If any evidence is needed that Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani’s call for throwing out all illegal Bangladeshi immigrants may remain an empty threat, it is there in Assam’s official records. The state which is probably the worst affected in the country because of the Bangladeshi influx has been able to expel only 1,501 since the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985.Want an idea of how many may have crept in during the same period? Well, it is also documented. Records show that in those 17 years, Assam has pushed back over 22,500 Bangladeshis as they attempted to cross over.Official records also show that infiltration from Bangladesh and erstwhile East Pakistan has been a problem in the state since Independence. Over three lakh people were deported under the provisions of the Foreigners’ Act from Assam between 1952 and 1984, till the Assam Accord was signed. If 1.74 lakh were deported between 1952 and 1966, over 69,000 were thrown out between 1967 and 1973 and 58,148 between 1973 and 1984. Interestingly, after the state Congress government enacted the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act in 1983, the number of Bangladeshis detected and deported in Assam started coming down.‘‘This itself is enough to prove that the IMDT Act was specifically enacted by the Congress to safeguard the interests of Bangladeshi infiltrators, and that is why we have been constantly demanding repeal of the same,’’ says Brindaban Goswami, president of the opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP).The BJP too has been demanding the same, and it was only last week that party national president M. Venkaiah Naidu urged Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee to take steps to scrap the IMDT Act. ‘‘Illegal and large-scale influx of Bangladeshis into India is not a Hindu-Muslim question, but one that is directly linked to our national unity, security and economy,’’ Naidu said.The Congress regime in Assam, however, is opposed to the idea of scrapping the IMDT Act, which was formulated when the party was in power both in the state and New Delhi. The party feels the Act safeguards Muslims from discrimination and harassment in the name of deporting Bangladeshi immigrants. It is also a fact well known by now that illegal Bangladeshi migrants are today in a commanding position in as many as 36 assembly constituencies of Assam, apart from being in a majority in four of the state’s 23 districts.Assam Governor S.K. Sinha in a report to the President of India in November 1997 had expressed the fear that this ‘‘majority’’ population of the border districts would soon demand merger of these areas with Bangladesh. This, he had warned, would lead to severing of the North-east region from mainland India.
