Oct 28, 2014
Illegal immigration is a violation of India’s sovereignty. India has to take a sympathetic view of Hindus whose number in Bangladesh has dwindled, but that indulgence can’t be extended to others
Narendra Modi’s warning to “Bangladeshi infiltrators to pack their bags and leave” resonates in the wake of grim revelations indicating West Bengal is on the verge of becoming if it hasn’t already become a hub of international terrorist activity. Not only that, the evidence suggests that instead of a lone wolf as in the Ottawa shooting, a network of jihadi Muslims with Bangladeshi links threatens the state.
Bomb-making is probably Bengal’s oldest cottage industry. The British used to bracket it with the sedition that, they said, was brewed with every cup in Calcutta’s forest of dingy tea shops. But never before has Bengali militancy been tainted by any hint of sectarianism. In fact, the late 18th century Fakir-Sannyasi Rebellion, immortalised in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel, Anandamath, united Hindu monks and Muslim ascetics in a common cause.
Past violence was directed at Mughal and British rule, as well as the infant Indian state which Bengali Communists denounced in 1947 as a stooge of imperialism. Surya Sen and the Chittagong Armoury raid, Khudiram Bose, hanged at 18, and Bagha Jatin are honoured as much as Benoy Basu, Dinesh Gupta and Badal Gupta who shot dead a brutal British inspector-general of prisons in 1930. The Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar of Ajoy Mukherjee and Matangini Hazra at Tamluk in Midnapore was a mini-state. The Kisan Sabha’s Tebhaga movement demanded land ownership for sharecroppers. Santhals, Oraons and Muslim peasants were boisterously active in Malda’s Adina (after a 14th century mosque) and Mach-dhara movements against zamindari privileges.
Adivasis spearheaded the Naxalbari upsurge in 1967 but the Naxalite movement embraced thousands of middle class Bengali boys. Four years after the revolt by Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal and Jungal Santhal, I accompanied the Army’s all-night combing operation of Birbhum district. The military was convinced local Bengali policemen were hand in glove with the Santhal rebels they were hunting. Why else did the policemen complain incessantly and noisily of the rigours of marching? Or repeatedly splash equally noisily into the waterlogged fields on either side of the bunds along which we walked?
Long before daybreak, the policemen burst loudly into Rabindrasangeet. I imagined it was Bengali lyricism. But the Army officer in-charge knew better. “They are sending a warning!” he muttered. True enough, a light flashed in the distant foliage to be answered by another light further away. The suspect huts were deserted when we reached them.
Misguided these movements may have been but they were inspired by a concept of public welfare. Today’s bomb-making factories, multiple bank accounts, terror modules and burqa shops, like the names of the people questioned and the localities they frequent, draw attention to Muslim fanaticism. Bengal has become the playground of organisations like the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, Revival of Islamic Heritage (said to operate in several countries), Jamaat-e-Islami, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJi), and Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. Al Qaeda and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence are believed to direct them. Can the ISIS be far behind?
None of this bodes well for Mamata Banerjee’s already beleaguered government. The Centre’s National Investigating Agency is investigating the possibility of ruling Trinamul Congress leaders with links with extremist Bangladeshi organisations. Acutely sensitive to Muslims comprising 26 per cent of the state’s population (double the national average, and up from 19 per cent in 2001), Ms Banerjee, whose attempt to lavish funds on imams the Calcutta high court struck down, refuses to blame Muslims for the recent bomb outrages. “Those who commit offence are criminals but that does not mean putting an entire community in the dock,” she says. “It is like playing with fire. I fear communal riots.”
This is beyond communalism. The problem is not with West Bengal Muslims but with illegal immigration from Bangladesh which is impacting on West Bengal’s (also Assam’s) demographic and political profiles. Badruddin Ajmal’s All-India United Democratic Front, said to be supported by Bangladeshi Muslims, won three Lok Sabha seats in the recent elections from constituencies with large Muslim populations.
There’s no reliable figure for the flood of illegal migrants. After years of pussyfooting, Jyoti Basu admitted in 1992 that only 68,472 of the 235,529 Bangladeshis who were prevented from entering India between 1977 and April 1992 were Hindus. The majority 164,132 were Muslims. Mullappally Ramachandran, minister of state for home, claimed in 2012 that nearly 1.4 million Bangladeshis had entered in the previous decade. An official estimate six years later claimed some 20 million Bangladeshi illegals lived in India. According to Concern Universal, an international NGO working in 12 countries including Bangladesh, 50 Bangladeshis cross into India every day.
Their purpose is not clear. Most are economic refugees although the late President Ziaur Rahman flared up angrily once when I suggested this. Some may be jihadists out to take over West Bengal or, at least, reduce it to an anarchic battleground. Others claim the real targets are in Bangladesh: Hasina Wazed fears the terrorists plan to use West Bengal to launch attacks and assassinations there. Whatever the motive, illegal immigration is an intolerable violation of India’s sovereignty. It became possible only because of criminally complicit Bengali politicians of all hues. Undeniably, India has to take a sympathetic view of Hindus whose number in Bangladesh has dwindled from 22 per cent in 1951 to seven per cent. But India’s own security forbids that indulgence being extended to others.
For obvious reasons, the “Bangabhumi” formula of a strip of Bangladesh territory isn’t feasible where potentially jihadist Muslim infiltrators are concerned. But illegals must be weeded out and the 4,096-kilometre border with Bangladesh, 2,217 km in West Bengal, made foolproof. India can’t afford a hostile Bangladesh. Even less can it afford another Bangladesh within India.
The writer is a senior journalist, columnist and author
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