NCRB’s (National Crime Records Bureau) recently released data indicates a rise in number of people caught trying to illegally enter Bangladesh. NCRB recently released its report of 2018 after its much delayed 2017 report. A comparison of the 2017 and the 2018 report suggests that while in 2017 1,800 people were caught by Border Security Force (BSF) for attempting to cross the Indo-Bangladesh border, in 2018 the same number rose to 2,971. This is a more than 50% increase.

Out of the 2,971 caught crossing the border 749 were women and 690 children. On the other hand, number of people coming illegally from Bangladesh to India decreased in 2018 when compared to 2017. In 2017, 1,180 were caught crossing border while the number decreased to 1,118 in 2018. The NCRB data does not explain the motives of those arrested by BSF, which manages the international borders in West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Mizoram and Assam.

The NCRB has started maintaining this set of data from 2017 itself. This is being seen as a rise in reverse migration possibly of people who were excluded from the second draft list of NRC in Assam which had excluded 4 million people. Even the Gauhati High Court had asked what measures were being taken to ensure that people who are declared foreigners by Foreigners Tribunals do not go absconding before they are detained in detention camps.

Hence, an author, Subir Bhaumik told the Hindustan Times, that the NCRB data does not surprise him. Elaborating further he said, “A definite reverse migration is happening to Bangladesh because of primarily two reasons – a fear factor generated by NRC post Assam followed by repeated statements by BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) leaders that such an exercise would be conducted all over India. Secondly, Bangladesh’s economy today is in much better position and there is uncertainty in India. Those who came here (to India) in 1970s and 1980s have better opportunities in Bangladesh. Why would they risk being beaten up and called illegal immigrants when they can respectfully work in their country?”

A BSF officer, guarding a section of the 4,096-long told HT, “large number of human traffickers, cattle smugglers, fake currency and drugs suppliers, and suspected terrorists who move in and out of Bangladesh regularly are often arrested on Indo-Bangla border. But there are other people who have families on both sides who are often apprehended as well when they cannot produce proper documents”.

Even if one were to assume that an equal or lesser number of people manage to cross the border and end up staying back as illegal immigrants in India, it is still a much lesser number of such immigrants that are being claimed by right wing politicians. The decrease in the number of people coming in from Bangladesh also debunks such claims made by these politicians who are only trying to advance a narrative that suits their political agenda of propagating a “Hindu Rashtra (nation)” and the removal of all illegal immigrants.
 

Related:

50% jump in people held for illegally entering Bangladesh
UP claims Pilibhit houses majority of the 32,000 ‘identified’ refugees
From the horse’s mouth: MHA releases data on deportations and illegal immigration
Large-scale Bangladeshi migration to Assam a myth?
CAA-NPR-NRC protests cut across all religious and communal divides

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The very size of India has put it in an overarching spot in South Asia.

That’s a geopolitical reality, and India’s neighbours need to deal with the fact smartly. While we often complain about India’s obsession with Pakistan — largely for wrong reasons — in the sub-continent neglecting other promising neighbours, we Bangladeshis do the same too in a different way.
We fix our eyes on Delhi, ignoring Guwahai, Agartala, Shilchor, Shilong, Aizol, and even Kolkata. We fail to realize the vastness of the region, and don’t grasp the idea of the eastern sub-region where Bangladesh potentially has a central role.

After the revolutionary event of 1971 in Bangladesh, the counter revolutionary forces struck back since 1975, and manipulatively instilled harmful anti-Indian politics in the country. Even the moderate Awami League is now cautious to step too much out of that.

Bangladesh saw numerous mutually-benefial initiatives of sub-regional cooperation especially with the Indian northeast, but we kept saying “no” to them by and large.

We are obsessed with the shinier regions like Delhi, Mumbai, Agra, and Bangalore, but the economically backward northeastern states who are isolated from mainstream India, often looked to us. But we didn’t quite gaze back. To understand the dynamic, one has to look at the map of the eastern sub-region of the sub-continent.

Bangladesh separates the Indian northeast, which is more than double the size of Bangladesh geographically, from India proper. A mere few miles wide, the Shiliguri corridor, called the chicken’s neck, just somehow connects the northeast to India, and that chicken’s neck is delicately placed closed to the Chinese border, making India a bit nervous about the defense of the northeastern seven sisters.

