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.

‘The Assam clashes are about land and livelihood, not religion’

 AS BERTIL LINTNER mentions in the introduction of Great Game East, the expression “Great Game” was originally used to denote the struggle between two western powers to wrest control of energy-rich Central Asia. Across the Himalayas, in the east, another great game has been on for some time now between the two Asian giants — India and China. The fight began over Tibet and now includes Northeast India, Myanmar, Bangladesh and the Indian Ocean. Lintner has even devoted one chapter to Indo-Bangladesh relations in his book. Here, he talks to Kunal Majumder about the ongoing violence in Assam and how the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), once a nationalist movement, ended up becoming a pawn in the great game.

EXCERPTS FROM AN INTERVIEW

Your book has an entire chapter on the relationship between Assam and Bangladesh. What is your reading of the ongoing situation in Assam?TEHELKA described it quite well. It’s not religious. It’s not Muslims versus Hindus. It’s a struggle for land. There is a lot of pressure on land both because of increase in internal population and massive migration from Bangladesh. Naturally, people from Bangladesh are Muslims and that adds that dimension to it.
But certain interests in India are calling it a grand design to Islamise Assam. Do you find any credibility in such assumptions?
It is possible. But I’m not sure if it is the main reason people are moving from Bangladesh into India. Certainly, Islamic groups will want to take advantage of the situation. Migration to India, first from East Pakistan, and then Bangladesh has always been there. One reason this happens in Assam is votebank politics. If you look back at the Assam Agitation, it was a movement against the so-called foreigners moving into Assam. Not only Bangladeshis, Nepalis too were being evicted. It is not about religion, it is about land and livelihood.
Isn’t it ironical that the ULFA based its politics on an anti-Bangladeshi immigrant stance but eventually accepted Dhaka’s help to fight India?
The ultimate irony is that the movement began as an anti-foreigner movement — less Nepal, more Bangladesh — and they have been exiled in Bangladesh. Assamese militants I met in Bangladesh were not happy to be there but they thought they had no choice. They were being used by Bangladesh intelligence services to create trouble in India. The Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), more than the Awami League, were behind this policy. Things shifted in Bangladesh depending on who was in power. If the Awami League was in power, the ULFA was sent to Thailand. When Sheikh Hasina came to power for the first time in the 1990s, the entire leadership arrived in Bangkok save Paresh Barua, who was too useful for the Bangladeshi security establishment. He was close to Pakistan’s ISI as well.
The ULFA has now split. Almost everyone in the top leadership is negotiating with the Government of India. Where does Paresh Barua’s future lie?
I first met Barua in 1985 in a Naga camp in northwestern Burma. The Burmese army attacked the camp. He was an excellent fighter, much better than any other Naga. Unlike Arabinda Rajkhowa, who was more intellectually motivated, Barua was the most militant of all ULFA leaders and more politically motivated. The second time I met Barua was in Bangkok. He had come from Singapore, where he revealed that the ISI were encouraging the ULFA to increase their activities in Assam because troops were being withdrawn from the Northeast for Kashmir. It was in Pakistan’s interest to reignite some kind of unrest in the region so that India could move its troops back from Kashmir. This was quite telling. I was quite surprised he was ready to tell me that. I met him for the third time in a safe house in Dhaka, escorted by two Bangladeshi intelligence officers, who were not particularly happy to see me around. Whether you sympathise with them or not but from being a nationalist movement, the ULFA became a pawn in the hands of the establishment of all countries.

Kunal Majumder is a Principal Correspondent with Tehelka. email kunal@tehelka.com