By Dr. Gyan Pathak
India has been struggling with the issues of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar for years. Most desirable solution is that the illegal immigrants should be sent back to their countries. It is the national perspective. There is nothing wrong in it. However, there are international conventions for such deportation. Those have to be followed. What the Indian home ministry is doing now is to round up any Muslim speaking Bengali language and terming him as Bangladeshi and treating him as a violator of rules or a criminal.
Reports coming from across the country are shocking. Thousands of suspected illegal immigrants from Bangladesh have been rounded up by police across India in recent weeks, many of them were deprived of due legal process, and just pushed into Bangladesh from the borders in Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram. Among them were children, pregnant women, old persons, physically handicapped and ill. For them, there was no food, no medicine, no help. Monsoon made their lives even more difficult. The open sky or the trees and shrubs are only shelters for them. Security forces of Bangladesh are doing the same thing as the India security forces are doing. It’s a great human predicament that needs attention.
More disturbing trend has been reported during the recent deportation drives which targeted Bangla speaking Muslims, and other suspected to be illegal Muslims infiltrators from Bangladesh are demolishing their homes, arbitrary detentions, and even application of force causing physical torture. Many of them have been claiming that they are Indians, but nobody is listening to them. India has also been accused that several suspected illegal migrants have just been thrown into the sea, which the Government of India has refuted.
Nevertheless, to reduce the human guilt among Indian officials and people, the ruling establishment in India has been hiding behind Nationalism as against the Humanism. Ironically, the party that is doing all this in India, the BJP led state governments boast of its philosophy of “Integral Humanism” as per their constitution. Their policies of “Nationalism” and “Integral Humanism” are just contradiction in themselves.
To doubly reduce the human guilt, they use the phrase “Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators” giving communal colour to the issue for political reasons. Hindus are being told that Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators are sabotaging national interests, distorting their culture, grabbing their land, and taking their women as wives. Member of RSS-BJP clan and of those political parties aligning with them have been taking propaganda to such a height that many Hindus, just have become insensitive and inhuman in their feelings towards the human predicaments of the Muslim community in general and Rohingya and Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants in particular. For them humanity has ceased to be a concern, or they have become just inhuman without guilt of inhumanity.
As it has been reported from across the country, Indian Border Security Force has been deporting Muslim citizens at gunpoint to Bangladesh, which makes the entire process an “illegal deportation”. Not only Bangladesh, but also many in India, especially human rights groups, have been accusing Indian government of illegally deporting India Muslims to Bangladesh. India pushing people into Bangladesh, and Bangladesh pushing them back into India at gunpoint, has become the norm.
They accuse Union Ministry of Home on whose direction the states, particularly BJP or NDA ruled states, and UTs have been apprehending Bengali speaking Muslims and branding them as illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators. Human rights groups are accusing that police even refuse to accept the documents such as Aadhaar card, voter identity card, or ration card and saying that they are obtained illegally through corruption or forged. The officials don’t give time to the suspected to legally defend themselves.
It has been reported that 1,880 people were deported from India to Bangladesh between May 7 and July 3, according to Bangladeshi sources. However, the Indian sources put this figure over 2,000.
India has been conducting a nationwide verification exercise since Operation Sindoor from May 7. Intensive verification drives are being conducted in Gujarat, Delhi, Haryana, Assam, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Goa. Rounded up suspected Bangladeshi infiltrators are being sent to Tripura, Meghalaya, and Assam. There they are kept first in makeshift camps, and sometime after being handed over to Border security Force (BSF) for push back into Bangladesh.. In Delhi, the Bengali dominated slum in Vasant Kunj is facing power cuts and the authorities are harassing even those Bengali speaking Muslims who have all the required citizenship documents.
It is alleged that the pushbacks are violating Indian laws, international obligations, and the due process including formal orders, access to legal aid, and verification by Foreigners Tribunals etc. It is alleged that hundreds of people who were pushed backed into Bangladesh were undocumented, and therefore actual number of legally and illegally deported persons are not known. The pace of pushback and deportation has been accelerated in the recent weeks.
Allegations against police and security forces can’t be taken lightly, since in recent weeks several migrants from West Bengal were apprehended and pushed back into Bangladesh as Bangladeshi infiltrators, who have been repatriated after intervention of West Bengal.
Such a way of inhuman and illegal deportation is not acceptable in a civilized society. To remain a civilised society, India must consider the human predicaments of the suspected infiltrators, while taking into consideration our national perspective. There must be balance somewhere between the two. This can be done by adopting humanity first policy before anything else. Deportation of illegal immigrants must be carried under due process of law, ethics, and humanity. (IPA Service)
