Statements by PM and Sonia Gandhi on illegal
immigration from Bangladesh are insincere
Did they raise this issue with the Bangladesh PM?
Congress president Shrimati Sonia Gandhi has stated in Nagaon, Assam, yesterday that there can be no compromise on the issue of illegal foreigners in Assam. At the same time, she has also added that no genuine Indian citizen would be harassed during the detection process. "Foreigners have to go but genuine citizens of the country will not be harassed. The Foreigners Tribunal Order is being amended to ensure that the rights of genuine citizens are protected," she said addressing an election rally. She has also claimed that even after the scrapping of the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1985, the Congress government in the state had ensured that no citizen suffered injustice due to its repeal.
Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had also made a similar statement during his election campaign in Assam last week. I am both surprised and troubled by the dishonest, misleading and hypocriticalpronouncements of these two leaders.
First of all, the issue at stake is not harassment of genuine Indian citizens in Assam, but unchecked illegal immigration from Bangladesh which has assumed the dimension of a demographic invasion. If Shrimati Sonia Gandhi says that "there can be no compromise on the issue of illegal foreigners in Assam", I would like to ask her and the Prime Minister: "What steps have you taken to show that you are not compromising on this issue? Indeed, the only step that you have taken after the scrapping of the IMDT, due to a Supreme Court judgment in July 2005, shows that you have indeed further compromised on this issue."
Supreme Court’s Judgment: A scathing indictment of the government
Everyone knows that the Congress party was consistently defending the IMDT Act, which the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional. The apex court also said that the provisions of the Act had been deliberately designed to help the infiltrators, and to deprive the machinery of the government of powers to deal with the menace. The apex court’s judgement was a clear and total vindication of the BJP’s stand.
Indeed, the verdict was even more categorical. "A deep analysis of the IMDT Act and the Rules made thereunder would reveal that they have been purposely so enacted or made so as to give shelter or protection to illegal migrants who came to Assam from Bangladesh on or after 25th March 1971, rather than to identify and deport them. There can be no manner of doubt that the State of Assam is facing ‘external aggression and internal disturbance’ on account of large scale illegal migration of Bangladeshi nationals. It, therefore, becomes the duty of Union of India to take all measures for protection of the State of Assam from such external aggression and internal disturbance as enjoined in Article 355 of the Constitution."
In light of this unambiguous constitutional duty cast upon on the government by the Supreme Court, one expected that the UPA government would take effective steps to nullify the harm done by the IMDT Act. Shockingly, however, the government on February 10 amended the Foreigners (Tribunal) Order, 1964 and introduced into it all the nefarious provisions of the IMDT Act. I, therefore, charge the UPA government with providing another legal protection for Bangladeshi infiltrators.
Talks with Bangladesh PM
If the two leaders are really sincere about not compromising on the issue of infiltration, I would like the Prime Minister and Shri Gandhi to tell the nation whether they raised this issue during the recent visit of Bangladesh Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia to India. If they did, how effectively did they do so? What concrete assurances did they seek from the Bangladesh’s PM to check infiltration?
Speaking for myself, I wish to state that I devoted almost all the time during my 3-minute meeting with Begum Zia to this issue. I made it clear that there could be no end to tension between our two countries so long as the Bangladesh government continued to deny the problem of infiltration.
Harassment of Indian citizens is a ruse
Both the Prime Minister and Shrimati Gandhi are also being disingenuous in trying to make out that the real problem in Assam is the alleged harassment and deportation of genuine Indian citizens belonging to the Muslim community. This is a deceptive ruse to hide the government’s total unwillingness to tackle the problem of Bangladeshi infiltration.
This is borne out by the facts and figures provided by the Supreme Court itself in his historic judgment. The late Indrajit Gupta, a CPI leader who was the Union Home Minister in the two United Front governments in 1996-98, had stated in Parliament that the number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh was 40 lakh in Assam and 54 lakh in West Bengal. In July 2004, even the Minister of State (Home) Shri Sriprakash Jaiswal in the UPA government admitted in Parliament that there were 1.2 crore illegal immigrants, of which 50 lakh were in Assam. The Prime Minister later cast doubts on these figures, which prompted Shri Jaiswal to disown the information that he had himself given to Parliament!
As against this invasion-scale infiltration from Bangladesh, what has been the Assam government’s record in detection and deportation under the IMDT Act? The Supreme Court noted that only 3,10,759 inquiries were initiated under the Act. Of these, only 10,015 were declared as illegal migrants. And the number of those who were deported upto 30th April 2000 was a mere 1481!
There can scarcely be a bigger betrayal of the Indian Nation – that just to create a captive vote bank, a party and a government will jeopardize our national unity and national security.
As far as the BJP is concerned, our stand is very clear: The question of harassing and deporting Assamese Muslims does not arise at all. They must be given 100% protection because they are Indian nationals. But there has to be 0% protection to infiltrators from Bangladesh.
I may point out here that Shri Sarbananda Sonowal, the AGP MP from Assam whose PIL in the Supreme Court challenging the IMDT Act led to its scrapping, has also challenged the February 10 amendment to the Foreigners (Tribunal) Order, 1964, which is a crude attempt by the UPA government to re-introduce IMDT in another form. I am confident that this too would be struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.
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