The updating of the National Register of Citizens, 1951, in Assam, an apparently innocuous bureaucratic exercise of adding names to a list, touches off an old question – the status of Muslim migrants from across the border who have settled in the state over the decades. It is a question with a violent history, triggering traumatic memories, from Nellie, 1983, to Kokrajhar, 2012. And the polarising politics that grew around it is alive and well, as was evident this week. Assam’s Congress chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, announced that he would write to the Centre urging that people who were on the electoral rolls in 2014 be eligible for citizenship. He drew shrill protests from members of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Asom Gana Parishad and the All Assam Students Union, among others, which read the move as an attempt to legitimise “illegal migrants” who are said to form the Congress’s vote bank. This gap between citizenship and franchise, which gave rise to violent contestations in the past, also became a political opportunity for national parties operating in the state.
What is popularly imagined as a sudden influx of people who entered Assam a few years ago, and have been squatting on land there ever since, is really a longer, more layered migration. Muslims from East Bengal were moving into the region as far back as the 19th century, encouraged by the British who needed labour to cultivate the “wastelands” of Assam. Waves of migration continued through the early 20th century and with Partition, there was a dramatic injection of people from across the new international border. Political responses to this demographic change ran broadly along two lines.
Infiltration vs 'homecoming'
As Willem Van Schendel puts it in The Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia, the old movement of people suddenly became an international migration. When the new state authorities required papers and documents that could not be provided, part of this movement went underground. In the aftermath of Partition, it was regarded by the state as the natural “homecoming” of Hindus from East Bengal, Schendel writes. But in the 1970s, he argues, the realisation that many of the migrants were in fact Muslim coincided with a resurgence of Hindutva in politics. The rhetoric of “homecoming” suddenly switched to that of “infiltration”. This paranoia about infiltration, and its counterpoint of a homecoming for Hindus, inflected one strand of political response to the migration, characteristic of but not restricted to Hindu nationalist parties. At the same time, a large, floating body of people, made vulnerable without the rights of citizenship, could be tapped for votes, given in exchange for certain basic securities. This careful cultivation and enfranchisement of the stateless formed another strand of response. Needless to say, both fed off each other.
Four long decades
State institutions have, at times, picked up anxieties about infiltration, about alien elements changing the shape of the polity as they found political representation. In 1978, it was then chief election commissioner SL Shakdher who noted “large-scale inclusions of foreign nationals in the electoral rolls” and the possibility of such “foreign nationals” forming a “majority” of the population. Incidentally, in the aftermath of the Kokrajhar violence in 2012, HS Brahma, who would go on to become Chief Election Commissioner, wrote in The Indian Express of a sharp rise in the Muslim population: “It has been alleged by knowledgeable persons that out of the 27 districts in Assam, 11 of them are going to be Muslim majority districts once the 2011 census figures, religion-wise, are published by the census authorities.”
Back in 1978, Sanjib Baruah notes, Shakdher’s words would become “the lightning rod for the Assam Movement”. The parliamentary elections of 1979 would be largely boycotted in the state and six years of violence would end in the Assam Accord of 1985, signed between then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and leaders of the AASU and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad. According to the provisions of this accord, migrants who entered Assam before 1966 would be deemed citizens while those who entered between 1966 and March 24, 1971, would enjoy all the rights of citizenship but would be denied voting rights for 10 years. The current updating of the NRC follows the terms of the accord. This delegitimises the vast numbers of Bangladeshis who entered Assam after the Bangladesh war began, some of whom may have lived in the state for more than four decades.
