Immigration Issue in Assam and Conflicts Around It

This art icle was downloaded by: [ Chandan Kum ar Sharm a] On: 12 June 2012, At : 02: 27 Publisher: Rout ledge I nform a Lt d Regist ered in England and Wales Regist ered Num ber: 1072954 Regist ered office: Mort im er House, 37- 41 Mort im er St reet , London W1T 3JH, UK Asian Ethnicity Publicat ion det ails, including inst ruct ions for aut hors and subscript ion informat ion: ht t p:/ / www.t andfonline.com/ loi/ caet 20 The immigration issue in Assam and conflicts around it Chandan Kumar Sharma a a Depart ment of Sociology, Tezpur Universit y, Assam, India Available online: 18 Apr 2012 To cite this article: Chandan Kumar Sharma (2012): The immigrat ion issue in Assam and conflict s around it , Asian Et hnicit y, 13:3, 287-309 To link to this article: ht t p:/ / dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/ 14631369.2012.676235 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTI CLE Full t erm s and condit ions of use: ht t p: / / www.t andfonline.com / page/ t erm s- andcondit ions This art icle m ay be used for research, t eaching, and privat e st udy purposes. Any subst ant ial or syst em at ic reproduct ion, redist ribut ion, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, syst em at ic supply, or dist ribut ion in any form t o anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warrant y express or im plied or m ake any represent at ion t hat t he cont ent s will be com plet e or accurat e or up t o dat e. The accuracy of any inst ruct ions, form ulae, and drug doses should be independent ly verified wit h prim ary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, act ions, claim s, proceedings, dem and, or cost s or dam ages what soever or howsoever caused arising direct ly or indirect ly in connect ion wit h or arising out of t he use of t his m at erial. Asian Ethnicity Vol. 13, No. 3, June 2012, 287–309 The immigration issue in Assam and conflicts around it Chandan Kumar Sharma* Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Department of Sociology, Tezpur University, Assam, India Assam, the northeastern state of India, has experienced strong anti-outsider sentiment for more than half a century now. What makes the Assam case unique is that it has faced both internal as well as illegal international migration in massive scales giving rise to intense existential fear and apprehension among its smaller indigenous communities. Their lack of the required political authority and the indifferent attitude of the Indian Union government in addressing the issue have only multiplied its magnitude. The article explicates the politico-economic dynamics of the immigration issue in Assam and the social tension and conflicts around it in a historical perspective and suggests that a multi-pronged approach backed by strong political will is imperative to negotiate the challenges of immigration in the state in an effective manner. Keywords: Assamese; Bangladesh; indigenous; immigrants; northeast Introduction Assam, the northeastern state of India, represents a uniquely diverse demographic entity. Migration of groups belonging to different ethnic background to Assam has been a phenomenon since antiquity. The natives of Assam had been generally known as amiable to outsiders. However, later on, more specifically during the colonial period in the nineteenth century, the local elites aired an articulated form of antioutsider sentiment for the first time. It was a time which witnessed, first, the emergence of the Assamese nationalism and second, an unprecedented large scale immigration of various groups to the state within a short period of time. Since the late 1920s, the Assamese sentiment against immigration assumed a more crystallized form and in the post-independence period the issue gradually became one of the most potent political issues in the state leading to perennial tension, and also, sporadic violence and bloodshed. This article explicates the historical background of immigration of various groups since the advent of colonialism as well as their position and significance in the socio-political discourse of the state of Assam. It analyses the diverse nature of their relationship with the indigenous groups and the source of the conflict between them. Finally, the article emphasises the urgency of a multi-pronged approach to address the indigenous-immigrant conflict in Assam in a sustainable way. *Email: kumarsharma.chandan@gmail.com ISSN 1463-1369 print/ISSN 1469-2953 online Ó 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2012.676235 http://www.tandfonline.com 288 C.K. Sharma Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Contextualising immigrants in Assam At this stage, some clarifications are warranted. Firstly, Assam has been a recipient of both legal as well illegal immigrants over the years. After the partition of India in 1947, the immigrants from erstwhile East Bengal, who in the preceding decades came to Assam in large numbers, became illegal immigrants as their migration continued unabated. Another foreign country that supplies a significant number of immigrants to Assam is Nepal. Though the Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship 1950 allows free movement of Nepali citizens in India there have been occasional controversies about the status of the Nepali immigrants not only in Assam but also, and more so, in several other neighbouring states. Secondly, the Assamese public response has not been identical with respect to the various immigrant groups. While the response has been one of indifference in case of some immigrant groups it has been that of stiff resistance in case of others. Thirdly, neither all the indigenous groups nor all strata within them are in unison in their response to the issue of immigration. The indigenous-immigrant relationship is predicated on a variety of factors including the demographic strength of an immigrant community, its culture, nature of economic engagement, extent of political influence, and so on. Fourthly, the immigration issue in Assam is generally centred round the apprehensions of the Assamese community, which is the single largest indigenous ethnic group in the state. This is perhaps natural as the latter’s majority status within the indigenous groups in Assam makes it the main mouthpiece of the concerns and anxieties of other indigenous communities. Finally, defining an ‘immigrant’ or an ‘indigenous’ community in fixed terms in a demographically fluid zone like Assam is a complicated exercise. The ‘indigeneity’ of a community has become a much contested issue in Assam in recent times.1 Nevertheless, in this article, the category of ‘immigrant’ is used to imply those groups that came to Assam after the advent of the British colonialism in the nineteenth century. Though there are many immigrants groups in Assam, this article will discuss only those groups which are conspicuously visible either by their sheer numbers or by their influence in the socio-political life of the state, or both. Immigration in ancient and medieval times The first historically documented migration to the Brahmaputra valley is dated back to the early first millennium. The newly emerging state formations in the valley, overwhelmingly dominated by the Mongoloid and Austro-mongoloid people, who themselves had been migrants to the region at an early stage, gave full patronage to these migrants who were mainly upper caste Hindus. This resulted in significant Aryan migration from northern and eastern India. The migrants included people with knowledge in advanced methods of agriculture, experts in revenue administration and priests. Their services proved crucial for the local ruling classes and the sophistication of the state machinery. Many of the migrants entered into marital ties 1 The issue stems from the fact that the All Assam Students Union in mid-2006 demanded a quick implementation of the Clause 6 of the Assam Accord of 1985 which promises that ‘constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards . . . shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people’. Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Asian Ethnicity 289 with the local population. They also steered the process of detribalisation/ Hinduisation in the region at the behest of the ruling classes among the local population and thereby paved the way for the formation of the broad-based Assamese identity.2 Though land for settled agriculture in Assam is basically confined to the narrow strip of the Brahmaputra Valley, land scarcity was not a serious issue in Assam till the mid twentieth century. This allowed the ruling states in the medieval Assam to encourage peasant settlement, including of those from outside the Valley, in the large areas of fallow lands. However, the bloody and protracted peasant upsurges, known as the Moamoria upsurges,3 against a repressive Ahom state in the latter half of the eighteenth century culminated in the death of a huge number of people in the valley. Many left their homes for fear of persecution. About one half of the population of the Ahom kingdom perished.4 The subsequent Burmese incursions on a ruined Ahom state and their occupation of a large part of the Assam Valley during 1817–24 also contributed to this process of depopulation and displacement almost throughout the Brahmaputra valley. Immigration in the colonial era and after Thus when the British annexed Assam in 1826 they found a land that was largely unpopulated. Major Butler who served in the state for 14 years during 1837–51 gave an account of the contemporary Assam describing its landscape with expressions such as ‘uninhabited, dense tree and grass jungle’.5 Nevertheless, introduction and expansion of the colonial dispensation in Assam gradually transformed the demographic scenario in the state. The colonial administrative machinery created a demand for a significant number of trained manpower which was not available within the indigenous population of Assam. Around the same time, large-scale commercial production of tea started in Assam. Oil and coal were also discovered. Timber in the Assam forests was another economic resource that attracted the colonialists. These emerging enterprises required manpower not only directly for themselves but also for creating various infrastructural facilities like roads, bridges, railways, and of course, houses. This led the colonialists to look for such manpower from outside the state. The Babus: Hindu Bengalis One of the first people encouraged to come to Assam by the colonialists were the Bengali Hindu babus from the neighbouring East Bengal. As indicated above, the British established an administrative system in Assam that was radically different from the erstwhile Ahom administrative system. As Weiner writes, [E]arly in their administration, the British sought to make use of high-ranking officials from the Ahom government . . . But these officials did not fit into the Anglo-Mughal administrative structure created by the British in Assam. They had never kept written 2 Gohain, Asamiya Jatiya Jibanot Mahapurushiya Parampara, 11–13, 16. See e.g. Gohain, ‘Moamoria bidroh aru ahom rashtrar sankat’, 45–65; Guha, Medieval and Early Colonial Assam: Society, Polity, Economy. 