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On Friday, 10 February 2006, the Ministry of Home Affairs
published two notifications amending the Foreigners Tribunal Order of
the Foreigners Act 1946, thereby, proving the argument stated by Dr D
N Bezbaruah, the then editor of the Sentinel that to the Congress
party, remaining in power was more important than the security and
integrity of the country.1 Why did the Government issue this order?
And what are its implications?
The roots of this order lie in the liberation of Bangladesh, in which
India had the lead role. After the liberation, in the historic meeting
between Mrs Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India and Sheikh
Mujibur Rehman of Bangladesh, the latter told Mrs Gandhi that he would
take back the refugees who had fled from the erstwhile East Pakistan
after 25 March 1971. He, however, stated that he would not take back
any one who had migrated to India before 25 March 1971; the date of
creation of the Government of Bangladesh in exile in India. This meant
that lakhs of Bengali Hindus and Muslims who had illegally migrated
from East Pakistan into India from 1950, when India had become a
Republic, till 25 March 1971 could not be detected and deported. Mrs
Gandhi agreed, thereby, regularising at one stroke lakhs of illegal
immigrants from East Pakistan.
The illegal migration from Bangladesh continued into Assam. The
illegal migration had been so persistent that the Director of the
Intelligence Bureau, B N Mallick had pointed out the dangers of this
illegal migration of Bengali Muslims into Assam, West Bengal and
Tripura, rendering some of the border districts into majority Bengali
Muslim populations by 1961 itself. The Government of India had then
instituted a Pakistan Infiltration Post scheme in the border states
with East Pakistan. This had been functioning in Assam since the early
1960s. The cut-off year for detection of illegal migrants from East
Pakistan was 1951 as per the provisions of the Citizenship Act of
India. The National Register of Citizens was prepared on the basis of
1951 being the cut off year. And it was on the basis of this Register
that detection and investigation of cases under the Foreigners Act was
carried out.
After the liberation of Bangladesh, and the agreement between Mrs
Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, about not taking back the people of
East Pakistan who had illegally migrated into India between 1951 and
25 March 1971, there was the question of the cut off year. What was
the legal basis for 25 March 1971? The Citizenship Act of India had
1951 after the creation of India into a Republic as the cut off year.
It was at this juncture that the sitting Member of Parliament (MP)
from Mangaldoi constituency in Assam died. When the issue of a
bi-election came up, the people of Mangaldoi and Assam represented to
the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) that the electoral rolls of
Mangaldoi constituency should be revised as there were a number of
foreigners in the constituency. After inquiries conducted, the CEC
announced that the bi-election would be held only after the electoral
rolls were revised, as there were a number of foreigners in the
electorate. At this juncture the politicians took over. The Prime
Minister, Morarji Desai, had to step down as some of his coalition
partners decided to defect. Charan Singh became Prime Minister with
Congress support. The Muslim lobby promptly pressurised the Congress
to prevail on the CEC to conduct the polls in the Mangaldoi without
revising the electoral rolls. The CEC under pressure from the Congress
leadership wilted and announced tamely that he would conduct the
elections in Mangaldoi on the basis of the 1976 electoral rolls. In
Assam, the result of this turnaround was electric. The different
groups who were agitating against foreigners in Assam, the All Assam
Students Union (AASU), the Ahom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP),
the Ahom Sahitya Sabha combined to form the Gana Sangram Parishad and
started the Foreigners Movement. This was a unique movement and
resembled the disobedience of the Quit India Movement of 1942.
Meanwhile, from the time of the meeting between Indira Gandhi and
Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, the issue of the cut off year was creating a
lot of simmering debates. The foreigners agitation started in 1979.
During the agitation, the leaders of the AASU were continually
pressurised to accept 1971 as the cut off year, but they refused to
accept it. After four years of agitation, in which lakhs of people
courted arrest and shook the whole state, the Central Government
decided to force an election on Assam. This election of February 1983
was a farce. For the people of Assam it was a blood bath. More than
four thousand people were killed in firings by the police and
paramilitary forces on crowds agitating against the election. In
Assam, from 2 February to 21 February 1983, the state was at war. In
an atavistic frenzy, the Assamese caste Hindus and the Bengali Muslims
and Hindus fought pitched battles in the dry paddy fields with spears,
bows and arrows. When it ended on 21 February 1983 the youth of Assam
had decided that they would have no option but to take to the gun. The
United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) was born as a result of the
blood bath of an election. They contacted the National Socialist
Council of Nagaland (NSCN) in Dimapur, and soon the first cadres were
on their way to the NSCN camp in the Sagaing Division of Burma for
training.
