BJP president Amit Shah’s reported claim during a video conference with his party workers of Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday that ‘implementation’ of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam had led to identification of 40 lakh infiltrators in the state has raised doubts about the ruling party’s topmost leader’s understanding of the problem of infiltration faced by Assam. This newspaper had on Wednesday carried a front-page news item from New Delhi which quoted Shah as saying that “After the BJP came to power in 14 we have boosted the national security. We also implemented the NRC in Assam and identified 40 lakh infiltrators.” He also did say that while the Assam government had identified 40 lakh people who were unable to prove their citizenship and that “corrections” were going on.
While, it is a fact that about 40 lakh people have not been able to prove their citizenship after having applied for inclusion of their names in the NRC, it is still not clear whether these 40 lakh are actually illegal migrants. There have been instances of names of many genuine Indian citizens including members of different indigenous ethnic groups having not been included for different technical reasons. Likewise, there has been suspicion that a large number of illegal migrants have found their way in to the NRC by submitting forged documents. There have been reports that at least one political party had worked overtime and engaged lawyers to help illegal migrants enrol themselves in the NRC on the basis of forged documents.
What is more important is that Shah’s party – the BJP – is trying to amend the Citizenship Act with the sole intention of granting Indian citizenship to a large number of Hindus from Bangladesh without little bothering to understand why Assam is opposing it. Shah, and for that matter most leaders of national political parties, have very little understanding of the issues pertaining to Assam. This is also true with majority of journalists and newspaper/TV news channel editors based in the national capital. It will not be untrue to say that none of them are aware of the fact that the Muslim League had sought to include Assam and the Northeastern region in East Pakistan at the time of Partition through the Grouping Plan that the British government had agreed to. It was only because of Lokapriya Gopinath Bardoloi and his colleagues of the then Assam Congress that Mahatma Gandhi exerted pressure on Jawaharlal Nehru to oppose the inclusion of Assam in East Pakistan on the eve of Independence. Leaders like Amit Shah should first understand the history of influx to Assam, as also the continuous attempt merge Assam into a larger Islamic state comprising of Bangladesh and other adjoining areas. Leaders like him should first read in detail former Assam Governor Lt Gen (Retd) SK Sinha’s report to the President on infiltration.
Leaders like Amit Shah should also read in detail the Supreme Court verdict of July 2005 through which the apex court had struck down the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act of 1983. Leaders of other political parties, including the Congress and the Left should also read these valuable documents in detail to understand the Assam issue. Editors and journalists sitting in the national capital, as well as intellectuals across the country too should read these two documents in detail before passing any remark or judgment on the issue of infiltration that has threatened to jeopardise the very existence of the indigenous Indian communities in Assam. It is very dangerous to pass remarks on such sensitive issues pertaining to national security and territorial integrity of India without understanding such issues in detail.