4 Guha, Medieval and Early Colonial Assam, 122. 5 Butler, Travels and Adventures in the Province of Assam, 22. 3 290 C.K. Sharma Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 records; even judicial proceedings were conducted without recording the statements of witnesses, complainants, or defendants. Moreover, the new administrative offices and titles created by the British, such as tahsildar or district revenue collector, were not based on indigenous Ahom administrative structures, but were adapted from British governance in Bengal. It was no wonder, therefore, that the British increasingly imported trained Bengali officers to work in Assam.6 The Bengali officers thus came to occupy the petty clerical and supervisory positions (referred to as babus) in the government offices, courts, and later on in the emerging tea plantations. In 1836, the colonial administration replaced Assamese with Bengali as the official language of Assam. The nascent Assamese middle class had already felt marginalised and disgruntled by the growing number of the East Bengali immigrants. The dislodgement of the Assamese as the official language of the state added fuel to the fire.7 That was the first immigrant-Assamese conflict in Assam. In 1852, Maniram Dewan, the first Assamese/Indian tea planter and a representative of the Assamese aristocracy, complained in his petition to A. J. Moffat Mills that [U]nder the revenue settlement of Military officers, while a number of respectable Assamese are out of employ, the inhabitants of Marwar and Bengalees from Sylhet have been appointed to Mouzadarships; and for us respectable Assamese to become ryots of such foreigners is a source of deep mortification.8 Though the issue here essentially was of colonial jobs for the emerging Assamese educated class, it was the issue of language that came to occupy the centre stage in the above conflict. The ‘Bengali conspiracy’ theory in dislodging the Assamese from its rightful place gained strong ground among the contemporary Assamese intelligentsia. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to contend that the struggle of the latter, indeed in collaboration with the American Baptist missionaries, indeed not merely succeeded in reinstating the status of Assamese as the official language of the state in 1873 but also in founding the basis of the language-centric identity of the modern Assamese nationality. It is, however, interesting to note that the contemporary Assamese elites had close links with Calcutta. A number of Assamese young men had married into respectable Bengali families. Similarly, young women from elite Assamese families were married off to Bengali young men. Many educated Assamese young men settled in Calcutta. Assamese elites of the time such as Gunabhiram Barua and Boli Narayan Borah who held senior positions in the colonial administration openly advocated for the immigration of Bengali population to Assam. Baruah, who was an Extra Assistant Commissioner as well as the editor of the journal Assam 6 Weiner, Sons of the Soil, Migration and Ethnic Conflict in India, 92. The contemporary Assamese intelligentsia straightway held the conspiracy of the Bengali clerical staff in the colonial establishment responsible for this. This is the dominant Assamese nationalist view even today. Later scholars have described this view as rather naı̈ve. (Gohain, Assam: A Burning Question, 174, 178) Though some role of the babus in the matter cannot be altogether discounted, the colonialists must have favoured Bengali as the official language because the overwhelming section of the manpower in the government offices was Bengalispeaking immigrants. 8 Marwar is a district of the western Indian province of Rajasthan; A Mouzadar was a revenue official in charge of a revenue unit called mouza which comprised of several villages. He was appointed by the British administration from locally influential families. Quotation from Moffat Mills, Report on the Province of Assam, 607. 7 Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Asian Ethnicity 291 Bandhu,9 commented in an article titled ‘Bengali’ that appeared there that the Assamese people should forsake their contempt for the Bengalis. He argued that the more the educated Bengalis came to Assam and our people went out the more broadminded the Assamese would become and would find the Bengalis as brothers.10 Borah, a senior officer in the colonial engineering service, was an unabashed advocate for the acceptance of Bengali language by the Assamese people. He, too, strongly supported the immigration of Bengalis into Assam.11 In fact, the contemporary Assamese intelligentsia in general were exposed to Bengali culture and literature and greatly influenced by it, which gradually spread to other educated or even semi-educated Assamese. Though this influence has somewhat declined today, the influence of Bengali intellectual discourse in Assamese social life cannot yet be undermined. Nevertheless, Baruah puts the conflict of the Assamese with the Hindu Bengalis in perspective when he says that ‘historically the immigration of Bengali Hindus – mostly to urban areas and to jobs in the modern sector – has been a more persistent source of conflict in Assam than the Muslim peasant migration from East Bengal’.12 Weiner also notes that by the early part of the twentieth century, Bengali Hindus in Assam were preponderant in the medical, legal, and teaching professions. Many of them also occupied clerical and official positions in the railways and the postal services.13 Here one may add that they also constituted a significant section of the office and medical staff in the tea plantations of the state. However, having noted this, one also has to recognise that unlike the Muslim peasant immigrants, the Hindu Bengali immigrants, who have very significant presence in Assam, have always been viewed by the language-centric Assamese nationalist discourse as a threat to their language and culture as well as competitors in the job market. Besides, unlike their Muslim counterparts, the Hindu Bengali immigrants have never shown a similar proclivity to accept Assamese language and culture. It was the Hindu immigrants again who spearheaded the campaign to oppose the Assamese language becoming the sole official language of Assam. As a result, Bengali was recognised as the official language of the Bengali-dominated erstwhile undivided district of Cachar in the Barak valley. The ‘official language movement’ of 1960 and the ‘medium movement’ of 1972 were movements to establish the hegemony of the Assamese language which were permeated by a strong anti-Bengali sentiment. During the Anti-foreigners movement (1979–85), and even after that, the ‘Bengali conspiracy’ has remained one of the most favourite theories of the Assamese nationalist leaders to explain various economic and political wedge locks and to whip up nationalist passions. The Assamese popular impression that the Hindu Bengalis of Assam have been more concerned with the affairs of the neighbouring West Bengal than that of their own state has also been a forceful issue for anti-Bengali forces of the Brahmaputra valley. 9 Assam Bandhu, a monthly journal, was brought out by Gunabhiram Barua from 1885 to 1886. 10 Sarma, Mou, 95–100. 11 Ibid., 113. 12 Baruah, India Against Itself, 58. 13 Weiner, Sons of the Soil, 93. 292 C.K. Sharma Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Plantation workers: tribals from Chhotanagpur It is, however, the ‘discovery’ of tea and the establishment of tea plantations by the British colonialists that resulted in a huge transformation in the demographic as well as the overall social landscape of Assam. Even before Assam was merged into the British India, the colonial officials observed the possibilities of tea plantation in the province and this possibility was confirmed in 1831 when the existence of tea plant was ‘discovered’ in Assam jungles. In 1834, the First Tea Committee was formed and the first tea plantation was launched in 1837.14 Tea plantation being a highly labour intensive enterprise, the growing plantation industry in Assam necessitated a huge labour pool. Though the British planters in full connivance of the colonial administration made all efforts to engage the native tribal as well as non-tribal peasantry as labourers in the plantations, the repressive environment prevailing in the tea gardens failed to lure the natives. This led the colonial administration to import the Chinese labourers to serve as plantation workers.15 However, when this also proved unsustainable, the planters turned their attention from 1840 onwards to the various tribal and marginalised caste populations from mainly the Chhotanagpur region spanning over the states of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Most of these labourers thus imported settled in Assam after the expiry of their contract period. Known as ex-tea garden labourers, they settled in the lands neighbouring the plantations and became peasants. They also continued as seasonal labourers in the plantations. The import of plantation labour continued till 1960, when it was found that the population of the plantation workers