Hindus vs Muslims
But a subtle distinction between Hindu and Muslim migrants seems to endure in political discourse, casting one as the natural citizens of India and the other as infiltrators. Jaswant Singh, the moderate BJP voice, had spoken of Hindu migration in terms of “the compelling logic of the partition of India”. The BJP manifesto in the run up to the Lok Sabha election of 2014 suggested that India was “a natural home for persecuted Hindus”. On the election trail in Assam, then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi spoke of the need to accommodate Hindu migrants from Bangladesh, while weeding out the infiltrators who had been brought into the country as part of a “political conspiracy” to swell the vote banks of a certain party. The Congress has not been above this rhetoric either. Anxious to retain the Bengali Hindu vote in the assembly elections of 2011, Tarun Gogoi had spoken specifically of refugee status for the “Bengali Hindus of Assam”.
But the Congress has a history of speaking in two voices on the matter of Muslim migrants to Assam. In 2013, Gogoi had pitched for refugee status for migrants who had been forced to flee their country, “irrespective of the person being a Hindu or a Muslim”. And as Baruah notes, “After the tensions over refugee settlement in the immediate post-Partition period subsided, the state’s ruling Congress party settled down to a creative way of managing the ambiguities of citizenship status.” Suddenly, it seemed electoral rolls did not refine too much on the distinction between “refugee” and “illegal migrant”. A system of political patronage was established, with entry in the electoral roles controlled by local brokers, says Baruah.
Legal safeguards
While Congress governments in the state secured vulnerable constituencies of Muslim migrants, the government at the Centre introduced certain safeguards through law. The Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act was passed by the Indira Gandhi government in 1983, and struck down by the Supreme Court in 2005. It delineated procedures to detect and expel illegal migrants from Assam. Unlike the Foreigners Act, where the individual under scrutiny is required to prove his right to be in the country, the IMDT Act put the onus of proving illegality on the tribunals, thus ensuring a measure of protection for migrants who had entered Assam after March 24, 1971. It allowed hundreds of Muslim migrants to continue to live and vote there while in a stateless limbo.
So in the recent argument over the National Register for Citizens, both political responses went according to script. Tarun Gogoi spoke cautiously of the NRC as a means to filter out illegal migrants, while seeking to establish the latest electoral rolls as a roster of citizens. The state BJP and allied parties protested against this proposal, while reiterating the maxim, “no Hindu is a foreigner”. Neither, perhaps, recognises the reality of living in a border state like Assam, where national frontiers are as fluid as the rivers that run through the region. Very often, the everyday lives of villages on either side are inextricably linked, through shared festivals and wedding parties, through visits to each others' markets, through memory and kinship. These are ties that predate borders, citizenship and votes.
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What is popularly imagined as a sudden influx of people who entered Assam a few years ago, and have been squatting on land there ever since, is really a longer, more layered migration. Muslims from East Bengal were moving into the region as far back as the 19th century, encouraged by the British who needed labour to cultivate the “wastelands” of Assam. Waves of migration continued through the early 20th century and with Partition, there was a dramatic injection of people from across the new international border. Political responses to this demographic change ran broadly along two lines.
Infiltration vs 'homecoming'
As Willem Van Schendel puts it in The Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia, the old movement of people suddenly became an international migration. When the new state authorities required papers and documents that could not be provided, part of this movement went underground. In the aftermath of Partition, it was regarded by the state as the natural “homecoming” of Hindus from East Bengal, Schendel writes. But in the 1970s, he argues, the realisation that many of the migrants were in fact Muslim coincided with a resurgence of Hindutva in politics. The rhetoric of “homecoming” suddenly switched to that of “infiltration”. This paranoia about infiltration, and its counterpoint of a homecoming for Hindus, inflected one strand of political response to the migration, characteristic of but not restricted to Hindu nationalist parties. At the same time, a large, floating body of people, made vulnerable without the rights of citizenship, could be tapped for votes, given in exchange for certain basic securities. This careful cultivation and enfranchisement of the stateless formed another strand of response. Needless to say, both fed off each other.
