India Citizenship Bill challenges Bangladesh secular polity

Why did the Indian defense minister so grossly mischaracterize Bangladesh?

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh’s government was assured time and again that the controversial Indian National Register of Citizens (NRC), specially made for identification of illegal Muslims from Bangladesh residing in Assam state, would not jeopardize bilateral relations between the two neighboring countries.

The race to table and pass the Non-Muslim Citizenship Bill or Citizenship Amendment Bill by the Indian parliament, allegedly to make a demographic shift, seems to migration experts to be an issue for Bangladesh to be embarrassed about.

The bill seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees -- Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Parsis -- from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan if they have fled their respective country due to religious persecution.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in New Delhi pioneered this bill as one of its priorities upon assuming power in 2014.

In an interview broadcast on India Today TV and Aajtak TV, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh stated that the three countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) are “theocratic Islamic states” and “minorities are facing harassment.” Their “state religion is Islam.”

Rajnath Singh told Rahul Kanwal, news director, India Today and Aajtak on December 9, that the bill is for the people of Indian origin living in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, where Muslims are not persecuted.

TV interviewer Rahul Kanwal argued with Rajnath Singh that the Baloch and the Ahmadiyya Muslims are also persecuted in Pakistan, why are they left out? 

He nonchalantly responded that they (Baloch and Ahmadiyya) are Muslims and India has no role to play.

The TV journalist did not hesitate to snap that the ruling party is following the footsteps of Jinnah’s infamous two-nation theory dividing united India into Hindu and Muslim states, which plunged the nation in chaos and crisis.

The influential BJP leader contradicted himself and said: “BJP respects the Indian constitution. It doesn’t discriminate on the basis of religion.”

“There is no contradiction in this bill, India is a secular state. We are not looking at it through a religious lens.” He reiterated that the bill is for the people who are of Indian origin, living in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and are facing persecution.

The shocking remark was made in December when the nation finally established a secular, democratic, and pluralist society after the brutal birth of Bangladesh in 1971.

Such an outrageous remark was unexpected from a senior leader like Rajnath Singh who had made an official visit to Bangladesh on July 14, 2018, and had an audience with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka.

The top official of the Indian government must have understood that the state constitution is still secular.

Since 2009, Sheikh Hasina’s ruling Awami League and her government strictly believes in a secular polity.

Therefore, it should have been difficult for Rajnath Singh to misread Sheikh Hasina’s government’s pluralist polity.

We are not denying that the Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Adivasis (indigenous people), and also Ahmadiyya Muslims are sporadically attacked by religious zealots, who often slam the minorities for blasphemy. 

The AL government promptly took action against the perpetrators. The law enforcement agencies, local leaders, and civil society remained vigilant against such religious bigots to resist the vandalism of religious minorities’ properties and desecration of temples.

Simultaneously interfaith, secularism, and conflict resolving dialogues are held in vulnerable regions of the country. 

Also, PM Hasina has urged the imams and religious leaders to carry the message of tolerance and peace enshrined in the religion of Islam.

Still, now there is no official reaction to the statement of India’s top official. Such a prompt reaction is not expected from the political leaders of Bangladesh, nor the authorities.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 11 December 2019

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Email:

More people-to-people contact between two neighbours Bangladesh - India would allay misconception

For a greater understanding
More people-to-people contact between India and Bangladesh would go a long way in allaying the misconceptions that many in Assam harbour against Bangladeshi migrants.

NAVA THAKURIA

Bangladesh, Assam, border terrorism, NRC, West Bengal, Digital Security Act, Mamata Banerjee, Bangladeshi migrants

People from Bangladesh are often perceived as trouble makers and unwanted guests in Northeastern states, especially Assam. One of the Bangladesh-bordering states (apart from West Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura), Assam has witnessed a massive uprising against illegal migrants from that country and its implications are still visible.

But lately, India and Bangladesh have reached a steady bilateral relationship after many decades of diplomatic hiccups. The governments in New Delhi and Dhaka now regularly share common issues in an atmosphere of confidence and friendship. The mutual trust has been further heightened after resolving half-a-century- old border demarcation disputes. Duty-free trade, joint venture infrastructure projects, commerce, tourism, visa regime, communication through road, rail, river and air were a few areas of discussion between both nations. The talks on sharing of water from 56 international rivers are also in progress.

With authentic intelligence sharing by both New Delhi and Dhaka, cross-border terrorism has reduced to a great extent. At least the rigorous crackdowns on separatist militants hailing from Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura by various Bangladeshi government agencies have made the country almost free from those armed leaders and their cadres.

