decided to relocate the
Chakmas elsewhere and probably thought of Arunachal in view of its
relative low density of population (8,64,558 people according to the
1991 Census in an 83,743 square kilometre area) and the proximity
of other Buddhist tribes....
The decision to settle these refugees in Arunachal Pradesh (then known
as the North East Frontier Agency, NEFA) was taken in 1964 by the
then Governor of Assam, Vishnu Sahay, who was administering the Frontier.
During 1964-1969, a total of 2,748 families of Chakma and Hajong refugees,
comprising 14,888 persons, were settled at three locations in Arunachal
in the districts of Lohit, Changlang and Papum Pare. The government’s White Paper says that
by October 1979, the number of the refugees swelled to 21,494. The
estimated population of these refugees according to the 1991 Census
is 30,064. The refugees themselves, the White Paper says, put their
present number at 65,000.
The Arunachalese greatly resented the government’s decision to
settle the refugees in their area without consulting the local tribal
communities. From time to time, they demanded their repatriation. The Indian Government
replied in no uncertain terms that the Chakma refugees were eligible
for Indian citizenship, but stopped short of actually initiating moves
to confer such citizenship. In 1992 and 1993, in replies to an MP
from Arunachal Pradesh and to the State Chief Minister respectively,
the then Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, M.M. Jacob, stated
categorically that “the central government is strongly of the
opinion that citizenship should be granted to these refugees to which
they are entitled under the Citizenship Act, 1955.” Jacob, the official document says, also urged the Arunachal Pradesh
government to immediately grant citizenship to the Chakma and Hajong
refugees so that they enjoy all rights that flow from it.
This was the start of a bitter anti-refugee agitation in the frontier
State. The State’s powerful student group, the All Arunachal
Pradesh Students’ Union (AAPSU), issued ‘Quit Arunachal’
notices on these refugees in July 1994, and soon slogans started appearing
on all available wall space in the State’s major towns against
the ‘unwanted guests’. There were cases of arson and violence
directed against the refugees; their children were denied school admission
and medical facilities; trade licences were cancelled; and a general
social boycott was imposed. A ruling by the High Court and then by
the Supreme Court, India’s apex court, that the Chakma and Hajongs
in Arunachal Pradesh were foreigners, greatly strengthened the position
of the indigenous Arunachali tribals. Then, the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC) stepped in and filed a public interest litigation
in the Supreme Court charging the State Government of remaining a
mute spectator to what it called 'gross human rights violations' against
the minority Chakmas and Hajongs in the State. Both the State government
and the student outfit denied these charges. In fact, all forces in the State closed ranks against the refugees.
This was an emotive issue and could cost any political party an election
if it were to show any leniency or favour towards the refugees. The
issue remains unresolved. With New Delhi failing to initiate any new
move to confer citizenship on the Chakma and Hajong refugees, students
and political parties appear to have decided to adopt a wait and watch
approach. This could well be the lull before the storm. All it needs
is a spark for a fresh anti-refugee stir in this State. And an election
could well provide that spark. As in Assam, in Arunachal Pradesh,
too, the ‘outsider’ issue has come to dominate local politics
to a great extent.
The view from Bangladesh
To put it si
