Santhals and the Muslims are the Victims of Forced displacement in Assam

Santhals and the Muslims are the Victims of Forced displacement in Assam

Indian Holocaust My father`s Life and Time - Thirty One

Palash Biswas


PACT IN INDIA ASSURES SOME, INFLAMES OTHERS
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Last August Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi triumphantly announced a settlement in a bitter ethnic dispute that had cost thousands of lives in the northeastern state of Assam. But now the carrying out of that accord is creating new bitterness and fears of violence in this remote region of India. What had been hailed as a victory for national unity has instead produced sharp new antagonisms between Hindus and Moslems. The focus for the renewed friction is a state election scheduled for Dec. 16.
December 4, 1985

PEACE FRAGILE IN ASSAM A YEAR AFTER CARNAGE
By SANJOY HAZARIKA, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
A perilous calm prevails in this northeast Indian state of Assam, one year after thousands of people were killed in riots. The fighting turned the fertile valley of rice fields into a vast, bloody religious and ethnic battleground. It is widely believed that at least 5,000 died. Some officials argue that the toll was higher, perhaps as high as 8,000. The Assam government says its figure is 3,000 dead. Hindus fought Moslems, the native Hindu Assamese battled aboriginal tribespeople and Bengali-sp…

February 26, 1984

The Santhals and the Muslims are the victims of forced displacement in Assam’s Bodo areas.They are already the breeding ground for armed rebellion but now militant outfits in and outside the state are exploring options of recruitment from amongst these groups.For eleven long years the Santhals have been refugees in their own land. Life in the camps, which are home to at least two lakh Santhals, has always been and still remains harsh.

Systematic ethnic cleansing in an erstwhile insurgent and now resurgent Bodoland has ensured that the Adivasis lost their land and livelihood forever.
Assam refugees seek rehabilitation

Mind you, In the cacophony of jingoistic nationalism against the Bangladeshi infiltrators many Bengali Hindu refugees that had migrated to India during the 1947 Partition are being targeted for lack proper documentation and face the specter of deportation to the place they had left some sixty years ago.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill passed by the Parliament in 2004 has further weakened the case of the Bengali Partition refugees to acquire the citizenship rights. The bill clearly states that under no circumstance the Bengali refugees can get citizenship rights in India and even their children would be treated as illegal migrants. Joya Chatterjee examines the place of the Bengali refugees in the postpartition politics of India. Initially sidelined, neglected, and denied privileges, unlike the Punjabi refugees of West Pakistan, over time the Bengali refugees learned to organize and demand their rights. Chatterjee argues that the refugee experience led to awareness and a language of rights for all citizens articulated in the voice of the politicized Bengalis. 3
Dovetailing her essay is Ramnarayan Rawat’s analysis of Dalit politics in the partition years and their demand for recognition and rights as a minority group, which they failed to achieve. As the author argues, Dalit politics reveals the true face of Indian democracy as no more than a majoritarian tyranny.

The Ambedkrites calls this a conspiracy of the upper caste Hindus to punish the followers of the B.R Ambedkar who mostly came from Kholna, Jassor, Barisal, Dhaka and Faridpur region from where Jogendranath Mandal had got Ambedkar elected to the Constituent Assembly. Since these Bengali refugees belonged to the low caste they were deliberately settled in undeveloped locations and the state governments instead of rehabilitating, discriminated them due to the yawning language divide.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill passed by the Parliament in 2004 has further weakened the case of the Bengali Partition refugees to acquire the citizenship rights. The bill clearly states that under no circumstance the Bengali refugees can get citizenship rights in India and even their children would be treated as illegal migrants.

The Ambedkrites calls this a conspiracy of the upper caste Hindus to punish the followers of the B.R Ambedkar who mostly came from Kholna, Jassor, Barisal, Dhaka and Faridpur region from where Jogendranath Mandal had got Ambedkar elected to the Constituent Assembly. Since these Bengali refugees belonged to the low caste they were deliberately settled in undeveloped locations and the state governments instead of rehabilitating, discriminated them due to the yawning language divide.

The Bengali Refugees: A Surfeit of Woe

Unbalanced Exchange. While India has temporarily accepted the refugees and is doing its best to help them, the government of Indira Gandhi sees only economic and political disaster in the massive influx of impoverished peoples. The refugee problem has chronically troubled India since the August 1947 partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan. In northern India there was a fairly balanced exchange, with 6,000,000 Moslems fleeing to Pakistan and 6,500,000 Hindus and Sikhs entering India. But since partition, 4,300,000 Hindus from East Pakistan have fled to India, for the most part into West Bengal. There has been no comparable flight of Moslems. This imbalance has created the social, political and economic problems that have plagued the state and turned its capital, Calcutta, into a sinkhole of human misery.

