The Northeast: Infiltration Woes

The Delhi High Court, taking serious note of infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals into India, served notices, on April 26, 2006, to the Chief Secretaries of the five bordering States, West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram, to depute their respective counsels to appraise the Court on the action taken by their State Governments in this regard. A division bench of the High Court, comprising Justice M.K. Sharma and Justice Reva Khetrapal, reportedly said that illegal Bangladeshi migrants had been infiltrating into India in hordes and should be deported immediately.

Much has been talked about illegal migration from Bangladesh into States like Assam and Tripura and its impact on the demography of these States. But there has been little systematic study of the problem even in these States, and none whatsoever in States such as Meghalaya. Worse, States such as Manipur and Nagaland, which do not share a border with Bangladesh, but which have already been subjected to the negative impact of trends in illegal migration, are entirely outside the scope of current scrutiny. Data is conspicuous by its absence, but anecdotal evidence is abundant.

In Manipur, for instance, illegal migration from Bangladesh via Assam is adding to the complexities of the existing problem of Chin infiltration from Myanmar. In late April, 2003, Bangladeshi immigrants in Jiribam sub-division of the Imphal East District teamed up with a local Islamist militant outfit, the People’s United Liberation Front (PULF), to avenge the death of an illegal migrant. At least 300 Bengali Hindus were hounded out of their villages.

Such has been the scale of Bangladeshi immigration into Manipur that an influential civil society organization, the United Committee Manipur (UCM), published a 231-page report, ‘Influx of Migrants into Manipur: A Threat to the Indigenous Ethnic People’ in December 2005, indicating that migrants from Myanmar, Bangladesh and Nepal would, in 30 years’ time, “either marginalise or wipe out all the ethnic groups” in the State.

Similarly, Bangladeshi migrants in Nagaland now constitute a serious threat to the demographic balance of the State. Nagaland, in the 2001 Census, registered the highest population growth rate (64.41 per cent) in the country, and a major proportion of this increase can be ascribed to illegal migration. All the manual works, construction labour, taxi drivers, rickshaw pullers and cultivation are largely done by Bangladeshi migrants. According to one estimate, Bangladeshi nationals run almost half of the shops in Dimapur, the commercial hub of the State, and in the capital, Kohima. The National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Khaplang (NSCN-K) has been reportedly issuing temporary work permits to the immigrants and has even set a permissible number of immigrants per district. Many of the illegal immigrants have married local Naga women.

Tripura, which shares an 856 kilometre border with Bangladesh, has been widely acknowledged to have been transformed from a tribal majority State into a tribal minority State in less than six decades, and this is now an irreversible feature of the State’s demography. There is ample evidence that illegal migration continues to take place in the State, though the scale fluctuates with changes in the political dispensations in Bangladesh. In addition, the porous border also facilitates the movement of militants, criminals, smugglers and drug peddlers, mostly acting under the protection or at the behest of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) officers and personnel. Some incidents reported in 2006 are illustrative:

• January 9: A Bangladeshi smuggler, Mohammad Mahir Miah, was arrested along with 13 packets of brown sugar and aluminum foil by the Border Security Force (BSF) in the bordering area of Bagulpur under the Narsingarh police station in the West Tripura District.
  
• January 16: Two unidentified Bangladeshi infiltrators were killed by Border Security Force (BSF) personnel at the border village of Kumarghat in North Tripura District.
  
• January 25: A Bangladeshi forest ranger was arrested with a gang of timber smugglers by BSF personnel from a reserve forest in the Khowai sub-division of West Tripura district.
  
• February 4: A Bangladeshi national, Suban Miah, suspected to be involved in the April 16, 2005, killing of a BSF officer, Assistant Commandant Jeevan Kumar, was arrested at a place under the Lankamura Border outpost.
  
• April 19: At least 13 Bangladeshi nationals, including seven women and six children, were arrested by BSF personnel while infiltrating from the international border at different places under Lankamura outpost in the West Tripura District. 

As recently as May 20, 2006, BSF personnel pushed back a group of Bangladesh Rifles jawans who were escorting unidentified men to measure land inside Indian territory near the Indo-Bangladesh border along the Jaintia Hills District. Police sources said the men, claiming to be landlords, came to Lakuna and Amki (under Amlarem sub-division) villages and started measuring land, which they claimed, belonged to Bangladesh (both India and Bangladesh have been claiming a 12-acre stretch in Lakuna and Amki villages on the border).

