By Nava Thakuria*
Guwahati: In a Rajya Sabha debate during the year 2016, it was revealed that no less than 20 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants were taking shelter across the country. Before 2014, the central government estimated that this number was 12 million. The Rohingyas from the Arakan State of Myanmar continue entering India through the porous Bangladesh border, and the number of illegal residents will only increase to many extents.
It was the people of Assam who alerted the nation about the menace of illegal Bangladeshi migrants in the Eighties but neither the national political clouts nor the mainland intellectuals (including editor-journalists) could understand the hazard that has almost grabbed the resources belonging to the Assamese community.
If the illegal migration issue, which was highlighted by the agitating people of Assam from 1979 to 1985, had been addressed properly, the country would not have faced the crisis today.
Nonetheless, quite an uprising has been observed in the country lately against illegal migrants. Mainstream media outlets are now full of such news and views. Can the political parties irrespective of their status (in the governments or opposition) come together and make a strong decision to identify all illegal citizens and deport them accordingly?
If deportation is not possible immediately for various international obligations, they must be prevented from taking undue advantages including voting rights.
Understanding the grim situation, created by illegal migrants (precisely from Bangladesh) across India, a regional forum of nationalist citizens today urged the Union government to adopt a rock-hard policy to detect and deport all the intruders as early as possible.
The Patriotic People’s Front, Assam (PPFA), in a statement, lamented that successive governments in New Delhi have not understood the real menace of illegal Bangladeshi nationals and it’s time to take pragmatic actions before the native population are uprooted from their own localities.
Questioning how much more degradation New Delhi is waiting for, the northeast India-based forum further asked, “Will anyone listen to it?”
*Senior journalist