The cost of feeding and attempting to house the refugees is currently $1,330,000 a day—an expense that Mrs. Gandhi’s government can ill afford if it is going to fulfill the campaign promise of garibi hatao (eradicate poverty) made last March. The food required by the refugees is rapidly depleting existing food stockpiles, and threatens to create a famine for the Indians themselves. The refugees are also taking work away from the Indians; in West Bengal, refugee peasants are hiring out as agricultural labor for a quarter of the wages local labor is paid.

No Room. Faced with these problems, the Indian government calls the refugees "evacuees" or "escapees" and hopes for their return to their homeland. "Being a poor country ourselves," Mrs. Gandhi told refugees at a camp in eastern India, "we cannot afford to keep you here forever, even if we wished to do so." Their return to their homeland is not likely in the foreseeable future, with the pogrom under way in East Pakistan and the probability of a protracted guerrilla war there. Moreover, because of the war and the exodus, the planting of crops in East Pakistan was at a disastrously low level before the rains began. Famine is almost certain to strike, and when it does, millions more will pack their modest belongings and seek refuge in a country that has no room for them.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,905183-3,00.html

http://www.internal-displacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/(httpEnvelopes)/446DBB731DBFEEB5802570B8005A71A5?OpenDocument

AROUND THE WORLD; Assam Said to Plan To Deport Bangladeshis
REUTERS
The man elected the next Chief Minister of the state of Assam in northeastern India said today that his party planned to expel thousands of immigrants who came here illegally from neighboring Bangladesh. ”We want them to be deported immediately after their detection,” the politician, Prafulla Mahanta, leader of the Assam People’s Front, said in in an interview. The party defeated the Congress Party, led by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, in elections on Monday.

December 21, 1985 World News
MORE ON IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEES AND: DEPORTATION, MAHANTA, PRAFULLA, INDIA, BANGLADESH

Government concern over Bangla refugees
4 Dec 2001, 2316 hrs IST,TNN

new delhi: home minister l k advani on tuesday said that the influx of refugees from bangladesh following prime minister khaleda zia’s return to power had caused serious concern. responding to a calling attention motion moved by p r das munshi and adhir chowdhury (both congress) in the lok sabha, advani said the government had received reports about atrocities on minorities by supporters of the ruling bangladesh national party and jamaat-e-islami. ‘‘such incidents were in particular noticed during the durga puja festival when cases of physical assault on members of the minority community, damage to temples and puja pandals, disruption of festivities and vandalising of idols were reported,’’ he said. advani said such incidents had ‘‘bred a sense of insecurity amongst the minority community in that country.’’ he said brajesh mishra, principal secretary to the prime minister, had taken up the matter with begum zia on his visit to dhaka on 26-27 november. he, however, urged the members to keep in mind that the attitude of the eastern neighbour towards india was much different from that of pakistan. das munshi pointed out that secular elements in bangladesh had protested the harassment of minorities and cited the example noted bangladeshi intellectual sahrar kabir who had been arrested for his denunciation of communal incidents.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/323266003.cms

Title: Crisis of Hindu Bengalis
Author: Abhijit Bhattacharyya
Publication: The Daily Pioneer
Date: Nov 13, 2001
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/secon3.asp?cat=\opd2&d=OPED

The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s call for imposition of Jaziya on the Hindu Bengalis (as reported in the Bangla daily, Sangbad) typifies the phrase: "History repeats itself." What was a hypothesis yesterday, however, is a reality today as Hindu Bengalis in Bangladesh are facing the grim prospect of forced conversion, inevitable death or inevitable (and ignominious) migration to India. The gravity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that even the normally indifferent regional language press of India’s West Bengal - which is not known to be supportive of or sympathetic to the plight of the minorities in Bangladesh - is narrating the graphic details of the plight of Hindu refugees from Bangladesh at the various rural points and the suburbs of Calcutta.

Narrating his transformation from garment exporter to pauper, Harishchandra Das of Dhaka says he has "lost a bank balance of Rs 30 lakh" and suffers "a forced occupation by Bangladeshi Muslims of his 30 bigha land". The only silver lining for Mr Das is that his "wife and children are intact (sic)" and their penury is compensated by the open society of India.

