If there were no Bangladeshis in West Bengal, why would the Trinamool Congress engage Bangladeshi actor Ferdous to campaign for its Lok Sabha candidate from Raiganj in North Dinajpur district in April 2019?

With such a large percentage of Muslims in border towns it might be difficult to ascertain whether one is in West Bengal or Bangladesh. This facilitates cow smuggling, which according to a 2012 report in The Daily Star (Dhaka) is worth $500 million per annum. Those who oppose could be killed. For example, a BSF man near the border, according to this September 2017 Times of India report datelined Barasat and another BSF jawan in 2011, according to this report in The Telegraph.

Was Not The Problem Arising From Infiltration Highlighted Earlier?

It has been highlighted for decades but vote bank politics and secularism overruled national interest.

Upadhyay wrote: “BK Nehru, the Governor of Assam between 1968 and 1973, condemned the infiltration as vote bank politics by the Congress” (Pioneer, 15 September, 2005).”

As mentioned before, former governor of Assam, Lt Gen S K Sinha, sent a report on illegal migration into Assam to the President of India in 1998.

Writing in the Indian Express, Arun Shourie said: “As early as in 1996, the present Governor of Uttar Pradesh, TV Rajeswar, had forecast the rise of a ''third Islamic State'' in the sub-continent. Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants into parts of Assam and North Bengal, he wrote, pose a grave danger to national as well as regional security.”

In 2005, Mamata Banerjee had said in the Lok Sabha that, “infiltration into Bengal has become a disaster” and “Bangladeshi nationals were on the voting list.”

Does Infiltration Impact Law And Order And Indian Culture In Any Way?

Yes. Appointed in 2017, a committee headed by former Chief Election Commissioner H S Brahma said: “The identity of as many as 18 Xatras in Assam - a Vaishnavite monastery, which are cultural hubs in Assam - is under threat, following large-scale encroachment by illegal Bangladeshi migrants.”

Kaushik also wrote: “Take, for instance, Hatigaon area in Guwahati. Surrounded by Bangla-speaking immigrants, Hatigaon records the highest number of thefts and robbery in the city. Often, the perpetrators are traced to Chars - sandbars of the Brahmaputra river - in lower Assam, which are largely the settlements of immigrants from Bangladesh. This doesn’t, however, mean that all Chars are a hub of criminals.”

They have contributed to crime in West Bengal. Bangladeshis were convicted in the 2014 Burdwan blasts case. In 2015, a 71-year-old nun was raped in West Bengal. A local court held a Bangladeshi citizen guilty of raping her.

Vicky Nanjappa wrote in Rediff.com in 2012, “T Nasir, an accused in the serial blasts in Bengaluru, had told his interrogators that he had managed to cross the Indo-Bangladesh border with much ease.” An officer in Kochi told rediff.com that the influx into Kerala is rising steadily. “We have carried out many arrests in the past couple of years. They come down from north-eastern states and from northern India through Karnataka and make their way into Kerala. In Kerala, it has however been found that these persons do not come in search of jobs, but for illegal activities. During investigation, some were found to be in possession of fake currency while others had drugs on them. We strongly suspect that terrorists are using these persons to undertake ground work and also to help pass on funds for such operations.”

“The problem has been biggest in Thrissur and Ernakulam districts, where these persons enter and take up jobs in small scale industries,” he says. Is this problem because the percentage of Hindus in Thrissur is 58.42 per cent (Muslims 17.42 per cent) and in Ernakulam 49.99 per cent (Muslims 15.67 per cent) as per the 2011 census.

So How Do Bangladeshis Enter India?

Many ways, here are some.

Indrani Ray wrote in Rediff.com in 2014, “Taki in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district is the last Indian outpost on the border with Bangladesh. It is one of the hotspots for Bangladeshi infiltration into India. It is alleged that in 2011, more than 100,000 Bangladeshis had sneaked into India on Dashami (the last day of Durga Puja) amid the milieu of bisarjan (immersion) on the India, Bangladesh banks of the Icchamati.”

According to this 2014 India Today report, a tout is quoted as saying: “Earlier, immigrants had to pay Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 per person for each document in West Bengal. We now charge anywhere between Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 per document per person.”

