When will Assam get an Exact Figure of Foreigners? 

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The Assam Agitation that began on the deletion of illegal foreigners’ names from the voter list in the run-up to the Mangaldai bye-poll in 1978 is to get something tangible on August 31, 2019, when the final NRC is all set for publication. The number of foreigners staying illegally in Assam, given by various official and unofficial sources, has always been tentative. Even the NRC being published is not going to give the exact number of foreigners in the State as only foreigners tribunals can say whether a person is a foreigner or not.

Prior to 1979, many chief ministers of the State were on record expressing serious concern over the burden of foreigners which Assam had to carry. There was a guessing game on the number of foreigners illegally staying in Assam. Former Chief Minister Hiteswar Saikia was on record informing the State Assembly that there were 30 lakh illegal foreigners in the State. However, following pressure from some Muslim organizations, he had to eat his word the very next day when he took a U-turn. In 1997, the then Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta was on record saying that India, including Assam, had one crore, illegal foreigners. In July 2004 the then Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal did say that India had 1.2 crore foreigners, including 50 lakh in Assam alone.

An observation made by former Chief Minister BP Chaliha on July 27, 1965 (DIPR/press note/ 137) that – “it appears that in Assam the estimated figure of infiltration during 1951-1961 is 2,20,691…I like to caution our people that various reactionary forces are working in and outside the State to take advantage of every problem with which we are confronted”. What BP Chaliha observed in 1965 is still prevalent as the State is yet to get rid of ‘various reactionary forces working in and outside the state’.

In March 1979, former Chief Minister Golap Borbora said on the floor of the State Assembly, ‘we are worried over the crowd of foreigners in Assam. We can’t always give them maati aru bheti (land and other necessities) in the State. We need to take the necessary measures.”

It was former Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, who, as AASU president, was the first wrote a letter to the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on February 2, 1980, with the proposal of updating the NRC in the State.

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