The new victim of Begum Zia’s anti-Hindu actions appears to be the prosperous urban Hindu Bengali of Bangladesh. Mr Das is a living example of this. In fact, the other two characteristics of the Bangladeshi Muslims were evident even during Partition and post-partition days, when Hindu women and Hindu land (property) were targeted. The tradition continues, notwithstanding a few incident-free interregnums.
http://www.fisiusa.org/fisi_News_items/Bangla_news/bangla021.htm
Bangaldeshi refugees flooding state: Academician
Author: Times News Network
Publication: The Times of India
Date: January 30, 2003
An estimated 60,000 people have entered India from Bangladesh after the last general elections in that country in October 2001.

This was revealed by Asiatic Society president Amalendu De, an expert on Bangladesh affairs, in Kolkata on Wednesday. Talking to TNN on the occasion of the presentation of a research paper on the problems of refugees at the institute, De said these Bangladeshis had scattered in West Bengal and other states.

And, unlike the refugees who had entered after the Partition, the Centre as well as the state government were indifferent to the plight of the new entrants.

According to information from across the border, there is real danger of ‘Talibanisation of Islam’ in Bangladesh. And, it is feared that unless a secular leadership is developed there, communal forces are likely to gain ground in neigbouring West Bengal, harping on the plight of the minorities across the border. De called for a study on property laws in the two countries.

Bangla refugees flooding state He said there was nothing discriminatory in the property laws in India but in Bangladesh properties of minorities could be taken away rather easily. For example, if one brother of a family in Bangladesh left for India, his property could be attached as enemy property.

Transfer of properties was the prime reason why many people belonging to the minority community had left Bangladesh, De said.

Editorial published in ULFA organ Freedom says:
Problems are result of 59 years of colonial rule
Recently masses of Geleki, border area of Asom and Nagaland became victims of Naga aggression.Armed Nagas carried out attack against the residents of Geleki, Sibsagar killing two men and destroyingteagardens along with houses. Supporters of Greater Nagaland demanded oil city Nagira to bewithin their territory which is followed by attack on people with volleys of gunfire for continuous oneweek. Simultaneous attack was also carried out upon the people of Sadiya by Arunachali people.During the same period, most surprisingly Mizoram govt sent intruders to Asom to harass the peopleresiding in Asom – Mizoram border.
Obviously these attacks occurred under the same network. The area of land of Asom, which is carrying struggle against the Colonial rule for the last 28 years is 78,529 square kilometers. This is a conspiracy to occupy lands of Asom in the name of aggression by other states so as to diminish the area to such an extent that the national liberation movement becomes irrelevant. Already Nagas established
four municipal boards, schools, hospitals and churches upon the land of Asom.
This is a national crisis. Attack on Merapani, Chungajan of 1984 could not be obliterated from the
memory of people of border areas. The misery of the penury – stricken backward sections of Boro
and Kochari people under the Naga invasion became the vital cause for Boro agitation later on. The
total area of greater Nagalim was 1.26 lakh hectares during their dialogue with India govt on 2001.


In the post-World War II period refugee problem emerged out to be one of the biggest problems before the international community. India has also experienced it at a large scale. Factors such as rise of religious nationalism, ethnicisation of politics, state terrorism, anarchic majoritarianism and above all state’s refusal to conform to norms set by the international refugee regime, rendered the refugees stateless and subjects for inhuman treatment. On the other hand, historical forces like religious, linguistic or ethnic nationalism and regional economic disparity continue to generate refugees in the eastern and north-eastern regions of India. Faced with unfriendly state, both in the country of origin and the country of adoption, the refugees struggle to find the ways and means for a healthy living, and wherever possible they make efforts to put up an organised movement for their ‘human rights’.

In 2001, the BJP government in Uttaranchal had denied domicile certificates to the Bengali Hindu refugees settled in the state since early fifties. Some moneylenders turned land mafia even grabbed their land with the help of police and officials. After demonstrations by some social organization, the state government reluctantly started investigation and made some arrests and dismissed few officials.

This was not an isolated incident against the Bengali refugees who were victims of the division of Bengal in 1947. In 2004, twenty-one such persons were deported from Navrangpur district in Orissa. The BJD-BJP combine government also served deportation notices to more than fifteen hundred people in Kendrapara district of the state. A strong protest by the Utkal Bagiya Surakshya Committee forced the Patniak government to keep its order in abeyance.