The Central Government had one more jolt for the Assamese people.
Smarting from the spirit shown by the Assamese people, the Central
Government legislated an act called the Illegal Migrant (Determination
by Tribunal) Act (IMDT) in 1983, ostensibly to facilitate the
detection of foreigners in Assam. This was a cruel joke on the
Assamese people. The IMDT Act actually made it virtually impossible to
detect a foreigner. Firstly, the Centre directed that the Foreigners
Act would not apply in Assam. Under the IMDT Act, it was for the
Police to prove that the suspect was a foreigner, not for the accused
to show that he was an Indian. In all such Acts across the world, it
is the suspect foreigner who has to prove that he is a national.
For 12 years there was no legal basis for making 1971 as the cut off
year. Two years after the election and continual attrition on the
leaders of the agitation in Assam, they finally decided to sign an
accord with the Central Government. The Assam Accord was signed in
1985. Regrettably the leaders of the agitation who had stood off the
blandishments of the Centre for years, succumbed to the lure of power
and agreed to accept 1971 as the cut off year. The Citizenship Act of
India was promptly amended and the cut off year was now shown as 1971
and not 1951, courtesy the Assam Accord, 1985! The Government of India
had finally found a way out of the impasse after keeping the issue
hanging fire for 14 years!
Meanwhile, the IMDT Act had been challenged in a Public Interest
Litigation (PIL) in the, Supreme Court. The court finally decided the
case in 2005, after 22 long years, that the IMDT act was
unconstitutional and illegal and repealed it.
This was a serious blow to the Congress party, grievously affecting
its vote bank in Assam and elsewhere. It was not long before the
Congress party placed two amendments to the Foreigners Tribunals Order
1964 under the Foreigners Act on the table of Parliament. The first
order amended the original order making it applicable to all states in
India except Assam. The second amendment issued a new version of the
Order applicable only to Assam. Herein it stated that the Central
Government or any authority specified shall by order refer the
question as to whether a person is or is not a foreigner to a
Tribunal.
In the original order it was stated that the Central Government may by
order refer the question as to whether a person is or is not a
foreigner to the Tribunal.
The government of the day has brought back the very provisions of the
IMDT Act that had been struck down by the Supreme Court. Regrettably,
this step has been taken disregarding the security considerations of
the country.
Today, there are several Islamic fundamentalist insurgent groups in
Assam, all created with the help of the Directorate General Forces
Intelligence (DGFI) of Bangladesh and the Pakistan Inter Services
Intelligence (ISI). The main groups are the Muslim United Liberation
Front of Assam (MULFA), the Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA)
and the Islamic Liberation Army of Assam. These insurgent groups are
in the vanguard for lebensraum for Bangladesh. In August 1999, the
Assam Police arrested four insurgents who had come from Pakistan by
air to Dacca and crossed over illegally through the Karimganj border
with a plan to sabotage installations in India. On interrogation, they
confessed that the Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-lslami (HUJI), Bangladesh had
recruited and sent a number of young Bengali Muslim immigrants from
Assam to Pakistan for training in ISI sponsored camps of mujahideen.
Based on this information, the Assam Police was able to arrest a
number of immigrant Bengali Muslims who had been trained in Pakistan.
They also arrested one Muhammad Muslimideen, the Chief Organiser of
the HUJI Bangladesh in India. They found that the Naib Amir of the
HUJI in Assam Muhammad Fakhruddin from Goalpara in Assam was now based
in Pakistan.2
What is interesting about these Islamic fundamentalist insurgent
groups is that they have not done any operations till now.
Interrogation and intelligence reports have revealed that they are in
a phase of preparation. They are to recruit cadres, train them in
Pakistan, stockpile arms and explosives and motivate the people for
the coming insurgency. The target date is reported to be in 2015.
It is certain that severe communal rioting will break out in Assam,
West Bengal and Tripura along the faultlines between the immigrant
Muslims and the local people. The infamous election of 1983 was a
forerunner for this prognosis. The sequel to this communal rioting
will be the eruption of a Bengali Muslim insurrection spearheaded by
the Bengali Muslim insurgent groups now embedded in Assam. And this
will be an insurgency to attain a homeland for the immigrant Bengali
Muslims in Assam.
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