According to this Assam Tribune report, “touts exist on both sides of the Meghalaya border. For a fee of Rs 1,000-1,500 per person, touts help Bangladeshis cross over at a vulnerable portion of the border.”

Many times Bangladeshis enter India on valid documents and stay back. According to this 2012 Assam Tribune report, 80,000 Bangladeshis went missing in three years.

Just one example of how easy it is to cross over from Bangladesh into Assam. The town of Karimganj is separated from the rest of Sylhet in Bangladesh by the river Kushiyara, which at this point is about 100-150 metres wide at the maximum. In fact, one road next to the river is one of the poshest areas of the town. At night, anyone can just take a boat from Bangladesh and come over. And the dialect (Sylheti) is the same on both sides of the river (except for very minor variations, which can be easily taken care of. Example: Hindus say “jal” for water, and Muslims say “paani”). So you just merge into the population.

Is It Possible To Show That Population Growth In Bangladesh Proves Infiltration Into India?

At the outset I had stated that leading intellectuals in Bangladesh have made a case for ‘lebensraum’ (living space), and so the export of population is a distinct possibility.

This 2011 India Today article states, “A United Nations review says that Bangladesh should have had a population of 118 million in 1991, but the National Census reported only 108 million citizens. According to Bangladesh's Census Report, the country had a population growth of over 2.4 per cent. It saw a decrease of more than six million voters within four years in the 1995 electoral rolls. These missing voters and the increased number of voters during this period, plus a disfranchised 20 lakh voters have infiltrated into India, says Dr Buddhadeb Ghosh, programme coordinator, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.”

How Does Infiltration Help?

Bangladeshis change demographics, are a dedicated vote bank and provide relatively cheap labour.

Considering that Bangladeshis are found virtually all over India it would reasonable to assume that their entry and place of settlement is taking place in an organised manner just as the Rohingyas reached Jammu, Mewat, Hyderabad and New Delhi from the West Bengal border.

Sunanda K Datta-Ray shared insights in the Business Standard in 2015: “My sister, a qualified gynaecologist, who used to head the Red Cross in Hyderabad, told me several decades ago of Muslim women in bustees and villages rejecting her family planning campaign with the blunt retort that she should address only the more numerous Hindu community until the two groups had reached numerical parity. Perhaps illegal immigration from Bangladesh helps!”

Some argue that if Nepalis are allowed why not Bangladeshis? The 1950 India-Nepal Friendship Treaty allows Nepalis to work and stay in India. India has no such treaty with Bangladesh.

But why do Muslims wish to increase their population in India this way?

The answer lies in what former foreign secretary J N Dixit wrote in Anatomy of a Flawed Inheritance, “The partition of the sub-continent, in a manner, has its roots in Islamic ethos. It goes back to the Prophet’s journey from Mecca to Madina in 622 AD in the face of persecution and harassment, known as Hezira. The concept of Hezira is generally acknowledged as a norm, to the effect that Muslims do not live in tyranny or oppression from peoples of other faiths. They must remake their lives in order to practice their faith. Where Islam is not dominant, it is Dar-ul-Harb. It is necessary to move to Dar-ul-Islam. This was the sub-conscious logic underpinning the demand for Pakistan by Chaudhury Rahmat Ali of Cambridge, later on endorsed by Allama Iqbal and concretised by Jinnah.”

It is because Dr B R Ambedkar understood this that he said that the only way to make Hindustan a composite state is to arrange for an exchange of population.

Therefore, is the intent to make Assam and West Bengal Dar-ul-Islam or are the high fertility rates of Muslims due to high illiteracy rates, as claimed by former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi in 2012?

Note that in Buddhist majority countries such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand, Muslims are in conflict with the Buddhists.

India Is A Secular Country, So What If Population Of Muslims Increases?

Let us look at Afghanistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province), Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kashmir Valley and West Bengal, where Muslims dominate today.

Raghavendra Singh wrote in India’s Lost Frontier, “In the 7th century, the kingdoms of Kabul and Zabul were politically and culturally part of India, being Indian in language, literature and religion. It was not until 870 AD that both Kabul and Zabul were conquered by Yakub-ibn-Layth, founder of the Saffarid dynasty who ultimately became the ruler of Persia. Kabul may have regained independence to form part of the Hindu Shahaiya kingdom. The two kingdoms carried out a heroic resistance against the Arab for more than two hundred years before they ceased to belong to India either politically or culturally.”