The same story moves to Maharashtra where recently in Arsha Tehseel of Bhandara district fifty-two Bengali refugees were arrested but later released with a fine and personal bond to submit all documents relating to the citizenship rights. All district collectors in Maharashtra have been instructed to collect the data of the Bengali refugees residing in the state. The collectors in turn have issued a circular that all such persons to submit their citizenship documents within a month, failing which they would be liable for deportation. This has created anxiety among number of Bengali refugees that had settled in Bhandara, Chandrapur and Gadchirauli districts of Maharastra since fifties.

The 1955 Indian Citizens Act clearly states that all those who migrated to India in wake of country’s partition are entitled for citizenship and their children would become natural citizens of the country. This raises the question why such persons have been denied the citizenship rights in the country?

In order to understand this problem one has to look at the pattern of the settlement of the Partition refugees in India. The majority of the refugees that had come from West Pakistan were either Punjabis or Sindhis. Most of them belonged to the Hindu upper caste and were given money and land at low rate and were settled in the big cities of India. They were the one who were the prime beneficiaries of evacuee property left in India by the Muslims migrating to Pakistan. Such people today hold the lions share in the development of the country and are enjoying the benefits of the ‘Shining India’.



”Everytime people come and ask us and I say the same thing over and over again. Our condition is deplorable. Ten days of the month we get ration and that’s just rice. Since 1996 this problem has been going on,” said Kisku, Secretary, Relief Camp.

”We’ve done everything, no one has listened. Now it’s better to die than go on living like this. We had two groups which were fighting for our rights - Cobra and Birsa.

”The government has appeased them and brought them into ceasefire. They were promised tribal status but that’s also not fulfilled. The situation is such that there maybe another riot,” Kisku added.

It was in these refugee camps that insurgent groups fighting for Adivasi rights were born.

At the moment these groups are on ceasefire but NDTV was told that some negotiations were on with armed Adivasi groups in Jharkhand.

With a 70 lakh Adivasi population in Assam, the potential for militant groups to recruit is enormous.

Potential rebels

The ULFA has already started recruiting from Upper Assam’s Adivasi tea garden community.

”We had sought help from them, but they said it’s your own state problem we won’t be able to help you, we cant join your fight but we can give you ideas,” said Kisku.

”The way the government policies are, without picking up arms, without violence, you can’t achieve what you want, even your basic rights,” he added.

And once recruitment takes place, children will be a step away from picking up the gun.

There are at least 50,000 children under 15. With no support systems they are the worst off.

Many have died of hunger, of which no records exist. The ones who do survive are forced into labour.

The government of Assam had recently assured that anganwadis sanctioned in 2005 will be operational by June 30 this year. But there are no such centres in the vicinity of the camps.

Hunger, homelessness and uncertainty have led to chronic depression. For traffickers too, this is fertile ground for luring young girls with promises of jobs.

Moni has just been rescued from a Delhi household in Karol Bagh. She was taken by a middleman two years ago. She isn’t alone, many others have disappeared.

”This has happened here. They are given the temptation of Delhi and money and all the girls who’ve gone have never returned,” informs Kisku.

”We found out that Ekka Placement services take them. They don’t give us the addresses or make the guardians speak to their children,” he added.

Ethnic riots

In Bongaigaon dist, thousands of displaced Muslims - mostly of Bengali origin - are also waiting to be shifted from the refugee camps.

Forced to live in refugee camps in the first wave of ethnic riots in 1993 with the Bodos at least 20,000 refugees still remain. During monsoons, the place is flooded. Health, sanitation, education or food were never delivered.

These people have completed the archetypal 14 years in exile, meanwhile they’ve lost their land and hope. Even these people get nothing from the government but they are the survivors.

Both men and women work outside the camps. The only help they get is from Muslim organisations.

”Till we get rehabilitated we will keep waiting, we will agitate. We have pinned our hopes on our minority leaders. It is they who help us out,” said Tanser Ali, Muslim Relief Camp, Hepasara Bongaigaon.

”We don’t get any help from the official agencies - no ration, no water, no education, no electricity, no healthcare, but we all work as daily wagers,” he said.

The condition in these Adivasi and Muslim relief camps is deplorable.

The Supreme Court’s Special Commissioner, who visited the camp, has said ”it is completely unacceptable that citizens of the country are living in conditions of destitution with chronic denial of their rights to food and livelihood.”

Three months have been given for the state government to fulfill their commitment. But the deadline is not a guarantee for the government to act.