Apart from defense, the seven sister states have other serious issues, for a few of which, Bangladesh is blamed. For the rest, they need Bangladesh’s help. The primary accusation is the infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslim economic migrants to those states, and the demographic changes thereof in those places.

This is a complex issue with partial truth and partial falsehood. The truth is, many parts of Assam’s Barak valley and lower Brahmaputra valley already had a high percentage of Muslim minorities during the 1947 Partition, and not many of them moved to the then East Pakistan, despite the strong reverse current of Hindu migration to the Indian northeast.

There were complex socio-economic and political reasons for that. There was a trend, lately under British revenue collectors’ patronage, of expert Bengali Muslims cultivators moving into Assam from central Bengal, which originally started in medieval time, to clear jungles and create farmlands.
It might have continued to some extent after 1947, perhaps till the 1980s. Indian authorities never thought it a big issue, and never tried to stop it until the agitation of the 1980s in Assam. This spontaneous migration certainly wasn’t engineered or state-sponsored, and has stopped now as the Indian authorities wanted it to, due to discontent in Assam.
 

We fix our eyes on Delhi, ignoring Guwahai, Agartala, Shilchor, Shilong, Aizol, and even Kolkata

The same might have happened to a much lesser degree in other places of the northeast, eg Tripura. However, a decade or more old immigrants at a place also have some universally recognized rights. People can’t be disenfranchised instantly. Also, the Indian citizen Bengali Muslims of Assam and other parts of the northeast mustn’t be confused as Bangladeshi immigrants.

Given Bangladesh’s relatively impressive improvement in economic condition in the last three decades, which is certainly better than Assam’s or Tripura’s, there isn’t enough reason to believe in the alleged migration in recent decades.

However, there were and are ways to compensate Assam and Tripura and the rest of the northeast by Bangladesh; which is allowing them the much-needed connectivity through Bangladesh to main India and even to the rest of the world. It would have been immensely useful to Tripura, Barak valley, Mizoram, and Manipur to connect to north and central India and West Bengal, reducing several hundred kilometers in critical distance, and saving cost and time hugely.

It could have been done under a bigger sub-regional vision package, which could have included mutually beneficial trade, tourism, investment, power supply, etc. Bangladesh, by far, is the biggest economic power in the eastern sub-region of South Asia, and it would have had the central position in the entire affair.

Similarly, allowing use of the Chittagong port by the Indian northeast, Nepal, and Bhutan would have allowed further growth of Bangladesh-centered BBIN network, enhancing Bangladesh’s positive influence in the sub-region. Bangladesh’s good gesture could have built a lasting bond with the Indian northeast, and would have neutralized the bone of contention, ie “alleged Bangladeshis in Assam.”

Being frustrated at Bangladesh, some right-wing Indian strategists are even thinking of using Myanmar’s Sittwe port, located in troubled Rakhine, for their northeast, rather than demanding again for Chittagong’s service. This is another reason for the India-Myanmar coziness, and Bangladesh’s lack of Indian support on the Rohingya issue.

But the positive development on sub-regional connectivity and economic cooperation would also have helped prevent the harmful right wing rise in the northeast, which was a long time coming.

Bangladesh doesn’t have good geo-strategists, and the ones it has can’t see things in depth or far ahead enough.

The situation might get even more difficult for Bangladesh if there is an attempt of pushing Bengali Muslims of the northeast into Bangladesh by the Indian government, as a result of right wing pressure from those areas. Does Bangladesh have any prevention strategy for that?

Sub-regional connectivity, trade, and network development around Bangladesh would have solved most of these complex problems between the Indian northeast and Bangladesh by creating interdependence.

That would have brought great economic dividends for Bangladesh, as more and more Bangladeshi products are making their way to various parts of India. East and northeast India are best placed for Bangladeshi products.

And of course, there are other mutually beneficial trade, investment, and power import opportunities.

Across the globe, integration rather than isolation is the dominant problem solving method. Are we, the Bangladeshis, on board (better late than never), or are we still blinded by cooked up and harmful anti-Indian hysteria?

Sarwar Jahan Chowdhury is a freelance commentator on politics, society, and international relations. He currently works at BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD).

Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune
 

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