Interacting with a group of Guwahati- based scribes through video conferencing from Dhaka recently, senior Bangladeshi journalist and political commentator Saleem Samad said that there should not be any North-eastern separatist leader running their militant camps from Bangladesh. Many leaders including United Liberation Front of Assam president Arabinda Rajkhowa were silently handed over to Indian agencies by Dhaka in the recent past.

“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is committed to making Bangladesh free from cross-border terrorism. Because of Dhaka’s relentless crackdown on terrorism, the North-eastern militants have fled the country. Many of the separatist leaders were pushed back into India. The only fugitive on the run is Paresh Barua (supreme leader of Ulfa-Independent), who also faces capital punishment in Bangladesh,” said Samad.

The special correspondent at the Asian Age, published from Dhaka, also insisted that New Delhi should officially acknowledge efforts of the Hasina government, which has led to a significant decrease of budget for the five-decade-long anti-insurgency operation and deployment of law-enforcing agencies in the various troubled North-eastern localities. The anti-insurgency budget can now be diverted to infrastructure development, human development and industrial parks in the region.

A keen observer of socio-political situations in South Asia and a regular contributor to different Indian media outlets, Samad, however, admitted that the recent rise of Islamist extremism has been posing a serious threat to his Muslim majority country along with its neighbouring Indian states like West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. He narrated how secularist bloggers and LGBT activists are increasingly becoming the target of radicalised Muslims forces in the populous country, which has otherwise slowly, but steadily marched on the path of becoming a country of one nationality (Bangladeshi), one language (Bangla) and one religion (Sunni Muslim).

Citing how a network of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh was busted in West Bengal few years ago, Samad urged the North-eastern region to remain alert about jihadi elements after the ongoing crackdown on Islamist forces. He revealed that thousands of Bangladeshi youths had joined various militia groups in Syria, Iraq, Chechnya, Indonesia, Philippines, Afghanistan, and Pakistan et al to fight alongside the jihadis there. He also expressed concern over the new Digital Security Act 2018, which has already come under fire from journalists, including editors, rights defenders and anti-corruption advocates. International rights watchdogs have condemned the draconian law, which looks to criminalise freedom of press, speech and expression in that country.

Claiming that no visiting Indian political leader had ever spoken about illegal Bangladeshi migrants in India during parleys with their Bangladeshi counterparts, Samad pointed out that for the people of Bangladesh the issue of the National Register of Citizens updation in Assam remains an internal affair of India. “Though Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee made a hue and cry about the Assam NRC draft, Bangladeshi politicians and the civil society are still reluctant to comment on the sensitive matter. Even Dhaka-based media outlets had little coverage about the process and its larger implications,” said Samad.

It may be noted that Banerjee termed the massive citizenship scanning process in Assam, which is being monitored by the Supreme Court of India, as anti-Bengali but her views were not endorsed by anybody in Assam including those Bengali-speaking inhabitants in the Barak valley. Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal termed the release of the NRC draft as historic.

He expressed his heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to the Supreme Court, congratulated the 55,000 government officials engaged in the process and the people living across the Barak and Brahmaputra valleys, plains and hills of the state. It may be noted here that the first NRC in India was prepared in 1951 following a census the same year. Assam has been preparing a new NRC following the direction of the apex court of the country. Earlier, the first NRC draft in Assam was released on 31 December 2017.

The background for the NRC is traced to the Assam Accord, which was signed in 1985 by the Centre with leaders of Assam movement. The historic memorandum of understanding, signed by leaders of All Assam Students Union and Gana Sangram Parishad in presence of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi drew the curtain on the six-year-long Assam agitation that erupted in 1979. The Accord reposed responsibility on New Delhi to detect and deport all migrants (read East Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals), who entered Assam after the midnight of 24 March 1971. In other words, the agitating leaders agreed to accept all residents of Assam prior to the dateline as Indian nationals.

One can see that the influx of millions of illegal Bangladeshis is a vital socio-political issue for Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Manipur. The region shares an international border of 5,182 km (about 99 percent of its total geographical boundary) with Tibet (now under China), Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Its border with Bangladesh is as long as 1,596 km. During the interaction, Samad strongly advocated more people-to-people contact between Assam and Bangladesh.

He even lamented how the state had missed the bus despite being so closely located, while other states like Bengal and Tripura launched multiple projects to improve rail, road and river connectivity with Bangladesh. Stressing on regular direct bus and air links between Guwahati and Dhaka, the Bangladeshi journalist said that improved trade and commerce along with cultural ties would help in erasing many misconceptions and suspicions prevailing on both sides. He also claimed more students and patients would move from both sides and that would obviously boost tourism.