settled in the state became large enough to cater to the demand of plantation work force. These workers were brought to Assam under contracts to serve in the tea plantations for a period of five years, after which they had the option to return to their places of origin. However, the dismal communication system of the province stood in their way of return to their native places. The magnitude of the import of the tea labourers was such that the 1921 census estimated the population of the tea labourers and their descendent at over 1.3 million; one-sixth of the population of the province. A scholar puts the total number of population of these workers at 3.4 million in 1981.16 Despite their internal differences they are today referred to as a single community with the nomenclatures like ‘Chah Janajati’, ‘Adivasi’, ‘Jharkhandi Adivasi’, etc.17 The socioeconomic condition of this community is most deplorable and has been a cause for their further exploitation. For years after independence, the leading political parties, especially the Congress party, have been using them as ‘vote banks’ for electoral politics. It is significant that most of the members of this community have shown propensity to identify with the larger Assamese society. However, in recent times, a section of them has demonstrated a tendency to assert their separate identity. Besides, they are also demanding the Scheduled Tribe status.18 Government’s 14 Phukan, The Ex-Tea Garden Labour Population in Assam, 2. China already had its tea plantations and enjoyed monopoly over global tea trade. 16 Cited in Baruah, India Against Itself, 54. 17 It has become a contentious issue in recent times as to how these people should be addressed. None of these nomenclatures are universally accepted. 18 The Indian Constitution (Article 342) designates some socially backward groups within Indian society as ‘tribes’ on the basis of certain yardsticks which entails certain preferential treatment by the state in matters of education, employment and political representation. 15 Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Asian Ethnicity 293 dilly-dallying tactics on this issue has only contributed to the rising ire within this community. In so far as the identity of the tea garden workers is concerned, they hailed from heterogeneous background. Firstly, they came from different geographical regions. Secondly, a section of them hailed from non-tribal communities (e.g., the Kurmis, Telis, Tantis, etc.), too. Thirdly, the Santhals of western Assam came to Assam not as plantation workers. The Santhals, belonging to the Santhal Pargana region of the erstwhile Bengal Presidency, were settled in the area by the colonial administration after the Santhal rebellion of 1855. As an immigrant community the tea garden workers did not come to Assam on of their own accord. The colonial regime brought them under most repressive conditions. It is also interesting that the Assamese middle-class nationalist leadership did not raise any hue and cry about the large scale import of the plantation workers to Assam. This might be attributed to the fact that though the plantation economy seriously affected the Assamese peasant economy, the foundation of the emerging Assamese middle class, however, depended mainly on the employment opportunities generated by the expanding colonial administrative machinery as well as the plantation economy. A section of the old Assamese aristocracy also turned planters. Though they were small in number, they were by far the most vocal section of the Assamese society. What is interesting, on the other hand, is that even during the colonial period, barring a few with stakes in the colonial regime, most of the Assamese intelligentsia expressed empathy with the condition of the plantation workers.19 It is a different matter that their concerns never got translated into an agenda of social transformation. Later on, toward the 1920s and 1930s, young Assamese Congressmen such as Chandradhar Sarma, Omeo Kumar Das, Bijay Bhagwati, etc., had engaged themselves in a struggle to bring about humane conditions of work for the tea plantation workers which, despite many inadequacies, culminated in the Plantations Labour Act 1951. Despite the fact that the colonial regime did not allow any social interaction of the tea garden workers with the society outside plantations till 1951, the Assamese people accepted them and their culture as an integral part of the broad cultural spectrum of the state. However, though the mainstream Assamese society and the tea tribes have been enjoying a cordial relationship and the villages of ex-tea garden workers are mostly located near Assamese villages, of late there has been some tension in their relationship on the issue of granting Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to this community. However, in that context, the Bodo-Adivasi conflict in the Kokrajhar area in the mid-1990s has been one of the most violent ethnic conflicts the state has ever seen.20 Though most of the Adivasis had been brought there not as plantation workers, as However, the practice of designating a community as ST has now become highly politicised with increasing number of communities raising demand for the ST status. This phenomenon has generated a lot of inter-community discord in contemporary Assam. 19 In this connection, the famous debate between Lakshminath Bezbaroah and Boli Narayan Bora in the periodical Mou as far back as in 1887 may be mentioned. Bezbaroah, the doyen of modern Assamese literature strongly opposed Bora’s view that the condition of the plantation workers (referred to as Coolies) were quite all right in the plantations (Sarma, Mou, 77–88). 20 The Adivasis are the Santhal settlers of western Assam while the Bodos are an indigenous plains tribe of Assam. The Bodos launched a mass movement in late 1980s demanding a separate ’Bodoland’ state. Kokrahjar has been the nerve centre of Bodo identity politics. 294 C.K. Sharma Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 mentioned above, a section of them eventually also joined the few tea plantations coming up in the area. However, there was no history of Bodo-Adivasi conflict in the area till the early 1990s. In fact, even during the initial phase of the Bodoland movement in the late 1980s, no sign of such a conflict was traced. But as the exclusivist tendencies in the movement intensified and a tendency towards imposition of Bodo domination became stronger especially after the signing of the Bodo Accord of February 1993 paving the way for the formation of a Bodo Autonomous Council,21 the Adivasis began putting resistance against such tendencies. The relationship between the two communities gradually worsened culminating in the ethnic carnage of 1996–97 which resulted in the deaths of several hundreds of people. Many others had become homeless from both the communities and still living in refugee camps in sub-human conditions. The trade merchants: the Marwaris Another group of immigrants that came to Assam in the early part of the colonial rule were the Marwaris (‘inhabitants of Marwar’). Known all over India as an astute business community, some Marwari traders were already engaged in trade and commerce in western Assam sharing border with Bengal even prior to the establishment of the colonial rule in Assam. They came to Assam and in the absence of any local competition soon monopolised the trade and commerce in the state and the region. The intensity of their migration increased with the launching of tea plantations. They set up grocery shops (golas, which also means go-downs) around plantations and became not only suppliers of rations to the plantations but also turned usurers, lending money to the local population against mortgage. They gradually moved even toward the interior villages and set up shops there. Even today, these golas are the hub of economic activities in many villages of Assam. It is worthwhile to mention that when the British came to Assam the state was yet to be adequately introduced to a cash economy. However, the British introduced a new land revenue policy in the state which was cash based. It acutely affected the indigenous peasantry of the state who found it extremely difficult to meet the demands of an exacting colonial revenue policy. Besides, the frequent steep rise of agricultural tax by the colonial regime intended at driving out the peasants from agriculture to tea plantations as labourers also aggravated the problems of the peasants. This compelled them to take loans from the Marwari usurers. The local peasantry of Assam was, however, not in a position to repay the debt and thus entered into a debt trap. The tribal peasantry suffered more acutely in this process. Gradually the Marwaris expanded their interest to opium trade too and made huge profit. In short, the Marwari traders wielded huge influence on the Assamese peasant economy. This influence persisted, indeed much increased, despite the Marwaris being a relatively smaller community in Assam. Even today, they have an almost monopoly control over trade and commerce in the state. A cursory observation of the trade centres in various towns of Assam would testify to this. The presence of golas in the villages throughout Assam shows their stronghold over trade and commerce even today. 21 The Bodo Autonomous Council was later upgraded to a Bodoland Autonomous Territorial District with more autonomy and power. Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Asian Ethnicity 295 Although anti-Marwari sentiment was echoed in the petition of Maniram Dewan to Moffat Mills and some resentment against the community was building up among the indigenous people, no violent anti-Marwari action was witnessed till 1960. However, since then, the anti-Marwari sentiments have come to occupy a significant space in the Assamese nationalist discourse. The antagonism against the Marwaris in 1960 was set off by the perception that they misused their control over the wholesale food market to trigger an artificial shortage of food items to make illegal profits. During 1964–66 the whole of India was reeling under a severe food crisis and there were popular protest movements against the prevailing situation all over the country. In 1965, protests began in Assam too. In 1966, the All Assam Students Union (AASU) led an anti-Marwari movement when many food go-downs owned by Marwari businessmen especially in urban centres throughout the Brahmaputra valley were searched and ransacked. The anti-Marwari emotion continued to feed the Assamese nationalist discourse after this. On 26 January 1968, several thousand demonstrators led by Lachit Sena, a militant outfit of the Assamese youth (formed in 1967) marched from Judges’ Field, the centre of Assam’s capital city Guwahati, to Fancy Bazaar, the most important business centre in Assam and a symbol of Marwari domination. The protesters ransacked and burnt down many shops, business enterprises and roadside vehicles. That was by far the most violent anti-Marwari movement in the state. During the Anti-foreigners Movement in Assam the Marwari business community became target of extortion by the agitators. It is noteworthy that the movement was also fed by deep anti-outsider sentiments. With the ascendance of United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA)22 and other militant outfits in the state the extortion drive against the Marwari businessmen reached new heights. Though the Marwari businessmen in the cities have managed to negotiate the demands of the militants, the worst sufferers of this phenomenon have been the petty Marwari traders in the moffusil and the rural areas of Assam. A considerable number of such traders left Assam during 1990s, the heyday of militancy in Assam. However, it is not only the militant with arms but also the surrendered ones (especially the exULFA cadres) who have been involved in taking forceful possession of the businesses of these small Marwari traders. The irony is that on many occasions the displaced traders have been found to be living in Assam for many decades, have studied in Assamese medium schools, and have merged with the local Assamese society. The land-hungry peasants: Bengali Muslims from East Bengal/East Pakistan/ Bangladesh Sanjib Baruah observes that the ‘Colonial officials saw land-abundant Assam as a solution to East Bengal’s problem of land scarcity . . . They expected a spontaneous migration of landless or land-poor peasants from East Bengal to Assam’.23 They were disappointed that this did not happen. However, the situation changed after the first decade of the twentieth century. The census of 1911 noted the immigration from East Bengal, mainly, but not only, from the district of Mymensingh, owing to pressure on land at home. 22 23 An Assamese separatist outfit, ULFA was founded in 1979 to fight for a sovereign Assam. Baruah, India Against Itself, 56. 296 C.K. Sharma The British administration encouraged this immigration of peasants, mostly Muslims, hoping to garner more land revenue by settling them in the fallow and wasteland areas of the Brahmaputra valley. Their presence was most conspicuous in the Goalpara district, the Barpeta subdivision of the then Kamrup district, foothill areas of the Karbi hills in the Nagaon district and the Mongoldoi subdivision of the erstwhile Darrang district. The magnitude of the immigration can be gauged from the fact that within 30 years (1911–41) the percentage of Muslim population in the Barpeta subdivision increased from 0.1% to 49%. The Census Report of Assam, 1921 states, Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 In 1911, few cultivators from Eastern Bengal had gone to Goalpara . . . In the last decade (1911–21), the movement had extended far up the Valley, and the colonists now form an appreciable element in population of all the four lower and central districts. Similarly, during 1921–31, some mouzas in the Nagaon district experienced population growth from 100% to 294%.24 The manner in which this surge of immigration was described by the Superintendent of 1931 Census C.S. Mullan, ICS has now become almost legendary. Describing it as an ‘invasion of a vast horde of land-hungry immigrants’, he writes that the immigrants’ ‘first army corps passed into Assam and conquered the district of Goalpara’ and in another 30 years, Mullan predicted that it would not be improbable that ‘Sibsagar district will be the only part of Assam in which an Assamese will find himself at home’.25 Mullan’s statement has since then served as an ideal fodder to the antiimmigration voices in Assam. His comment assumed almost a legendary status within the Assamese nationalist discourse. Mullan, however, concealed the fact the advent of the Mymensinghias was directly patronised by the colonial administration. The aggressive land-grabbing initiative of the immigrants, however, led to the disappearance of many tribal villages and their tribal inhabitants moved into the submontane areas.26 In 1940, the Muslim League-led coalition ministry under Sir Syed Sadullah devised a Development Scheme aiming at facilitating the settlement of immigrants in all wasteland areas of Assam.27 This scheme had an obvious political objective of turning Assam into a Muslim majority province.28 But the scheme generated a storm of protest and the Sadullah ministry fell. But Sadullah returned to power in 1943 and went ahead with the scheme. The partition of India in 1947 into India and Pakistan, and the merger of East Bengal (as East Pakistan) with Pakistan led to the huge influx of Hindu immigrants from there to whom India accorded refugee status. However, later on, the rate of Hindu immigration declined and was overtaken by a surge of poor, landless illegal Muslim immigrants. In 1971, East Pakistan seceded from Pakistan and became an independent country as Bangladesh and the immigrants from there came to be 24 Barman, Asamor Janajati Samasya, 30–31. Mullan, Census of India, 1931, Vol III. 26 Das, ‘Genesis of Tribal Belts and Blocks of Assam’, 31. 27 Ibid., 33. 28 In 1940, the Muslim League demanded the partition of India after independence into India and Pakistan wherein the Hindu majority states would remain with India while the Muslim majority states would go to Pakistan. Thus, the agenda of the League was to turn Assam into a Muslim majority state so that it could be merged with East Pakistan after partition. That Bangladesh still has the ambition of merging Assam as the necessary lebensraum for its huge population strongly animates the Assamese public discourse. 25 Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Asian Ethnicity 297 known as Bangladeshi immigrants. Today the size of their population in Assam is a much contested issue with different organisations, newspaper reports, and studies fixing their numbers anywhere between 10 and 15 million or even more.29 The Anti-foreigners agitation during 1979–85 clearly brought to the fore the Assamese mass concern about the continued large scale illegal immigration from Bangladesh and how it had posed serious challenge to the politico-cultural identity of the Assamese and the other indigenous communities. Though AASU demanded the deportation of all illegal immigrants who entered Assam after 1951, it was 1971 which was agreed upon on in an accord, popularly known as the Assam Accord, as the cut-off year for identification and deportation of the illegal immigrants in the state by both the Government of India and leaders of the agitation.30 Despite the propaganda of some all-India Hindu nationalist organisations to accept the Hindu immigrants only as refugees as they have entered India for shelter after the partition of India on religious lines, the AASU was steadfast on the question of deportation of all illegal immigrants irrespective of their religion. However, the issue of Hindu immigrants gradually seems to have subsided and the entire immigration issue today is centred round the Muslim immigrants. As mentioned above, this might have to do with the decline of the Hindu Bengali immigration as well as the rise and spread of the pan-Indian Hindu nationalist politics in Assam identifying the Muslim immigrants as the main threat to the Assamese and other indigenous people.31 Yet the fact remains that the Muslim influx still continues (as evident from various official and unofficial accounts) and the migrants have become a considerable political force in Assam by their sheer demographic strength. This seems to be at the root of the xenophobic tendencies among the indigenous communities in recent decades. It is this tendency that seems to have instigated the periodic ‘public’ drives at flushing out ‘Bangladeshi’ immigrants from various places in Assam and the northeast in recent times.32 It, however, should be noted that these drives have been undertaken more on perception about the identity of certain people of a certain look and language as Bangladeshi nationals than on actual proof. Yet, at the same time, it is also a widely acknowledged fact that once across the border obtaining various citizenship documents like ration card for an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant is not a very difficult task in Assam thanks to the unholy nexus of politicians, officials, contractors and power brokers. That the Indo-Bangladesh 29 See e.g., Sengupta and Singh, Insurgency in North-East India: The Role of Bangladesh, 73; Bhattacharyya, The Silent Invasion, 83. 30 The demand for January 1951 as cut-off year was made as it was also the basis of the National Register of Citizens 1951. 31 The possibility that Assam might eventually be merged with Bangladesh due to this demographic transition is an issue intensely discussed in the Assamese public discourse. In his controversial Report ’Illegal Migration into Assam’ submitted to the President of India on 8 November 1998, the then Governor, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) S.K. Sinha warned that if the present trends of infiltration were not arrested, the indigenous people of Assam would be reduced to a minority and there may, in course of time, be a demand for the merger of Muslim dominated bordering districts with Bangladesh (Sinha, Illegal Migration into Assam). 