From putting Article 370 in cold storage to abandoning the issue of Ram Mandir, Narendra Modi has disappointed his supporters in his first year in power by retreating from many of the classical policy positions of the Hindutva right. One exception to this, though, seems to be the issue of Indian citizenship for Bangladeshi Hindus.
For a long time now, driven by a pan-Hindu nationalism, the Bharatiya Janata Party has been on paper the embattled Bangladeshi minority’s most fervent backer. During the Lok Sabha election campaign, Modi made it a core issue. And a month back, while speaking at a rally in Assam, BJP chief Amit Shah promised Bangladeshi Hindus Indian citizenship once the BJP came to power in the state. In spite of such powerful rhetoric, however, the BJP has made no concrete moves towards changing the Indian state’s policy towards Bangladeshi Hindus seeking citizenship, particularly because of the political opposition to the move in Assam.
Migration history
During the Partition the British Indian provinces of Bengal and Assam were split along communal lines. How little of the communal issue this actually solved can be seen from the fact that as much as 42% of Bengal’s Hindu population was now in East Pakistan.
February 1950 saw the first of the many pogroms East Pakistan would carry out against its Hindu minority, leading to an exodus of people to India. Pakistan’s first law minister Jogendra Nath Mandal, who had to flee as well, described this as a “well-planned policy of squeezing Hindus out of the province”.
As the population of East Bengali refugees began to rise, local communities in the North East felt threatened demographically. The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950 was enacted by Parliament, as its name suggests, to keep a check on the flood of these refugees. The first widespread violence against Bengalis in Assam broke out in the 1960s during what is called the Bongal Kheda movement. Following another large wave of Bengali migration after the 1971 War, this anti-Bengali sentiment exploded in the form of the violent Assam Movement, led by the All Assam Student’s Union and the All Assam Gana Sangam Parishad.
The outcome of this was the Assam Accord, which held that Bangladeshi immigrants who came in during and after the 1971 War were to be expelled from India. Citizenship was only to be considered for immigrants who had come in before 1966. While this wholesale deportation of Bangladeshi immigrants never did take place – since 1985, less than 2,500 people have been pushed out – the cut-off date for citizenship ensured that large numbers of people remained in a stateless limbo after fleeing religious violence in Bangladesh. The BJP’s plans to award Indian citizenship is aimed at this segment.
Modi’s actions
The Modi government has already made concrete moves on the similar issue of taking in Hindu and Sikh immigrants from Pakistan. In the past year, more than 4,200 Pakistani minorities have been granted Indian citizenship by the Indian government – nearly four times the corresponding number for the entire second term of the United Progressive Alliance. The issue in Assam, however, is more complicated and would require far more political and legal manoeuvring.
A major factor behind the BJP’s moves is, of course, its Hindutva ideology which aims to set up a Hindu equivalent to the Law of Return that allows any Jew anywhere in the world to migrate to Israel. “It is the duty of the Indian government to take in Bangladeshi Hindus,” said Shiladitya Dev, spokesperson of the Assam unit of the BJP. “It was the Congress’ fault that Partition took place, not the fault of these Bengalis. How can India not help them now?”
Alongside this principle is a more prosaic driver: the votes of Bengali Hindus for the upcoming 2016 Assam assembly elections. Kamal Choudhary, the general secretary of the All Assam Bengali Youth Students’ Federation, claims that Bengali Hindus in Assam have supported the BJP given its rhetoric on this issue. “It is because of our votes that the BJP managed to get 7 out of 14 seats from Assam in the Lok Sabha elections,” claimed Choudhary. “We are hopeful because the BJP speaks in favour of Hindus.”
Resistance to citizenship
In opposition to this move are the ethnic Assamese, whose fears of being swamped demographically by Bengali-speakers have led to decades of violence in Assam. Like the BJP, the Congress has also spoken in favour of legalising Bengali Hindu refugees in Assam. But once in power it has always dragged its feet, no doubt with the ethnic Assamese vote in mind. There are fears the BJP may do a volte-face too. “We have voted for the BJP for a long time and will vote for it for the upcoming Assam Assembly elections in 2016, but if they fail to deliver they will lose our support,” warned Kamal Choudhary.
These fears seem well-founded given that while the BJP has been high on rhetoric, any actual moves on the ground to put in place a mechanism for citizenship have been missing. At present, the Modi government seems satisfied with taking the least contentious route of the judiciary. As part of an ongoing case in the Supreme Court, filed in 2012 by two NGOs, the Centre is expected to support the litigants’ contention that Hindus from Bangladesh migrating to India should be given refugee status.