First published in The Statesman, Kolkata on 15 October 2018

Nava Thakuria is the Guwahati-based Special Representative of The Statesman.

Water tortured: The romance between Bangladesh and India is star-crossed

ENGULFED by India, its giant neighbour to the west, north and east, Bangladesh can look small. But it is the world’s eighth most populous country, with one of its fastest-growing economies. And its location, between India and South-East Asia, with a long littoral on the Indian Ocean, puts it in the thick of things, geopolitically speaking.

China clearly sees some potential. Xi Jinping, its president, visited last year and pledged $15bn in loans. China is Bangladesh’s biggest trading partner—and arms make up a good chunk of that trade. Two Chinese submarines arrived on credit in March. Bangladesh is the third-biggest buyer of Chinese arms, after two other neighbours of India.

India is responding with a charm offensive of its own. When Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, made a four-day state visit to Delhi that concluded on April 10th, her Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, made sure she did not go back empty-handed. He offered $5bn in loans, including $1bn for a Russian-backed nuclear plant, Bangladesh’s first; and $500m to buy Indian arms. The two countries signed a defence agreement committing them to deeper co-operation. India promised more cross-border electricity and railway lines.

But there was no progress on what mattered most to Sheikh Hasina: a treaty on how to share the water of the 53 rivers that flow from , Pakistan and Myanmar.

India to Bangladesh. One river in particular, the Teesta, has become the focus of attention. Bangladesh wants the water split evenly, whereas the Indian state of West Bengal claims 55%. Mr Modi has promised to resolve the issue, but his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governs only one of the four states bordering Bangladesh. The chief minister of West Bengal refuses to let him bid away her state’s stake in the Teesta. Sheikh Hasina had made an urgent pitch in the Hindu, an Indian newspaper, arguing “friendship is a flowing river”. She went home shrugging: “We sought water, but got electricity.”

Even if the water of the Teesta was his to give, Mr Modi might find it awkward to become too chummy with Sheika Hasina. Stoking resentment against Muslims, and against illegal immigrants from Bangladesh in particular, has proved a successful electoral formula for the BJP. Sheikh Hasina, for her part, is ignoring the Bangladeshi army’s instinctive suspicion of India to sign the security pact. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has accused her of selling out, and promised to scrap it if it comes to power. The Teesta is another handy stick with which the BNP can beat the government. Geography has thrust India and Bangladesh together, but domestic politics still pushes them apart.

Published in the Economist magazine, April 14th 2017

New government at the Centre disturbing improved relations with Bangladesh would lose credibility internationally

SUBIR BAUMIK

Whoever forms the next government in Delhi will have to face a host of serious foreign policy issues. Repairing frosty relations with the US without surrendering to Washington and carrying forward improving relations with China, simultaneously, would be the biggest foreign policy challenge for the new government. But the immediacy of settling the line on Bangladesh cannot be underestimated. 

Former MEA secretary (east) Rajiv Sikri has observed that Bangladesh is India's most important neighbour — more important than Pakistan in many ways. India's military intervention in 1971 to create this new nation was motivated by her concern for its own insurgency-ravaged northeast. 

A friendly Bangladesh was seen as the best guarantee for the security of India's east and northeast — a region afflicted by underdevelopment and prone to ethnic separatism, which was fuelled by strong support from both Pakistan and China. 

Indira, Mujib's Legacy 

Indira Gandhi's wisdom was carried forward by Manmohan Singh when he sought to carry bilateral relations with Dhaka to a new high. With Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's daughter Sheikh Hasina in power and willing to deliver on India's security and connectivity concerns, Manmohan's 2010 Dhaka visit set the stage for a huge breakthrough. 

But Mamata Banerjee's fierce opposition scuttled the Teesta water-sharing treaty and made it difficult, if not impossible, to implement the land boundary agreement signed during Singh's visit. The security situation in India's troubled northeast is better than ever before after Bangladesh's crackdown on northeast Indian rebel groups based there. 

A Chittagong court has awarded death sentences against two former ministers, two former intelligence chiefs and Ulfa military wing supremo Paresh Barua in a 2004 arms smuggling case, underscoring the importance of a friendly regime in Dhaka for India's security. 

Delhi-Friendly Dhaka 

That the two ministers belonged to the BNP-Jamaat alliance and the arms were being smuggled with the connivance of senior functionaries of Khaleda Zia's government stands in stark contrast to the crackdown on the rebel groups after Hasina took charge. But a change of regime in Dhaka could make a lot of difference. 

