Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday right fully warned the nation against illegal immigration that has posed a grave threat to the demography of the country. The warning has come as part of his Independence Day speech. More importantly, he has announced the government’s decision to proceed on a high-powered mission mode in order to protect the country from the dangers posed by illegal immigrants. The timing of the alert from the Prime Minister also coincides with the 40th anniversary of the signing of the historic Assam Accord in the wee hours of August 15, 1984, a Memorandum of Settlement through which the then Congress government headed by Rajiv Gandhi had not only befooled the then leaders of All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), but had also hoodwinked the people of the entire nation. That, however, is another issue which can be discussed later separately. Though the Prime Minister did not specifically identify the infiltrators, it is obvious that he has referred to the hordes who have illegally crossed over to Assam in particular as part of a larger design intended at changing the demography of certain portions of the country. Issuing the alert and asking the people of the country to wake up, the Prime Minister has also expressed concern that infiltration with the objective of a demographic invasion of certain parts of India has now become a challenge. As he has said, it is in fact a well-thought-out conspiracy, one that was hatched about 120 years ago when the Muslim League was born in Dhaka, an organization whose two-pronged objective was – (a) to split India into two, and (b) to occupy Assam, Tripura, West Bengal and other parts of Eastern and Northeastern India by way of changing the demography. The Prime Minister is one hundred per cent correct in saying that the country’s demography is being changed, and seeds of a new crisis are being sown. While land grabbing has been one of the methods of pushing the indigenous and tribal communities into a state of fear and homelessness, the Prime Minister has pointed out that the infiltrators are snatching the livelihood of the youth of the country. This has been particularly true in Assam, where the infiltrators and their progeny are already beginning to elbow out the indigenous youth from all kinds of livelihood opportunities. The Prime Minister’s speech incidentally echoed what the people of Assam, under the leadership of the AASU, had said during the Assam Movement of 1979-85. Moreover, he has also echoed what Gen S K Sinha (Retd), a former Governor of Assam, had said in his well-draughted report to the President of India in November 1998. Gen Sinha had in his report 27 years ago specifically pointed out, with authentic facts and figures, that the influx of illegal migrants had already started altering the demographic makeup of Assam, particularly in Lower Assam districts, by potentially turning them into Muslim-majority regions. The then governor, in his report, had expressed apprehension that the demographic changes could lead to demands for the merger of these areas with Bangladesh. Bangladesh and conspirators would even attempt to isolate or cut off the entire Northeastern region from the rest of India by severing the Siliguri Corridor.