As contentious as refugee status is, the issue of citizenship – now promised by the BJP as an election sop – is even more complex. Currently, the Citizenship Act enshrines the principles of the Assam Accord and awarding citizenship to immigrants who have come in to Assam after 1971 is not legally possible. So to fulfil the BJP’s pronouncements, the act would have to be amended – a process that the government hasn’t even begun to consider.
Ramifications of religion-based citizenship
Moreover, while the BJP may want India to emulate Israel’s Law of Return for Jews, “India’s citizenship laws cannot discriminate on the basis of religion,” as Sanjoy Hazarika, director of the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research in Jamia Millia Islamia, pointed out. If and when such a law is enacted, it would clash with the secular nature of the Indian state. Awarding citizenship to Bangladeshi Hindus is therefore not an act confined to Assam only ‒ its effects will ripple throughout India, with serious implications for the country's secular nature.
These ripples will, in fact, extend into Bangladesh. Columnist Garga Chatterjee said, “Modi is doing what he is with an eye on his domestic constituency. These moves will actually end up harming Bangladesh’s Hindus, who are already widely vilified as somewhat of an Indian fifth column, and will make their position even shakier in the country.”
This dynamic has, in fact, forced Modi to give up on exclusive interactions with Bangladeshi Hindus during his trip to the country starting on Saturday. According to The Telegraph, the plan was dropped since it could have fuelled “social tensions”.
Many a slip
The gap between the BJP’s words and deeds on the issue of providing refuge to Bangladeshis escaping religious violence is maybe typified by novelist Taslima Nasreen. A Bangladeshi citizen, Nasreen had to flee the country in 1994 after her novel Lajja, describing the plight of Bangladeshi Hindus following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, came in for violent criticism. Living in India since 2004, Nasreen however relocated to the US on Thursday, after she claimed that she had received death threats by the same Islamist radicals responsible for the recent murders of three vocal atheists in Bangladesh.
On Twitter, Nasreen claimed she had wanted to meet the BJP Home Minister Rajnath Singh to discuss her safety but simply “did not get an appointment”.
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For a long time now, driven by a pan-Hindu nationalism, the Bharatiya Janata Party has been on paper the embattled Bangladeshi minority’s most fervent backer. During the Lok Sabha election campaign, Modi made it a core issue. And a month back, while speaking at a rally in Assam, BJP chief Amit Shah promised Bangladeshi Hindus Indian citizenship once the BJP came to power in the state. In spite of such powerful rhetoric, however, the BJP has made no concrete moves towards changing the Indian state’s policy towards Bangladeshi Hindus seeking citizenship, particularly because of the political opposition to the move in Assam.
Migration history
During the Partition the British Indian provinces of Bengal and Assam were split along communal lines. How little of the communal issue this actually solved can be seen from the fact that as much as 42% of Bengal’s Hindu population was now in East Pakistan.
February 1950 saw the first of the many pogroms East Pakistan would carry out against its Hindu minority, leading to an exodus of people to India. Pakistan’s first law minister Jogendra Nath Mandal, who had to flee as well, described this as a “well-planned policy of squeezing Hindus out of the province”.
As the population of East Bengali refugees began to rise, local communities in the North East felt threatened demographically. The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950 was enacted by Parliament, as its name suggests, to keep a check on the flood of these refugees. The first widespread violence against Bengalis in Assam broke out in the 1960s during what is called the Bongal Kheda movement. Following another large wave of Bengali migration after the 1971 War, this anti-Bengali sentiment exploded in the form of the violent Assam Movement, led by the All Assam Student’s Union and the All Assam Gana Sangam Parishad.
The outcome of this was the Assam Accord, which held that Bangladeshi immigrants who came in during and after the 1971 War were to be expelled from India. Citizenship was only to be considered for immigrants who had come in before 1966. While this wholesale deportation of Bangladeshi immigrants never did take place – since 1985, less than 2,500 people have been pushed out – the cut-off date for citizenship ensured that large numbers of people remained in a stateless limbo after fleeing religious violence in Bangladesh. The BJP’s plans to award Indian citizenship is aimed at this segment.
Modi’s actions
The Modi government has already made concrete moves on the similar issue of taking in Hindu and Sikh immigrants from Pakistan. In the past year, more than 4,200 Pakistani minorities have been granted Indian citizenship by the Indian government – nearly four times the corresponding number for the entire second term of the United Progressive Alliance. The issue in Assam, however, is more complicated and would require far more political and legal manoeuvring.