32 Besides Assam, where this process began in the Dibrugarh town in May, 2005, there have been a quite a number of cases of deportation of allegedly Bangladeshi immigrants in recent times from the neighbouring states of Assam like Meghalaya, Arunachal and Nagaland. That they invariably enter Assam or allegedly left there by the respective police of these states after such deportation drives has caused public commotion in Assam. Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 298 C.K. Sharma border is an extremely porous one has also contributed to the easy passage of immigrants. In the meantime, more than 25 years have elapsed since the Assam Accord was signed in 1985. Yet only a handful of foreigners have been deported since then. Even the leadership of the anti-foreigner agitation which formed a political party (namely Asom Gana Parishad) and came to power in the state failed to deliver the goods. The main hindrance to deportation was an act which became a synonym for notoriety in contemporary Assam. Known as the Illegal Migrants Detection (By Tribunals) Act, this Act was brought to force in 1983 by the Congress government, the traditional beneficiary of the Bangladeshi vote bank politics. The Act had two distinct peculiarities. Firstly, it would be applicable only in Assam as against the Foreigners Act 1951 which is applicable in all other parts of India. Secondly, unlike other acts, the IMDT Act fixed the burden of proving that somebody is an illegal immigrant on the complainant. There had been huge public uproar against the Act. After being in force for more than two decades, the Supreme Court of India struck down the Act as unconstitutional on 12 July 2005 after hearing a petition. But immediately after that the Congress-led Government at the Centre embarked on the political damage control by enforcing another ordinance called Foreigners (Tribunals for Assam) Ordinance 2006 as a complementary to the IMDT Act. This discourse centring IMDT clearly testifies to the fact as to how deeply the political interest of some political parties is entrenched with the Bangladeshi immigrants. Interestingly, after the SC struck down the IMDT act, the Foreigners Act was enforced in Assam like the other parts of the country. Under this Act, Tribunals were set up in district head quarters. However, most of the tribunals are ‘functioning’ without judges. It has been alleged that the state government’s initiative in this matter falls far short of expectation despite that the expenditure of these tribunals is borne by the Central Government. As indicated above, the displacement of the tribal people due to massive influx of East Bengali Muslim peasantry is recognised as one of its most disastrous outcomes. A large section of the tribals had been the practitioners of shifting cultivation till the mid twentieth century. Their area of movement included a very large tract. When immigrant peasants were settled in these areas the traditional agricultural practice of the tribal peasantry received serious setback. Secondly, the tendency of the tribal people to live in isolation also contributed to their displacement. Many tribal people sold off their land at throwaway prices to others and moved away to live in more remote areas including forest reserves and submontane areas. Today these are the people who bear the brunt of government’s eviction measures giving rise to an intense conflict situation centring round the question of land.33 It is to be noted that the usurpation of tribal land by immigrants went on despite the fact that they were reserved for tribals.34 Unlike the colonial period, the main motive of the government in the postindependence period (especially of the Congress Party which ruled Assam continuously for 30 years after independence) behind its initiatives to settle immigrants has been to create ‘vote banks’ for electoral gains. It is, however, quite significant that a large section of the Muslim immigrants in the Brahmaputra valley 33 Sharma, ‘Assam: Tribal Land Alienation: Government’s Role’. To protect the tribal interest a committee led by Gopinath Bardoloi devised creation of special reserved zones for them (known as Tribal Belts and Blocks) in 1946. 34 Asian Ethnicity 299 have identified themselves as Assamese speakers in the recent censuses. There is also a strong proclivity among many of them to accept Assamese cultural practices too. Thus, the ‘domineering attitude’ of the Hindu Bengalis which created bitterness between them and the Assamese people is apparently found to be absent in case of the Muslim immigrants. But the charges that feed the campaign against the latter is that once they become a majority community they would try to merge Assam with Bangladesh and the Assamese and the other indigenous people would lose their religion, language and culture. Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 The cattle breeders and grazers: the Nepalis The migration from the erstwhile East Bengal was accompanied by a surge of Nepali migration since the early twentieth century. A huge Nepali influx had already taken place into Sikkim, Bhutan and the then undivided Darjeeling district of north Bengal. The immigration to Assam and the northeast constituted the next wave of Nepali influx. They were allowed to settle by the colonial administration, except for the region under NEFA (North East Frontier Agency), in some excluded areas where even the Assamese people were not allowed to settle. They settled mainly in the lower hill areas throughout northeast and remote forest areas of Assam. Most of them traded in milk and some in smuggled timber sold as firewood, the principal fuel for domestic use in the region till a couple of decades back. By the time of Indian independence, the Nepalis were quietly the dominant element in the lower hill areas around Assam except for NEFA region (i.e., present day state of Arunachal Pradesh) and Tripura.35 According to the 1991 census, the total Nepali speaking population in Assam was recorded at 433,000 which was 1.9% of the population of the state. Interestingly, this registered a decline of Nepali-speaking population in comparison to earlier censuses. For example, the percentage of this population was 2.4 in the 1971 census. However, this, as Baruah states, ‘is not an estimate of the Nepali community in Assam’.36 This is because many people of Nepali origin enumerated themselves as Assamesespeakers in the 1991 census. It has been already mentioned that the Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship 1950 allows the Nepali immigrants almost all the same legal rights as any Indian citizen. However, their growing presence in the northeast, especially in Assam, made the leaders of the Anti-foreigners agitation raise the demand for deportation of the Nepali ‘foreigners’ along with the Bangladeshi immigrants in the initial phase of the movement. However, this demand subsided on its own. After that, no anti-Nepali feeling has been witnessed in Assam. Rather, the Nepali-Assamese relationship in Assam is cordial. Many Nepalis have adopted Assamese language and culture and have almost merged with the Assamese society. Their contribution to the field of Assamese culture and society is today widely acknowledged. However, it is not uncommon to witness anti-Nepali emotions surfacing time to time among some tribal groups in Assam. The main reason that accounts for this anti-Nepali ire is the fact that the common property resources in the forest and foothill areas which have been the traditional livelihood sources of the tribal population have faced considerable encroachment by the Nepali immigrants. Anti- 35 36 Baruah, Indian Against Itself, 63. Ibid., 64. 300 C.K. Sharma Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Nepali emotions have been found to be most intense in the neighbouring tribal state of Meghalaya where it assumes violent form from time to time. The new migrants: the ‘Deshwalis’ and other Indian groups Besides the above communities, Assam has also experienced large scale immigration from the rest of India over the years. Though Marwari and Bengali immigration to the state started in the nineteenth century itself, immigration by other communities from the Indian mainland, especially from north India, has been largely a postindependence phenomenon. It is true that the Aryan immigrants from north India started coming to the Brahmaputra valley early in the first millennia itself with varying degrees at different periods. Besides, many captured soldiers – Hindus and Muslims – of the invading armies also eventually settled in the valley and got assimilated into the Assamese society. However, the presence of the Indian immigrants as a distinct group of outsiders became more conspicuous only in the post-independence period. Large scale migration from the populous north Indian states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (mainly from its eastern region) and medium scale migration from Punjab have occurred during this period. Migrants from South Indian states like Kerala are also present in some number, mostly engaged in education and para-medical services (mostly nursing) run by the Church, and in pastoral activities. However, with the local women joining the nursing services in large numbers in the last decade or so, one witnesses a visible decline in the number of the nurses from Kerala in the various medical institutions of the state. It is, however, the migrants from Bihar (especially) and eastern Uttar Pradesh who constitute the most conspicuous segment of the new migrant groups. These migrants together are referred to in the popular Assamese as Biharis or ‘desuwalis’ which is a corrupt form of ‘deshwalis’ stemming from the reference these migrants often make to their ‘desh’ (homeland or country). They come from marginal socioeconomic background and are engaged as construction workers, thela (a twowheeled pushcart) and rickshaw pullers, barbers, cobblers, and such other petty jobs. As construction activities in the state grew, many manual workers from these states came to Assam. Many of these immigrants eventually settled in Assam. A significant section of them settled in fallow lands in interior areas. A section of the immigrants also entered trade and commerce later on and achieved reasonable success. In some areas, they have become numerically so strong that they have even succeeded in electing members of their own community in the elections to the representative bodies at different levels. In fact, since the election of 1991, the Bihari population in the state has become a powerful political constituency. Recently, Bhojpuri Juba Chhatra Parishad has even demanded the state government for the fulfilment of a charter of socioeconomic and political demands.37 Anti-Bihari action was not quite high on the agenda of the Assamese nationalist till two decades back, though it was alive as part of the anti-outsider agenda. But the emerging secessionist militant outfits in Assam like ULFA and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, etc., which became more active toward late 1980s, viewed the all-pervading presence of the Bihari population in the region as an anachronism. Initially it was not the ordinary Biharis but only the traders and 37 The Bhojpuris are a constituent of the larger ‘deshwali’ population. Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Asian Ethnicity 301 moneyed section among them which became the target of the militants. But later, especially since 2005 onwards as the security crackdown on the militants made them desperate to prove their existence they began targeting the poor, ordinary Biharis too. Among those targeted includes seasonal migrant workers who come to Assam from Bihar in lean agricultural season in winter. They mostly work in the brick kilns located in the abandoned agricultural fields throughout Assam. These kilns have sprouted in the recent decades to meet the growing demand of the construction industry in the state. However, unlike the other areas, the killing of immigrant Biharis in the hill tribal district of Karbi Anglong in the last couple of years is held to be related to the issue of land. The local tribal people have been indignant about the usurpation of their land by the immigrants. The local militant outfits also took up the issue on behalf of the local tribal population. Besides, there are cases when one witness ex-militant leaders engaged in hounding out Bihari farmers and usurping the land for themselves. Even in the areas dominated by the Bodo tribal population such as Majbat, Tangla, Paneri, etc., in the Udalguri district of Assam, the Bihari farmers engaged in sugarcane cultivation in government fallow land are being driven out by the ex-Bodo militants in order to start tea plantations. Summing up The discussion above amply shows that the immigration in Assam is a multidimensional and complex issue. While the connotation of ‘immigrant’ is not an unvarying one, so is the response to immigration and immigrants. For example, the Assamese middle class from the nineteenth century onward has had a conflict with the Hindu Bengali immigrants who not only dominated the colonial job market but also posed a serious threat to the cultural (and later political) hegemony of the former. The Assamese nationalists, however, had no such issue with the immigrants from Chhotanagpur and other regions brought to work as labourers in the tea plantations. The local population anyway was loath to work in the repressive environment of the plantations. The plantations gradually opened doors for clerical jobs to a section of the emerging Assamese educated class. It kept them in good humour on the issue of the immigrants to the plantations and they viewed the plantations as a progressive Table 1. Decadal rate of increase in population growth (in %): 1951–2001. ASSAM ARUNACHAL PRADESH MANIPUR MEGHALAYA MIZORAM NAGALAND TRIPURA SIKKIM ALL INDIA Source: Census of India 1951–61 1961–71 1971–81 1981–91 1991–2001 34.98 – 35.04 27.03 35.61 14.07 78.71 17.75 21.51 34.95 38.91 37.53 31.50 24.93 39.88 36.28 29.38 24.80 23.36 35.15 32.46 32.04 48.55 50.05 31.92 50.77 24.66 24.24 36.83 29.29 32.86 39.70 56.08 34.30 28.47 23.85 18.92 27.00 24.86 30.65 28.82 64.53 16.03 33.06 21.54 Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 302 C.K. Sharma venture for Assam. Again the Assamese tea planters, though numerically small in number, constituted one of the most influential fragments of the Assamese nationalist leadership in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were the direct beneficiaries of the plantation labour pool. Yet what is more significant as already mentioned above is the fact that a section of the educated Assamese also firmly stood for better socioeconomic conditions of the tea workers. Though the recent assertions within this community coupled with political stratagems sometimes create anxious moments in their relationship with the Assamese community, timely interventions by conscientious leaders from both the communities have averted any serious conflict between them. However, with the Tea tribes gearing up for launching their own political platform and looking for a broader pan-tribal alliance with the tribal leadership of Jharkhand, the situation may not remain the same for long. Emergence of a number of militant groups among them also has been a clear cause of new concern. But, it is vis-à-vis the Muslim immigrants from East Bengal (later East Pakistan and then Bangladesh) that the paranoia of the Assamese and other indigenous groups comes to assume a special dimension. In fact, already in the 1930s, Assamese leaders voiced serious concerns about the Muslim influx into Assam. These concerns found expression even in the statements of national leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad.38 It was the genuine possibility of Assam being merged with the Muslim majority East Bengal that created panic among the Assamese (as well as the tribal) leaders of the time. Though that immediate danger was over after independence in 1947, the influx never stopped. The danger that the Muslim immigrants have posed is multidimensional. Yet, unlike the Hindu Bengali immigrants, they hardly posed, at least till recently, any threat to the Assamese middle class in the sphere of job. They came to Assam as poor, landless peasants. Most of them are still very poor and illiterate. But they have usurped lands, often under political patronage, everywhere in Assam – right from the fallow government land to reserve forests to even agricultural land belonging to indigenous people in more remote areas. The traditional common property resources of the indigenous communities have been encroached upon in the process. This is one important source of tribal-immigrants conflicts in contemporary Assam. Besides, with their sheer demographic strength the Muslim immigrants today are in a position to dictate terms to the entire political discourse of Assam. Even their proclivity to accept Assamese language and culture has not been able to assuage the apprehension of the Assamese, let alone other indigenous groups in the region. In this context, it is interesting that the indigenous Assamese Muslims have become vociferous in recent times about their rights as minorities. Venting anger against the immigrant Muslims they allege that the immigrants have usurped all rights and privileges due to the indigenous Assamese Muslims by their sheer numerical strength. They argue that such a situation has given rise to an acute sense of identity crisis among them. Their marginalisation, they argue, has been most acute in the domain of politics which has been overwhelmed by the immigrant Muslims who owing to their numerical strength have emerged as the only ‘voice and face’ of 38 ‘As early as the 1930s important Congress leaders like Nehru and Rajendra Prasad had expressed their concern at the continuing influx into Assam . . .’ (Misra, North-east India: Quest for Identity, 76). Asian Ethnicity 303 the religious minorities of Assam at the expense of the indigenous Muslim inhabitants of the state.39 Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Searching for a solution It is clear that any discussion on solving the immigration issue in Assam has to be sensitive to the complexities inherent in it. Scholars and nationalist organisations of Assam have put forward an array of suggestions to resolve the issue. Two considerations seem to inform these suggestions: (1) that in view of the human cost it has extracted over the years the issue must not be kept alive for political opportunism; and (2) that not piecemeal solution but only a combination of long-term bold politico-economic measures can address this nagging issue in the right perspective. It is clear that the conflict around the immigration issue in Assam is essentially an offshoot of the apprehension of the indigenous people of getting politically, economically and culturally marginalised in their own homeland due to unabated immigration, both legal (internal) and illegal (external) to the region. In order to safeguard the indigenous communities from the onslaught of the internal immigration, the Assamese nationalist organisations like AASU, Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP), Purbanchalia Loka Parishad (PLP), etc. in recent times have been demanding the introduction of the restrictive Inner Line system as in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.40 These organisations also demand that the various employment opportunities, government or private, in the region must be reserved for the indigenous people (bhumiputra or ‘the sons of the soil’) only which will discourage population influx into the region. Along with this there has also been a demand for declaring Assam as a ‘tribal state’ by Assam state committee of Communist Party of India which would offer constitutional safeguard to the indigenous communities of the state. The same demand has also come from the PLP. It is significant that anti-immigrant violence has been witnessed in recent years in various other states of India such as Maharashtra and Karnataka. The target of this violence has invariably been the immigrants from north India who constitute the most populous immigrant group in these states. Lately, several regional outfits have emerged, besides the existing ones, spewing anti-immigrant venom. However, without caring to go to the root of such violent acts the typical response of the Indian political class informed by a strong north-Indian bias has been to condemn such attacks as anti-constitutional and anti-national asserting that a citizen of India has right to go and reside wherever he/she wants. While this is true, one may also argue that if the presence of a large number of immigrants in any part of India is justified constitutionally, then it also makes a strong case for constitutional 39 There are regular reports in the Assamese media on this (see e. g., Pratidin Correspondent, ‘Asamot Bangiya’). 