For camp residents, there is little hope.

Bangla Hindu influx has Northeast India on edge


Dhaka’s disclaimer and New Delhi’s tacit approval thwart a resolution of the status of Hindus in Bangladesh




In the weeks following the 1 October 2001 general elections, Bangladesh witnessed an outburst of systematic attacks on the minority Hindu community across the country, in addition to attacks on activists of the freshly ousted Awami League.



By 8 October 2001, at least 30 people had been killed and more than 1,000 others injured. Their houses were torched, ransacked and in many cases seized, women were raped, and temples were desecrated.



The Hindu-dominated areas in Barisal, Bhola, Pirojpur, Satkhira, Jessore, Khulna, Kushtia, Jhenidah, Bagerhat, Feni, Tangail, Noakhali, Natore, Bogra, Sirajganj, Munshiganj, Narayanganj, Narsingdi, Brahmanbaria, Gazipur and Chittagong were the worst hit.



Many Hindu families have reportedly fled their homes and sought refuge in areas considered ‘safe.’ The Bangladesh Observer reported that at least 10,000 people of the minority community from Barisal district had left their homes following attacks by activists of the fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami party and had taken shelter in neighbouring Gopalganj district, the electorate of the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Many others fled to the Indian states of Tripura and West Bengal.



In one incident on 4 October 2001 at Panchaboti in Narayanganj district, activists of the newly-elected Bangladesh National Party attacked the house of schoolteacher Dilip Mondol. They assaulted Mondol’s 60-year-old father and four-month-old daughter. They also attacked and attempted to strip the teacher’s two sisters and their mother when they came to the father’s defence.



Dhaka, in a permanent state of denial regarding any influx of minorities into India, took a regrettable approach to the violence. Ministers in the newly sworn-in government characteristically dismissed reports of the attacks as “exaggerated” and “politically motivated.”



The Government’s sensitivity to any scrutiny of its treatment of minorities is indicated by the detention of Shahriar Kabir, an independent documentary filmmaker, under the Special Powers Act, 1974. Kabir, who was returning from Calcutta after investigating the condition of Bangladeshi refugees in India, was detained for being “in possession of documents which can endanger the stability of the country.”

Kabir told the BBC that his group, the South Asian Coalition Against Fundamentalism, had collected evidence from the victims who had fled the country, and would publish its findings soon.



Despite a demonstration in Dhaka to demand Kabir’s release as well as appeals from rights groups, the journalist was kept in detention and later charged with sedition. He was released after a month in custody on six-month ad-interim bail.



Meanwhile, on 27 November 2001 the High Court, in response to a petition filed by a rights organisation, ordered the Government to investigate the incidents and submit a report by 15 January 2002. It issued notice to the government as to why it had not taken action against those responsible for the attacks on minorities. Earlier, on 24 November 2001, the Court had ordered the Government to explain why it had not taken steps to halt post-election attacks and harassment of minorities.



The attacks on Hindu minorities drew the attention of the Indian Government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Another right-wing ally of the BJP, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, sought New Delhi’s intervention.

The Indian Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary and National Security Advisor Mr Brajesh Mishra subsequently visited Dhaka reportedly to convey India’s concern over the attacks on minorities, in addition to general parleys on security issues. The subject was also raised in the Indian Parliament.



Attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh however are not a new phenomenon. The community has suffered discrimination and harassment since the 1947 Partition of India. In 1965, following the Indo-Pakistan war, the then Pakistan Government introduced the Enemy Property (Custody and Registration) Order II of 1965. The Defence of Pakistan Rules identified the minority Hindus in what was then East Pakistan as enemies and dispossessed them of their properties.



After independence from Pakistan, the President of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in his Order No. 29 of 1972 changed the nomenclature from Enemy Properties Act (EPA) to ‘Vested Property Act’ (VPA). The repression of minorities however did not end - this, in spite of the fact that Bangladesh’s liberation war was antithetical to the 1947 Partition that took place on religious lines. Linguistic and cultural similarities also do not seem to have induced efforts to ensure equal treatment of the country’s Hindu minority.



Rather, Clause 2 of the Order stated, “Nothing contained in this Order shall be called in question in any court.” In fact, one of the reasons for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s continuation of the VPA was the forcible takeover of Hindu-owned lands by Awami League leaders during the Pakistani regime, and opposition to the repeal of the EPA.