A major factor behind the BJP’s moves is, of course, its Hindutva ideology which aims to set up a Hindu equivalent to the Law of Return that allows any Jew anywhere in the world to migrate to Israel. “It is the duty of the Indian government to take in Bangladeshi Hindus,” said Shiladitya Dev, spokesperson of the Assam unit of the BJP. “It was the Congress’ fault that Partition took place, not the fault of these Bengalis. How can India not help them now?”
Alongside this principle is a more prosaic driver: the votes of Bengali Hindus for the upcoming 2016 Assam assembly elections. Kamal Choudhary, the general secretary of the All Assam Bengali Youth Students’ Federation, claims that Bengali Hindus in Assam have supported the BJP given its rhetoric on this issue. “It is because of our votes that the BJP managed to get 7 out of 14 seats from Assam in the Lok Sabha elections,” claimed Choudhary. “We are hopeful because the BJP speaks in favour of Hindus.”
Resistance to citizenship
In opposition to this move are the ethnic Assamese, whose fears of being swamped demographically by Bengali-speakers have led to decades of violence in Assam. Like the BJP, the Congress has also spoken in favour of legalising Bengali Hindu refugees in Assam. But once in power it has always dragged its feet, no doubt with the ethnic Assamese vote in mind. There are fears the BJP may do a volte-face too. “We have voted for the BJP for a long time and will vote for it for the upcoming Assam Assembly elections in 2016, but if they fail to deliver they will lose our support,” warned Kamal Choudhary.
These fears seem well-founded given that while the BJP has been high on rhetoric, any actual moves on the ground to put in place a mechanism for citizenship have been missing. At present, the Modi government seems satisfied with taking the least contentious route of the judiciary. As part of an ongoing case in the Supreme Court, filed in 2012 by two NGOs, the Centre is expected to support the litigants’ contention that Hindus from Bangladesh migrating to India should be given refugee status.
As contentious as refugee status is, the issue of citizenship – now promised by the BJP as an election sop – is even more complex. Currently, the Citizenship Act enshrines the principles of the Assam Accord and awarding citizenship to immigrants who have come in to Assam after 1971 is not legally possible. So to fulfil the BJP’s pronouncements, the act would have to be amended – a process that the government hasn’t even begun to consider.
Ramifications of religion-based citizenship
Moreover, while the BJP may want India to emulate Israel’s Law of Return for Jews, “India’s citizenship laws cannot discriminate on the basis of religion,” as Sanjoy Hazarika, director of the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research in Jamia Millia Islamia, pointed out. If and when such a law is enacted, it would clash with the secular nature of the Indian state. Awarding citizenship to Bangladeshi Hindus is therefore not an act confined to Assam only ‒ its effects will ripple throughout India, with serious implications for the country's secular nature.
These ripples will, in fact, extend into Bangladesh. Columnist Garga Chatterjee said, “Modi is doing what he is with an eye on his domestic constituency. These moves will actually end up harming Bangladesh’s Hindus, who are already widely vilified as somewhat of an Indian fifth column, and will make their position even shakier in the country.”
This dynamic has, in fact, forced Modi to give up on exclusive interactions with Bangladeshi Hindus during his trip to the country starting on Saturday. According to The Telegraph, the plan was dropped since it could have fuelled “social tensions”.
Many a slip
The gap between the BJP’s words and deeds on the issue of providing refuge to Bangladeshis escaping religious violence is maybe typified by novelist Taslima Nasreen. A Bangladeshi citizen, Nasreen had to flee the country in 1994 after her novel Lajja, describing the plight of Bangladeshi Hindus following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, came in for violent criticism. Living in India since 2004, Nasreen however relocated to the US on Thursday, after she claimed that she had received death threats by the same Islamist radicals responsible for the recent murders of three vocal atheists in Bangladesh.
On Twitter, Nasreen claimed she had wanted to meet the BJP Home Minister Rajnath Singh to discuss her safety but simply “did not get an appointment”.
Was threatened by Islamists who killed atheist bloggers in B'desh.Worried.Wanted to meet GOI.No appointment.Left.Will be back when feel safe
— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) June 3, 2015
@raggedtag Probably because, I wanted to meet home minister when I was getting death threats. I did not get an appointment. : (
— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) June 3, 2015