The region became Muslim majority. See the condition of Afghanistan today.

Another example is the North West Frontier Province period before 1947. Since Muslims were in a majority, Hindus were expelled, or there was a voluntary exodus from the tribal territory without parallel.

Dr Ambedkar wrote in Thoughts on Pakistan about Hindus of Khyber Pakhtunkwa. In Kohat, Khyber Pakhtunkwa, Hindus had to evacuate the city during the riots of 1924 (Pg 160). In 1927, the Afridis and Shinwaris were called upon to expel all the Hindus living in the neighbourhood of the Khyber Pass (Pg 166). The Muslim League used Islam to arouse fears in the tribal people such that the referendum in North West Frontier Province in 1947 went in their favour.

Post-Afghanistan, another part of India became Muslim majority Pakistan. Be it 9/11/ or 26/11, it is the source. It “provides home to 130 UN-designated terrorists and 25 terror entities listed by the United Nations.”

Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament Derek O’Brien’s story tells you the state of non-Muslims in Pakistan. He visited his cousins in Karachi in 1984 only to find they had converted to Islam because the pressure of being a non-Muslim in Pakistan was too much. (Source: India Today). This 2019 New York Times article speaks about the hard times Pakistani Hindus face.

Let us now move to the Muslim majority Bangladesh. The population of followers of Indian religions has continuously fallen and symbolises their plight. It was 23 per cent in 1951, 14 per cent in 1974, 11 per cent in 1991, 10 per cent in 2001 and 9.3 per cent in 2011. Due to continued discrimination and harassment, very large numbers of Bengali Hindus and Buddhist Chakmas have fled to India.

Atrocities against Hindus and attacks on temples in Bangladesh are common. This, for example, is a 2016 New York Times report. In smaller cities and towns (not so much in Dhaka), harassment is a part of daily life. Married Hindu women take care not to wear sindoor in their hair or wear the mangalsutra or shakha (a bracelet that is the Bengali symbol of marriage) in public.

Hindus and Buddhists in India’s Muslim majority state of Jammu and Kashmir are victims of discrimination and violence that does not need elaboration.

Last month, an India Today report said in its headline: “300 Hindu families unable to perform Durga puja in Bengal's Kanglapahari village after opposition by 25 Muslim families.”

The conclusion points in one direction: When Muslims become dominant in an area or region, it becomes difficult for non-Muslims to live normal lives. This is not about all Muslims, but we cannot ignore the larger realities.

Maharshi Aurobindo said in 1940, “The Mahomedans, they want to rule India”. Strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney wrote in Hindustan Times, “Pakistan will not stop nurturing terrorists as a force multiplier in its low-intensity asymmetric war, whose ultimate goal supposedly is Ghazwa-e-Hind, or the holy conquest of India.”

Another aspect that has got missed is that north-eastern India is central to India’s security. These states share borders with Myanmar, China, Bhutan and Bangladesh and are India’s gateway to south-east Asia. The region is fertile and rich in natural resources like oil. It is an amazing combination of culture, language and dress and an example of ‘unity in diversity’. Changed demographics, because of immigration from Bangladesh, will affect India adversely.

Why Must India Prevent Illegal Infiltration Of Muslims?

India is the only home of Indic religions and faith systems comprising Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh traditions. These traditions survive because India continues to be dominated by them in most areas. An increase in Muslim populations due to infiltration will change this because of the inherent nature of Islam, as outlined by Dixit above.

Maharishi Aurobindo said 1909, “When it is said that India shall be great, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall be great.”

India was divided on the basis of religion in 1947. Muslims who chose to stay in Pakistan (East and West) cannot return to India just because it offers better opportunities than the home country their forefathers chose to live in.

Bangladeshi infiltration is a national problem that successive governments have contributed to and allowed to accumulate for decades. It has numerous dimensions and requires an integrated approach that can only be taken by a democratically-elected government. Courts should not add to its complexity by getting involved. They have done so by allowing Rohingyas to stay in India. An NRC in any one state is of little consequence because Bangladeshis are present virtually all across India.

In its obsession with Pakistan and the need to secure support from a Muslim majority nation in this fight, India has ignored the dangers from non-stop illegal immigration from Bangladesh.