It is payback time for Delhi and the next government would have to find ways to carry forward the Teesta water-sharing deal and implement the land boundary agreement. BJP hardliners like Subramaniam Swamy have gone to the absurd extent of demanding Bangladesh land for settling illegal migrants from there. 

The party will have to distance itself from such positions. Narendra Modi will have to refrain from talking about sending all Muslims in Bengal back to Bangladesh. If he takes his Rajdharma seriously, there is no way Modi can reverse Manmohan's Bangladesh policy. 

If India fails to push the Teesta and land boundary agreements, no other country would take India seriously or come forward to resolve contentious issues. The BNP is already stepping up the heat on the Teesta issue. 

On April 22-23, it organised a Long March to the Teesta barrage at Nilphamari in northern Bangladesh, blaming the Awami government for failing to clinch a deal with India. A low waterline in the Teesta is an emotive issue with farmers in northern Bangladesh. The BNP wants to corner the Awami League on this, after failing to dislodge it through an agitation leading to a poll boycott. 

Tripping Over Hard Line 

Hasina is understandably worried. A coalition of regional parties with Mamata Banerjee as an important player is her worst-case scenario because the Bengal chief minister would do all to block the Teesta and land boundary agreement. 

With Congress looking on its way out and the Left not as influential as before, her only hope is a BJP government that does not pander to its hardliners like Swamy or Assam unit chief Sarbananda Sonowal, and implements India's sovereign commitments. Failure to do that would not only undermine India's credibility but also adversely affect its most trusted ally in the region. 

In 2001, the BJP decided not to put its eggs in one basket and A B Vajpayee's national security adviser Brajesh Mishra rushed to congratulate Khaleda Zia on taking over as Prime Minister, even as Hindus were suffering one of the worst recent pogroms inflicted by BNP-Jamaat hardliners. 

If Vajpayee got Kargil for Lahore, he was rewarded by heightened Bangladesh support for northeastern insurgents, a point the 2004 Chittagong arms case drives home. 

Modi or any other BJP prime minister should not repeat that mistake because there is nothing to suggest the BNP-Jamaat combine would address India's security and connectivity concerns like Hasina has. 

It is easy to argue Indian policy should not be regime-specific but what can Delhi do if some regimes warm up to it while others remain perpetually hostile. Bangladesh should be the first priority for the next government in Delhi.

The article was first published in The Economic Times, 8 May 2014

Subir Baumik is a writer, a veteran journalist, is now senior editor with Dhaka-based bdnews24.com

Bangladeshi’s in India: Myth and Reality

RAM PUNIYANI

THE ASSAM violence between Bodos and Muslims, alleged by many to be Bangladeshi infiltrators, has a long chain of repercussions. The number of dead is nearly eighty. Killings are continuing and the people who have been displaced have been over 4 lakhs. There is no exact statistics to tell us how many of the displaced are Muslims and how many are Bodos, still roughly some investigators have put the figure of Muslims 80% and Bodos 20%. The few reports which have come out tell us that the condition of the all refugee camps is abysmal, much worse of those where Muslims are living. Meanwhile many a voices have come up to express their own opinions. The BJP leaders have strongly asserted that the whole violence is due to the Bangladeshi infiltrators, whose number is estimated as per the flight of one’s imagination ranging from 10 million to 20 million or even more. It is alleged that they have encroached, taken over the land of the local natives, which is causing the dissatisfaction and so the hate for them. This hate in turn is at the root of violence. This is one case where displacement overshadows the violence.

The Election Commissioner H.S. Brahma, a Bodo himself, went to the extent of saying that these infiltrators have gone up in number and so have become aggressive and attacked the local Bodos. The other point of view is that despite the formation of Bodo Territorial Council, the Bodos did not surrender their arms, which was one of the conditions for accepting the demand of this regional council. There are voices from BJP stable that this is an issue of Nationalism, the one of Indians and the other of Bangladeshis. Some of them have voiced that these Bangladeshi should be disenfranchised and not be permitted to vote. As such already many of them are not allowed to vote by putting them in the category of ‘D’ voters, i.e. doubtful voters. As per BJP and company it is Congress, which has been encouraging the Bangladeshis to infiltrate so that they can be used as the vote bank by the Congress. Not to ignore that since major number of those in relief camps is that of Muslims, some Bodo groups have warned that the Muslims should not be permitted to return to their original places.