40 The Inner Line system was introduced in the northeast region in 1873 by the British restricting the movement of the plains people into certain hill areas to ‘protect’ the interest of the hills people. This provision has been continued till today necessitating obtaining of prior permission to enter into these areas by an outsider. Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 304 C.K. Sharma safeguard of smaller regional identities such as the Assamese. The issue therefore needs a deeper and more sensitive approach. At this stage, I would argue that in the Indian context the concepts of ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ also call for a redefinition. For example, though some 15 million Assamese in Assam has been declared as a majority community and Bengali a minority community, in the broader context encircled by more than 15 times larger Bengali-speaking population the Assamese is a very small community. Thus giving special privileges to the Bengali population in Assam as a minority community may have grounds to generate insecurity among the Assamese. Thus, it appears that while determining the ‘majority’/‘minority’ status of communities, rather than going by a mechanical yardstick one needs to adopt a context-specific approach. While the rights of the legal immigrants or minorities must be protected, the apprehension of the small indigenous communities must not be overlooked either. However, it is the illegal immigration from Bangladesh which is at the crux of the immigration-induced conflict in the region. That the issue is of an international nature only adds to its complexity. Clearly, any solution to the issue involves a twopronged strategy: one, deporting the already existing illegal immigrants and two, bring such cross-border immigration to an end. Both are without doubt daunting exercises. In so far as the deportation of the illegal immigrants is concerned, it entails a massive political, social and economic exercise. The identification of illegal immigrants itself has been a major political issue and successive governments have refrained from taking any decisive step in this matter fearing adverse electoral fallout. The fact that even after a quarter century of the Assam Accord only a couple of thousand immigrants have been deported to their home country speaks volumes about the politics of deportation. Another major complication in the issue is that Bangladesh interestingly has not yet officially accepted the fact that such an illegal immigration of its people to India has occurred at all. Under such circumstances, it assumes special importance to stem the flow of migrants to Assam. The most common solution put forth in this regard is the construction of barbed wire fencing along the Indo-Bangladesh border. In fact, under the provision of the Assam Accord the task of a 272-kilometre long border fencing is already underway. But after a prolonged period the task is yet to complete. This has been one of the most passionate issues in the Assamese media for a long period of time. But it is to be noted that the topography of the Indo-Bangladesh border also has stood in the way of construction of the border fencing. Rivers generally serve as natural boundaries. But rivers in the Indo-Bangladesh border frequently change their courses rendering it extremely difficult to fix boundaries on the basis of the river lines.41 However, one may still argue that the weak links in the fencing arising out of the topographic problems can be complemented by increased river patrolling. It is worthwhile mentioning that the media has been continuously highlighting the fact that the trafficking of the immigrants across border (referred to as ‘the helicopter service’) has been facilitated by local politicians and touts (both mainly belonging to the immigrant community).42 Their stranglehold on the immigrants continues till a much later stage. They arrange not only various citizenship document like Ration Cards (distributed among poor families to avail the benefit of the public 41 42 Hazarika, Rites of Passage, 125–7. Barpujari, North East India: Problems, Policies and Prospects, 122. Asian Ethnicity 305 Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 distribution system) for the illegal immigrants, but even Indian passports. The immigrants then become handy instruments in fulfilling the political and economic objectives of the vested politico-economic interests in return for their ‘safe’ stay in India. Such vested interests would vehemently resist any efforts at addressing the issue of illegal immigration in such institutionalised manner. This brings to mind the concept of ‘documentary citizenship’ introduced by Kamal Sadiq who challenges the dominant notion that the polity in modern democracies is bounded by a sharp line of citizenship based on documentary evidence.43 Contrarily, he writes, referring to the millions of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh in India, from Indonesia and Philippines in Malaysia, and from Afghanistan and Bangladesh in Pakistan . . . that documentary citizenship opens the door not only to the exercise of suffrage by illegal immigrants, but also to public office, thus directly challenging the boundaries . . . between immigrant and citizen. The recruitment of illegal immigrants as voters also advantages certain political parties . . .44 Documentary citizenship thus does not only enfranchise illegal immigrants, but the political participation of these individuals can alter political outcomes in favour of governments that enable illegal immigrants to acquire proof of citizenship and the ability to vote. In effect, illegal immigrants may vote in order to secure their identity and citizenship status.45 Discussing the case of Assam, Sadiq explains how the massive illegal Bangladeshi immigration to the state and their participation in the elections have created considerable amount of insecurity among the indigenous groups of the state about their political future in their own homeland.46 However, he suggests that the frenzied discourse around the question of citizenship of the illegal immigrants has not only facilitated a more active role for the pro-illegal immigrant parties and organisations in the state as saviours of the immigrants, it also possibly has ‘raised awareness among illegal immigrants from Bangladesh that more trustworthy types of paperwork would have to be collected, either illegally or legally through networks of complicity’.47 Naturally, for the pro-immigrant political parties such ‘document-wielding illegal immigrants make for an active and loyal electorate’.48 Thus, in all the countries mentioned above, Sadiq maintains, some political ‘parties and immigrants both have an interest in preserving the irregularities of documentation and collaborate to that end’.49 Obviously, their vital role in the electoral process also enables the illegal immigrants to strongly influence the political decision making to their favour. The case of contemporary Assam represents a classic example of such a situation. A section of scholars and public organisations in Assam advocate the case for ‘work permit’ for the illegal immigrants.50 They argue that because the prime reason behind illegal Bangladeshi influx is economic, facilitating conditions of employment 43 Sadiq, Paper Citizens, 139. Ibid., 140. 45 Ibid., 140–1. 46 Ibid., 148. 47 Ibid., 152. 48 Ibid., 155. 49 Ibid., 167. 50 Hazarika, Rites of Passage, 261–2. 44 Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 306 C.K. Sharma as well as license for trade would largely eliminate the ground for illegal border crossing and encourage the intruders to immigrate with proper documents. This will also allow the government to keep records of the immigrants. The fact that the northeast, especially Assam, presents itself as a natural living space (lebensraum) for the densely populated Bangladesh is well recognized. It is also worthwhile noting that the available living space in Bangladesh is shrinking due to flood and erosion. The rising sea level, a devastating fall out of global warming, has already swallowed up a huge portion of the Bangladesh coastline, rendering a massive section of poor population without any livelihood or living space. Natural disasters like storms, cyclones, etc. which have become abnormally frequent and intense in recent times do send unmistakable signals of the critical time that lies ahead.51 Experts have opined that Assam has been the destination for the impoverished masses from Bangladesh in the past leading to indigenous-immigrant conflict therein. The climate refugees would only add to this conflict.52 Historian H.K. Barpujari took cognizance of this environmental dimension more than a decade back when he remarked that due to the pressure on land, floods and stagnant economy in overpopulated Bangladesh, immigration is inevitable. He therefore suggested that the Indian government, in collaboration with Bangladesh and other international neighbours and agencies, should contribute to the growth and development of Bangladesh economy.53 He also stressed the importance of ‘soil conservation, irrigation, and river valley projects of the Psangpo-BrahmaputraBarak basins for the protection of both the valleys of Assam and Bangladesh from the recurrent floods’.54 At the same time, the cultivable land in the narrow strip of the Assam valley is fast shrinking under the onslaught of huge population pressure and devastating flood and erosion every year. This has resulted in massive illegal encroachment of various reserved areas including forests all over Assam by the landless populace, posing a serious environmental threat to the entire region. Simultaneously, this has also given rise to a serious conflict situation among various groups over the limited available land resources. Original inhabitants, wherever the case applies, often find such encroachment by new settlers an invasion on their traditional community resources. This conflict of interest to a great extent explains the ethnic clashes in Assam during the last decade or so. There are strong grounds to argue that the massive immigration from across the border is rooted in the prevailing asymmetric economic structures in the region. This may largely be attributed to India’s partition on the eve of its independence which stifled the natural economic dynamics of the region, on either sides of the border. However, such asymmetries can be taken care of to a large extent by adequate policies toward a uniform economic development of the region as one common economic zone. The services of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) could be effectively used for this purpose. Unfortunately, enough attention has not been paid to this by the Indian policy makers. Adequate 51 IPCC, ‘Summary for Policymakers’; Sarwar and Khan, ‘Sea Level Rise: A Threat to the Coast of Bangladesh’; World Bank, ‘South Asia: Shared Views on Development and Climate Change’. 