Meghalaya, which shares a 443 kilometre border with Bangladesh, has served as a traditional route for Bangladesh-based militants operating in India’s Northeast. The Garo Hills have also provided significant routes for drugs and arms smuggling. Little, however, is known about the scale of infiltration of Bangladeshis into the State. According to one estimate, illegal migrants, outnumber locals in the Jaintia coal belt. In fact, official inaction in containing infiltration is forcing locals to arbitrarily adopt harsh measures. Thus, on March 6, 2006, villagers from Nongjri-Umnuih-Nongshken area along the India-Bangladesh border in the East Khasi Hills district announced a pogrom under the call, “Gun down a Bangladeshi criminal and collect Rupees 3,000”, in protest against the alleged killing of people and looting of agricultural produce by Bangladeshi infiltrators. Such vigilantism threatens to grow in the wake of a spate of criminal incidents involving Bangladeshis. Some recent incidents include:

• February 13: The Superintendent of Bholaganj Land Custom Station in the East Khasi Hills District, J. Das, was abducted by unidentified Bangladeshis. Das’ dead body was subsequently recovered from Bholaganj along the Bangladesh border fencing area on February 20.
  
• April 9: A Bangladeshi infiltrator was killed by local villagers in the West Garo Hills area.
  
• April 10: A Bangladeshi infiltrator was shot dead by the BSF personnel in the West Garo Hills area.
  
• April 16 : The eastern zone unit of the Khasi Students Union (KSU) ‘captured’ at Umtrew in the Ri Bhoi district at least 20 Bangladeshi labourers who were reportedly brought by a person with the advice of an engineer working with the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences in Shillong. 

Available data indicates that the State Government’s efforts at containing the ongoing infiltration have been handicapped by poor detection and an even poorer record of prosecutions and convictions. Meghalaya Home Minister, H. Donkupar R. Lyngdoh, while responding to a supplementary question raised by a Congress legislator, Robert Garnett Lyngdoh, on March 21, 2006, informed the State Legislative Assembly that 3,094 infiltrators were detained in 2001 out of which just 54 were prosecuted. In 2002, a total of 2,537 persons were detained on suspicion and 42 of them were convicted. In the 2003, the number of detentions was 2,157 and the conviction figure was 72. The detention figure in 2004 was 1,596 with just 18 convictions. Till March 2006, 1,463 persons had been detected as foreigners and 14 convicted.

The Central Forces haven’t fared any better. According to a status report submitted by the BSF before the Delhi High Court on May 22, just 31 Bangladeshi nationals were deported from Meghalaya between January and April 2006. None of the other States have yet filed a reply with the High Court, but a similar scenario is believed to prevail as far as the other States are concerned.

Detection, however, can hardly be the solution to the infiltration problem. Deportation of such infiltrators remains a troublesome affair as Bangladesh continues to refuse to acknowledge the nationality of such illegal migrants, or to permit or accept their return to its territory. The Bangladeshi Press is, in fact, rife with reports that claim that the ‘BSF pushes in Indians to Bangladeshi territory’. And on many occasions such ‘pushed in’ people are pushed out by BDR personnel in no time. There can be little doubt that infiltration and other cross-border criminal enterprises need to be dealt on the border itself. And this further underlines the need for better border management of which border fencing is an integral part.

Fencing has been suggested as an effective method against infiltration worldwide, as the American example explicitly demonstrates. The United States House of Representatives passed a measure, (H.R. 4437) on December 16, 2005, that calls for 698 miles of border fencing to be built in five strategic locations along the international border with Mexico. The Senate on May 25, 2006, also passed a measure (S. 2611) to authorize 370 miles of new fencing. Currently, there are only about 75 miles of existing fence along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Border Patrol statistics reveal that these measures have had significant impact; the numbers of illegal aliens apprehended and amounts of narcotics seized have decreased drastically since fencing was installed.

Fencing has also been extremely effective in India, along the western borders, curbing the movement of militants and activities of smugglers and subversives. There is little reason to believe that such steps cannot be replicated along India’s eastern frontiers.

Indian attempts at fencing the borders with Bangladesh have, however, remained tardy, to say the least. Under Phase-I, which started as far back as 1986, 854 kilometres of fencing was erected, as on March 31, 2006. Another 1,448 kilometres of fencing was completed under Phase-II, which in fact aimed to fence 2,429 kilometres. Worse, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the 854 kilometre fence built in Phase-I has already been “damaged” at “most of the stretches” and thus, has “ceased to be effective in controlling illegal cross border activities”. The Ministry plans to start replacing the damaged fencing during 2006-07.

With political perspectives cloud the vision of the policy makers, and a high measure of administrative foot-dragging and incompetence, infiltration into the northeastern region can be expected to remain a serious problem in the foreseeable future.