National Minorities Commission in its report has pointed out that there is no infiltration of Bangladeshi as such and the issue is that between the Bodo ethnic groups, on one side and the Muslims, who have settled here from a long time, on the other. Before we come to the issue whether these are Bangladeshi infiltrators, Bangladeshi migrants or the Muslims settlers from Bengal over a period of time, lets register that the Assam episode had a very painful after events. There were Hate emails, Hate web sites which warned the North Eastern people that revenge of Assam will be taken against them and this caused a mammoth exodus of North eastern people from all over, more particularly from Bangalore. The Web sites which did this dirty job, many of them have been blocked, it is said are from Pakistan, some 20% of the blocked sites are the one’s run by Hindutva groups also. Through leaflets and other mechanisms VHP and other groups are propagating that Hindus are being attacked by Muslims, the Bangladeshi infiltrators.

Not to be left behind some orthodox, fanatic Muslim groups organized a protest rally in Azad Maidan of Mumbai, in which a preplanned act by a section of Muslims attacked the OB vans of media and the police officials. The restrained and effective leadership of Arup Patnaik was not to the liking of the communal elements and those politicking on the issue within the ruling party and so Mr. Patnaik has been punished by being kicked up, As such secular activists and large section of Muslims are in deep appreciation of Mr. Patnaik’s handling of the episode.

Coming back to the propaganda of Bangladeshi infiltrators, many a researchers have proved on the basis of demographic data of last century in particular that the Muslims in the region are settlers from pre partition Bengal to begin with, later at the time of partition in 1947 and lastly at the time of Bangladesh war in 1971. Assam accord of 1985 recognizes all those living in this area as the legal setters, most of the Muslim fall in that category. Not to deny that that some small number of illegal immigrants, the one’s forced to migrate for economic reasons is also there.

The change in demographic profile of Assam has taken place over a period of more than a century. It was mainly the British policy to release the pressure from the then Bengal province that they encouraged the Bengalis to settle in Assam. The last major migration has taken place around 1971, the Bangladesh war. After that the trickle has been there but the alleged infiltration is not there. Assam accord does recognize that all those who have settled before 1971 are legal Indian citizens, which most of the Muslims in Assam are. This is shown by the pattern of decadal growth in the region more particularly from 1950 onwards. The census figures clearly point out that after 1971; there is no major increase in the population of the area. The decadal growth in India, Assam, Dhubri, Dhemaji, and Karbi Anglong from 1971 to 1991 had been 54.51, 54.26, 45.65, 107.50, and 74.72 respectively. While the same in the decade of 1991-01 became 21.54, 18.92, 22.97, 19.45, 22.72 and in the decade of 01-11 it became 17.64, 16.93, 24.40, 20.30 and 18.69 respectively. Shivam Viz in Myth of Bangladeshi and Violence in Assam (http://kafila.org/2012/08/16/the-myth-of-the-bangladeshi-and-violence-in-assam-nilim-dutta/) shows that the migration has taken place over a period of time and the increase of population stops after 1971.

If we just look at the decadal growth rates of population in two other districts of Assam, Dhemaji and Karbi Anglong, we will see that their growth rates in comparison have been more than twice that of Assam and substantially higher than even the ‘Muslim’ majority ‘border’ district of Dhubri. Yet, the Muslim population in Dhemaji and Karbi Anglong is minuscule. The Hindu population in these two districts is 95.94% and 82.39% Hindu respectively. Muslims constitute merely 1.84% and 2.22% respectively of their total populations, in spite of having consistent high decadal growth rates – Dhemaji touching 103.42% between 1961-71 and Karbi Anglong having a similar high of 79.21% between 1951-61. This should be testimony enough to show that there could be reasons apart from illegal immigration of Muslims behind a high decadal growth rate of population. In Assam there is a decline in the population in Kokrajhar, which is the seat of Bodo Territorial Council. It hasthe lowest population growth of 5.19%, from the earlier 14.49 per cent in 2001.

Understanding the truth and deeper analysis of the demographic pattern of Assam is very essential to understand the nature of present carnage, which is more of a sectarian nature, a group trying to assert ethnic domination in the region. The underlying causes, lack of development of the region, absence of jobs, is creating more pressure on the land, and the ‘sons of the soil’ politics is being brought up in a very painful manner. Not only do we need to assuage the present violence, there is a need to bring in amity between different communities with proper development of infrastructure, which gives the opportunities to all the citizens of the area.

 
First published in Issues in Secular Politics, I September 2012

Ram Puniyani is a Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Powai. He has also been engaged in understanding global and local changes, which have resulted in communal violence. He could reached at: ram.puniyani@gmail.com