52 Swain, ‘Displacing the Conflict: Environmental Destruction in Bangladesh and Ethnic Conflict in India’. 53 Barpujari, North East India: Problems, Policies and Prospects, 122. 54 Ibid. Asian Ethnicity 307 policies in this regard would not only take care of immigration but also of the heavy revenue loss that India suffers due to illegal border trade. Such economic measures can also address the pitfalls of ‘documentary citizenship’ as illustrated by Sadiq. Examining if Assam can draw any lesson from countries like Malaysia and Fiji in addressing the indigenous-immigrant conflict, Baruah comments, ‘Assam’s political turmoil since 1979 has some structural similarity to the political crises in Malaysia and Fiji’.55 In all these three places with large immigrant populations Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 there is a long history of demands on the part of those claiming to be ‘‘indigenous’’ for primacy of official cultural symbols, economic opportunities, and even political power. Cultural policy and immigration policy are especially sensitive issues in all three situations.56 However, Baruah points out that while Malaysia and Fiji have tried to respond to ‘indigenous’ demands in their countries, in Assam, there has been ‘very little direct acknowledgement of this central problem as requiring a robust policy response . . . [Because of which] Assam, unlike Malaysia and Fiji, has continued to have high levels of immigration’.57 Baruah argues that this predicament is, at least partly, explained by the fact that while Malaysia and Fiji are sovereign countries and therefore have the capacity to address the issue of immigration as a national exigency, Assam is not and hence the Assamese concerns languish in the sideline of the arena of national polity.58 He holds, for example, that the Malaysian response to the problem of immigration has been through a political formula premised on a set of preferential policies for the ‘indigenous’ groups and a restrictive immigration policy which aims at securing a demographic balance in favour of the indigenous population.59 Contrarily, let alone playing a proactive role in resolving the indigenous-immigrant conflict in Assam, the successive governments in the Centre and Assam (particularly led by the Congress party) have always soft pedalled the anxieties of indigenous groups to their utter frustration and resentment. However, citizenship in India being a federal issue, it is the bounden responsibility of the Central government to respond to the situation in Assam with a robust policy forsaking its dilly dallying attitude on the issue before it is too late. Having underlined the importance of a robust policy for the protection of the interest of the indigenous groups of Assam, I would argue that it is also important to ensure that such a policy does not perpetuate the existing indigene-immigrant dichotomy in the state. Any policy that undermines the interest of more than half the total population of Assam today would indeed be practically unsustainable. The situation of Assam today demands not an exclusionary but an inclusionary policy informed by the state’s geo-political reality. A significant proportion of the Assamese intellectuals also essentially express such a viewpoint by emphasising the process of assimilation of immigrants into the mainstream Assamese society.60 Thus, any meaningful response to the immigration tangle in Assam calls for a comprehensive, 55 Baruah, India Against Itself, 67. Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid., 68, 203. 59 Ibid., 203. 60 See, e.g., Raichoudhury, Asamot Bangladeshi; Gohain, Assam: A Burning Question, 27; Sharma, Migration and Assimilation. 56 Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 308 C.K. Sharma long-term policy which not only effectively protects the indigenous interests (e.g. reservation of a reasonable percentage of seats in the legislative bodies) but also offers enough space for a progressive inclusion (or assimilation) of the immigrants into the mainstream socio-political discourse of the state. Obviously, the immigration issue in Assam is a very delicate and complex one. On the one hand, there is this large number of destitute population which in search of a relatively better life is outpouring to a land which, on the other hand, is inhabited by much smaller ethnic groups genuinely apprehensive of losing their own identities. There is no doubt that a solution to the issue warrant pragmatic as well as holistic policies incorporating a number of suggestions mentioned above. However, whether an issue long kept alive as a problem by the vested political interests will be able to generate enough political will for its solution is the moot point today. But without such political will the immigration issue will remain a perpetual source of tension, conflict and large scale human destitution in the region. Notes on contributor Chandan Kumar Sharma obtained his PhD in Sociology from the Delhi School of Economics on the Bodo identity movement in the northeast Indian state of Assam. He is currently a professor in Tezpur University, Assam. His research interest includes issues relating to identity, development, environment and social movements. Author’s postal address: Tezpur University, Tezpur, Assam, PIN 784028, India. References Barman, S. Asamor janajati samasya [The tribal problem of Assam]. Guwahati: Progressive Book House, 1995. Barpujari, H.K. North East India: Problems, Policies and Prospects. Guwahati: Spectrum, 1999. Baruah, S. India Against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999. Bhattacharyya, H.K. The Silent Invasion. Guwahati: Spectrum, 2001. Butler, J. Travels and Adventures in the Province of Assam. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1855. Das, J.N. ‘Genesis of Tribal Belts and Blocks of Assam’. In Alienation of Tribal Land and Indebtedness, ed. B.N. Bordoloi, 29–38. Guwahati: Tribal Research Institute, Government of Assam, 1986. Gohain, H. ‘Moamoria bidroh aru Ahom rashtrar sankat [The Moamoria Upsurge and the Crisis of the Ahom State]’. In Kalabhramor [The Whirlpool of Time]. Nalbari: Journal Emporium, 1977. Gohain, H. Assam: A Burning Question. Guwahati: Spectrum, 1985. Gohain, H. Asamiya jatiya jibanot mahapurushiya parampara [The Mahapurushiya Tradition in the Assamese National Life], 5th ed. Guwahati: Lawyers Book Stall, 1997. Guha, A. Medieval and Early Colonial Assam: Society, Polity, Economy. Calcutta: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, 1991. Hazarika, S. Rites of Passage: Border Crossings, Imagined Homelands, India’s East and Bangladesh. New Delhi: Penguin, 2000. IPCC. ‘Summary for Policymakers: A Report of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’. www.worldbank.org. 2007. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf. Misra, U. North-east India: Quest for Identity. Guwahati: Omsons, 1988. Moffat Mills, A.J. Report on the Province of Assam. Guwahati: Publication Board Assam, 1984. Mullan, C.S. Census of India, 1931, Vol III. Shillong: Government of Assam Press, 1932. Phukan, U. The Ex-Tea Garden Labour Population in Assam. Delhi: B.R. Publishing, 1984. Downloaded by [Chandan Kumar Sharma] at 02:27 12 June 2012 Asian Ethnicity 309 Pratidin Correspondent. Asamot bangiya musalmanor adhipatyat astitvar sankatot bhugise khilonjiya musalmane [Dominance of Bengali Muslims causes identity crisis among the Indigenous Muslims in Assam’. Asomiya Pratidin, Guwahati edition. 1 November 2010. Raichoudhury, A. Asamot Bangladeshi [The Bangladeshis in Assam]. Nagaon: Jagaran Sahitya Prakashan, 2009. Sadiq, K. Paper Citizens: How Illegal Immigrants Acquire Citizenship in Developing Countries. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Sarma, S.N., ed. Mou. Guwahati: Publication Board Assam, 2003. Sarwar, G.M and M.H. Khan. ‘Sea Level Rise: A Threat to the Coast of Bangladesh’. Internationales Asienforum 38 (2007): 375–97, http://www.undp.org.bd/library/policy papers/Asienforum_Sarwar_Khan.pdf. Sengupta, D. and S.K. Singh, eds. Insurgency in North-East India: The Role of Bangladesh. Delhi: Authors Press, 2004. Sharma, C.K. ‘Assam: Tribal Land Alienation: Government’s Role’. The Economic and Political Weekly 36 (December 2000): 4791–4795. Sharma, D. Migration and Assimilation: Society, Economy, Politics of Assam. Delhi: Jorhat College and Daanish Books, 2009. Sinha, S. K. Report on Illegal Migration into Assam (Submitted to the President of India). www.satp.org.1998. http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/assam/documents/ papers/illegal migration in assam.htm. Swain, A. ‘Displacing the Conflict: Environmental Destruction in Bangladesh and Ethnic Conflict in India’. Journal of Peace Research 33 (1996): 189–204. Weiner, M. Sons of the Soil, Migration and Ethnic Conflict in India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978. World Bank. ‘South Asia: Shared Views on Development and Climate Change’. 2009. Worldbank. org. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/ 0,,contentMDK:22038355*pagePK:146736*piPK:146830*theSitePK:223547,00.html.