No S.I.R. In Assam
– N K Tripathi
I spent one year in Assam as Commandant of MP Armed Battalion during 1980-81 when the first mass movement in Assam (or anywhere in independent India) was launched. While facing this agitation, I also learnt something about Assam.
The exodus of Bengalis from East Bengal started in a trickle in the late 19th century. Muslims from districts of East Bengal like Mymensingh and Sylhet were actually lured by big Assamese farmers to work in their fields. Tea Gardens also brought labourers. At the time of independence, there were quite a few Muslim Bengalis from East Bengal. Some Hindus had also migrated to work in clerical jobs or in the railways.
After independence since 60s, infiltration started in bulk Persecution of Hindus brought them in Assam. Demographically most of the Hindu Bengalis are settled in the cities while the Muslims are in the remote rural areas. The poorest muslim Bengalis reclaimed, with hard toil, the marshy lands and the islands in the Brahmaputra and started multiplying themselves. The Assam agitation wanted, apart from numerical superiority, to throw the Muslim Bengalis to grab their lands and Hindu Bengalis for their jobs. Now the Bangladeshis are so inherent part of Assam that they cannot be treated simply as foreigners in the sense we understand. Segregating the settlers of before 1971 and the later settlers is proving quite difficult. NRC has already hit a road block in Assam. No wonder that EC has not ordered S.I.R. only in Assam, though elections are to be held there.
It is not easy now to throw Bangladeshis out. Even if some are deported, it will only be a very small fraction. Assam has to live with Bengalis.
Now fortunately desperate migration of Bangladeshis has almost stopped because of the better economic situation in Bangladesh and also the better vigilance at the border. But we have to be alert to stop further infiltration in Assam to avoid future social and political instability.
