Managing the migrants in the Northeast

One does not know the mechanism which the government proposes to follow in identifying illegal migrants. But will it be different from the process that has already failed: using local police investigations and relying on shaky witness accounts?

So how will it work anew? Will government use a combination of land revenue records, voters’ lists, census documents, records of the IMDTs? How many people does the home ministry propose to employ in this national task? Towhat extent will the state governments be included? If Delhi is talking about a figure of 15 to 18 million “illegals”, then where are the personnel to carry out this specific task?

There are, according to some estimates, more than 10 lakh illegal migrants in Assam. That is five percent of the total population of the state. They are not concentrated in one area but spread across the Assam and Barak valleys. How is this group to be detected without charges of bias and discrimination being levelled?

The answers to the problems of the Northeast lie with the people of the Northeast. Would it cost the ministry such a great deal of time and energy if it were to talk with specialists in the field rather than some politicians?

My concept of the work permit is as a regulatory mechanism, not a system which legalises their stay. There is not going to be any real detection, and certainly no deportation of those detected. The cut-off dates that are parroted about pre-1951 or 1961 or 1971 are meaningless.

Why?because the Indian state lacks the capacity for the swift decisive action that some seek, and the Assam government certainly has other priorities. If this process of detection is to work, let it work according to law and not arbitrarily, to prove a point.

Could things be simplified by declaring an amnesty for those who have come illegally but saying they must openly acknowledge their present illegality if they are to qualify for citizenship? I do not think there will be a huge response but it will give an idea of the size of the problem because as of now all we have are crude estimates.

We must make it attractive for legal work-related migration, controlled by applications to Bangladesh border district officials which pass on numbers and names to their Indian counterparts. Employers can be invited to absorb employees in batches of not less than 20. Each work permit will be to a group and not individual to start with until the system is streamlined. And there should be work permit quotas.

But thisprocess makes one thing clear: work permits – yes, but no settlement, no vote. This is the only way of protecting the political rights of the indigenous people of the Assam valley. There is a question about whether people can be struck from voting lists yet allowed to work indefinitely?

Work-related migration should be limited to three labour-intensive occupations: agricultural operations, fishing and river-related work such as boat building and road and building construction. The incentives to legal migration are that, through a bilateral process, they should be able to repatriate funds to Bangladesh and are assured of working without threats or intimidation.

Placement will not mean settlement: they will not be allowed to work in these areas for more than two years. In this period, they should report twice a year to the local police station. And their employer will be made criminally liable should any of the migrant labourers “vanish.”