Four long decades
State institutions have, at times, picked up anxieties about infiltration, about alien elements changing the shape of the polity as they found political representation. In 1978, it was then chief election commissioner SL Shakdher who noted “large-scale inclusions of foreign nationals in the electoral rolls” and the possibility of such “foreign nationals” forming a “majority” of the population. Incidentally, in the aftermath of the Kokrajhar violence in 2012, HS Brahma, who would go on to become Chief Election Commissioner, wrote in The Indian Express of a sharp rise in the Muslim population: “It has been alleged by knowledgeable persons that out of the 27 districts in Assam, 11 of them are going to be Muslim majority districts once the 2011 census figures, religion-wise, are published by the census authorities.”
Back in 1978, Sanjib Baruah notes, Shakdher’s words would become “the lightning rod for the Assam Movement”. The parliamentary elections of 1979 would be largely boycotted in the state and six years of violence would end in the Assam Accord of 1985, signed between then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and leaders of the AASU and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad. According to the provisions of this accord, migrants who entered Assam before 1966 would be deemed citizens while those who entered between 1966 and March 24, 1971, would enjoy all the rights of citizenship but would be denied voting rights for 10 years. The current updating of the NRC follows the terms of the accord. This delegitimises the vast numbers of Bangladeshis who entered Assam after the Bangladesh war began, some of whom may have lived in the state for more than four decades.
Hindus vs Muslims
But a subtle distinction between Hindu and Muslim migrants seems to endure in political discourse, casting one as the natural citizens of India and the other as infiltrators. Jaswant Singh, the moderate BJP voice, had spoken of Hindu migration in terms of “the compelling logic of the partition of India”. The BJP manifesto in the run up to the Lok Sabha election of 2014 suggested that India was “a natural home for persecuted Hindus”. On the election trail in Assam, then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi spoke of the need to accommodate Hindu migrants from Bangladesh, while weeding out the infiltrators who had been brought into the country as part of a “political conspiracy” to swell the vote banks of a certain party. The Congress has not been above this rhetoric either. Anxious to retain the Bengali Hindu vote in the assembly elections of 2011, Tarun Gogoi had spoken specifically of refugee status for the “Bengali Hindus of Assam”.
But the Congress has a history of speaking in two voices on the matter of Muslim migrants to Assam. In 2013, Gogoi had pitched for refugee status for migrants who had been forced to flee their country, “irrespective of the person being a Hindu or a Muslim”. And as Baruah notes, “After the tensions over refugee settlement in the immediate post-Partition period subsided, the state’s ruling Congress party settled down to a creative way of managing the ambiguities of citizenship status.” Suddenly, it seemed electoral rolls did not refine too much on the distinction between “refugee” and “illegal migrant”. A system of political patronage was established, with entry in the electoral roles controlled by local brokers, says Baruah.
Legal safeguards
While Congress governments in the state secured vulnerable constituencies of Muslim migrants, the government at the Centre introduced certain safeguards through law. The Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act was passed by the Indira Gandhi government in 1983, and struck down by the Supreme Court in 2005. It delineated procedures to detect and expel illegal migrants from Assam. Unlike the Foreigners Act, where the individual under scrutiny is required to prove his right to be in the country, the IMDT Act put the onus of proving illegality on the tribunals, thus ensuring a measure of protection for migrants who had entered Assam after March 24, 1971. It allowed hundreds of Muslim migrants to continue to live and vote there while in a stateless limbo.
So in the recent argument over the National Register for Citizens, both political responses went according to script. Tarun Gogoi spoke cautiously of the NRC as a means to filter out illegal migrants, while seeking to establish the latest electoral rolls as a roster of citizens. The state BJP and allied parties protested against this proposal, while reiterating the maxim, “no Hindu is a foreigner”. Neither, perhaps, recognises the reality of living in a border state like Assam, where national frontiers are as fluid as the rivers that run through the region. Very often, the everyday lives of villages on either side are inextricably linked, through shared festivals and wedding parties, through visits to each others' markets, through memory and kinship. These are ties that predate borders, citizenship and votes.