The consequences of the continuation of the VPA have been devastating. The Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD), a Dhaka-based NGO, estimates that a total of 10,48,390 Hindu households have been affected by the Vested Properties Act, and estimates that 1.05 million acres of land have been dispossessed. About 30 percent of the Hindu households (including those that are categorised as missing households) or 10 out of every 34 Hindu households are victims of the VPA/EPA.



These estimates, although based on various plausible assumptions, should be considered as sufficiently indicative of the problem.



The Hindu minority has suffered under Governments of both the Awami League and the Bangladesh National Party (see box). Because of the atrocities, hundreds of thousands of Hindus have fled from Bangladesh and have taken shelter in neighbouring States of India. According to ALRD, “the implementation of Enemy Property Act\Vested Property Act has accelerated the process of mass out-migration of Hindu population from mid 1960s onward. The estimated size of such out-migration (the missing Hindu population) during 1964-1991 was 5.3 million, or 538 persons each day since 1964, with as high as 703 persons per day during 1964-1971. If the above estimates are close to reality, then it would not be an exaggeration to conclude that the Enemy/Vested Property Acts acted as an effective tool for the extermination of Hindu minorities.”

The influx of the Hindu minorities due to the repression of the Muslim majority in Bangladesh and migration of Muslims in search of lebensraum has been equally devastating for the indigenous peoples in North East India. As a result of the exodus of Hindus in 1947 to escape the communal riots in then East Pakistan and subsequent illegal migration, indigenous Tripuris in the Indian state of Tripura have been reduced from being 70 percent of the population in 1947 to 27 percent today.



The insurgency movements in the Indian state of Tripura are directly related to the uncontrolled illegal migration into Tripura, the marginalisation of the indigenous Tripuris and the unwillingness of New Delhi and Agartala to take cognisance of the problem.



The insurgency led by the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) is also rooted in anti-foreigner agitation in Assam. Though, because of the religious affinity the focus has generally been on migration by Muslims, there is no denying that most Hindus migrate to India permanently due to the insecurity and repression they face in Bangladesh. New Delhi’s silence and tacit approval of Hindu fundamentalist organisations in India have encouraged Hindus to migrate to India, and have forestalled the seeking of a permanent resolution of the status of millions of Hindus in Bangladesh.



Moreover, the reaction of both New Delhi and Hindu fundamentalist organisations to the atrocities on other minorities in Bangladesh has been contemptible. When thousands of Chakma and other tribal minorities from the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh sought shelter in India in the mid-1980s, New Delhi made the camp conditions in Tripura insufferable to force them to return to their homeland.



Whenever tribal refugees facing massacres sought refuge in India, they were repatriated. Many refugees tried to enter Tripura from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh following large-scale communal violence on 25 June 2001 in which more than 200 houses were gutted. However, within 24 hours, the Border Security Force personnel on the Indian side had repatriated 34 Marma families after a flag meeting with the Bangladesh Rifles. The refugees were not even given temporary shelter.



New Delhi needs to take a pragmatic approach to this problem. While illegal immigration threatening the demographic composition of the North East has to be dealt with, New Delhi cannot overlook the unabated influx of Hindu minorities that also directly contributes to the insurgency problems in the North Eastern region. It is also obliged to provide refuge to those fleeing atrocities at home.



At the same time, it should take comprehensive measures to identify the Hindus who fled Bangladesh since 1971 after the signing of the Indira-Mujib Accord and take up the issue of their return with safety and dignity with the Government of Bangladesh. New Delhi must demonstrate its political resolve to take up their plight with Dhaka and find a solution within the framework of international law.



Most migrants can provide evidence that can withstand judicial scrutiny to prove their Bangladeshi citizenship and ownership of lands in Bangladesh. Unless, such measures are taken, episodic reactions such as visits by the National Security Advisor are meaningless.



Nor can the issue be resolved by opening the floodgates to millions of Bangladeshi Hindus. The large influx and the connivance of the local administration in Tripura and West Bengal, coupled with New Delhi’s tacit approval to the clandestine integration of the Hindus, is only contributing to insurgency in the North East.



It is time New Delhi woke up and addressed the root causes of its own problems.
http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/hrfquarterly/Jan_march_2002/bangla_hindu.htm

Indo-Bangladeshi relations
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During the partition of India after independence in 1947, the Bengal region was divided into two territories: East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) and West Bengal. East Bengal was made a part of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan due its overwhelmingly large Muslim population (then more than 85%). In 1955, the government of Pakistan changed its name from East Bengal to East Pakistan.