If one goes by Newton’s third law of physics “every action has an equal and opposite reaction” under which Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi took refuge to justify the pogrom in Gujarat, exodus of NE people from South India may also be justified as a reaction of Assam incidents. But NO, we do not subscribe to Modi’s plea. The formula of physics applies to matter. It cannot be applied in politics, which deals with men.
As a believer in Islam as well as an Indian, we strongly condemn the trick used to create fear in innocent people and forcing them to return home, leaving their jobs and studies behind. However, the threat of harming NE people in Karnataka and elsewhere, carries a strong message for militant Hindutva conglomerate that if they create conditions in Assam harming Bengali speaking residents then natives of NE may not be comfortable in rest of India. Those who target others in their respective States also create risk for their natives to be agonised physically and mentally in other States. This tendency is highly deplorable for and detrimental to our multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-lingual and multi-religious country. India is one country and must remain one nation.
TRUST DEFICIT
The tendency of retaliation in the case of NE has deep rooted causes. Civil administration and political apparatus in Assam had utterly failed to infuse confidence in victims of barbarism and bring the native militant to the book. For example, wounds of Nellie still need attention. Instead of dealing strongly, disgruntled elements are being adjusted by accords. Government apathy has frustrated people and they are not ready to trust them. It is a sad situation and dangerous for civil society. There is widespread concern on recent incidents in which more than 5 thousand houses have been torched, scores of innocent people killed and over five lakh people (4 lakh Muslims and 1 lakh non-Bodos) have become refugees in their own county.
Reaction in form of rumour mongering created fear in thousands of NE people living in other parts of the country and pushing them to rush back home. Some 20 thousand have already (up to August 17) moved out from BJP-ruled state of Karnataka and also from Maharashtra. Failure of the pleas of State to assure them safety again shows lack of confidence in State apparatus. Nobody is ready to believe that the State may provide them with cover against harming their person and prestige. Several people have reportedly been killed and many more physically and verbally targeted in Bangalore and Pune. The concern is genuine as a few more such violent incidents may be highly injurious for the nation.
TRAIL AND THE TRUTH
Panelists on TV channels are pleading to counter fear and nail down trick makers. But we doubt if this prescription will be sufficient until conditions in Assam are rectified. Recent incidents in Kokrajhar and Chirang Districts of Bodo Territorial Administrative District (BTAD) are not merely communal but essentially part of a design to cleanse the area from non-Bodos so that the way to create a state of Bodos may be cleared. Presently Bodos are not more than 25-30% in the newly created BTAD under the administration of Bodo Autonomous Council, headed by Hagrama Mohilary, a former head of militant outfit, ‘Bodo Liberation Tigers Force or BLTF’.
Recent violence is aimed to drive out all non-Bodos from BTAD so that the target of creating formidable majority for Bodos may be achieved. Though all non-Bodo population is on their target, Bengali-speaking Muslims are their prime target because they have shown guts to challenge the hegemony of Bodo militants. BJP, keeping in view next Parliamentary elections, has unfortunately internationalised and shrewdly communalised this episode by raising the bogey of “Bangladeshi Migrants”. Clearly there is no such dimension of the present fracas. A fact finding team of National Commission for Minorities (NCM) after visiting the area has substantiated: “In 1996, 2004, 2006 and 2008, the area witnessed ethnic conflicts involving the Bodos and non-Bodos – not just Muslims but also Santhals and other tribal communities. This time, it’s not between the Bodos and immigrant Muslims but between the Bodos and resident Muslims of BTAD.” (Indian Express, August 17)
It underlined, “… there has been no sudden influx from Bangladesh to trigger such a major conflict.” People in refugee camps told the team: “This strife is caused because the Bodo (extremists) think that driving out other ethnic people is in their interest. The Bodo population is nearly 30 per cent…They feel that if their population goes up to 50 per cent they will be able to demand statehood…,” the report pointed out that people in camps fear that “recurrent violence” and looting of Muslim homes has been happening as part of a plan to ensure that they are unable to return home and that the “lower rungs of police” not being impartial or just standing by for “fear of the Bodos”.
BOGEY OF MUSLIM MIGRANTS
Gaurav Vivek Bhatnager from Assam reported in The Hindu, that founder president and senior adviser of the All Bodo Muslim Students Union (ABMSU) Moinul Haq told him: “The situation in the area is very bad.” But “this is not new; it has been like this since 1987 when the Bodos started demanding a separate Bodo-land and began attacking non-Bodos. The fact is that the area even now has 25 per cent Bodo population and 75 per cent non-Bodos, including about 25 per cent Muslims.”
Mr. Haq pointed out that surrendered BLTF militants are now part of the Black Panther Commando Force. Some are posted as personal security officers of various Bodo leaders. “Many of them act like ‘ghatak’ (killers), performing as soldiers by day and militia at night.”
NCM has also noted that Bodos are heavily armed with AK 47, etc. Actually, BLTF did not surrender their arms at the time of creating BTC. While “Muslims are very poorly armed in (their) comparison.”
It is clear from these reports that this is not a case of (Muslim) migrants as Mr. L. K. Advani and other BJP leaders tried to portray. Supporting BJP claim, Arnab Goswami, the Editor in Chief of the news channel Times Now, in his show “The News Hour” referred to what former Assam Governor Lt Gen (Retd) Ajay Singh’s had asserted some time back. He had alleged that around 6000 illegal migrants (read Muslims from Bangladesh) are entering Assam daily. Arnab, a resident of Guwahati and son of a lawyer Congress leader, stretched the assertion to depict “grave” problem of (Muslim) migrants. I find the assertion grossly inflated after making simple calculations and checking data of Muslim population of NE States.
Six thousand daily means 2190000 a year. From the time of creation of Bangladesh in 1971 this number in 2001 becomes 65,700,000, while total population of Assam in 2011 was recorded only 31,169,272, less than half of claimed illegal migrants. This means that Bangladeshis have wiped out all natives of NE. So far as Muslim population in the entire NE is concerned, it was recorded at 8,858,543 in 2001 census and 6,805,647 in 1991. Out of this in 2001, Assam’s share was recorded at 8,240,611, followed by Tripura at 254,442 and Manipur at 190,939. Five other states have Muslim populations of less than one lakh: 99,169 in Meghalaya, 10,099 in Mizoram, 35,005 in Nagaland, 7,693 in Sikkim, and 20,675 in Arunachal Pradesh.
There is a point which is cited to create confusion. The 2001 Census data indicates, in Assam, the overall Hindu population was 64.9 per cent as against 67.1 per cent in 1991, while the Muslim population for the corresponding years stood at 30.9 per cent and 28.4 per cent respectively. This increase is attributed to “illegal migration” while there are certain other factors behind this increase in census records. While in 1991 a large number of Muslims were not enumerated during the census, in 2001 the situation slightly improved.
Certainly, there may be some illegal migration, but it is unthinkable that Muslims from Bangladesh will choose to step in Assam even after large scale massacre like Nellie of 1983. However, there is room for Bangladeshi Hindus to cross over to India illegally, as they are welcome here.
LAST WORD
We request the short-sighted politicians having vested interests not to divide India in multiple nations. Let us live like one and only one nation. The notions ‘Assam for Assam’s natives’, ‘Bodo-land for Bodo’, ‘Bombay for Marathi speakers’ and ‘Gorkhaland for Hill tribes’, etc. are creating multiple nationalities in one nation. As an Indian, everybody must feel free and safe to migrate and live in any part of the country.