My take on the article Citizenship and Compassion in the Hindu on August 6, 2018.
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/citizenship-and-compassion/article24609480.ece
The people who immigrated as refugees and stayed here have stayed here for almost 47 years. Since then people have married here, had children here who also have married and had children. These two new generations who are now branded as Bangladeshis and illegals have known nothing but India as there home. They had an Indian education, they were raised in a culture and society which is Indian and they have adhered to the constitution which defines all of us as Indian except the article which defines citizenship. Thus to ask them to move back to Bangladesh, which is as much foreign to them as Pakistan or Myanmar is, is the worst act of inhumanity ‘New India’ would do to humans.
If we were to go back in time a little more than these people who we call Bangladeshis were also our brothers in arms, in our struggle for independence and only now we have started to see them as foreigners. We share a civilisation and culture of 5000 years not just with Indians but also Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. If the Mahatama would have been a witness to it he would have quickly toured entire Assam and started sensitising the Assamese on how we are all brothers and fighting against each other. He would as we would all expect him to would also have performed an Anshan till death to stop such an unjust act. But as we all know there is no Mahatama today and neither do our politicians have the spine to fight against populism or for someone who have nobody to fight for them. Practically the exercise should have been finished after the Assam accord was signed (but populism is a phenomenon new in media but existing for long) but the government then and since then didn’t had the spine to go against the populism that existed then.
This also makes me question the writer of the article who has blamed the politicians but has failed to blame the Assamese who in first place demanded, with violence and extra constitutional means, this exercise. In the end our politicians are only the reflection of our populist noises. The writer also fails to question the Supreme Court who validated and is in many ways the moral backing of those favouring the NRC. Thus instead of only blaming the politicians alone we should also blame the people and court who have led us to this situation, but that would require spine on part of the editor and just like our politician our fourth pillar also lacks the spine to go against populism.
Another important point which our writer has brought to us and I would like to elaborate on it, Security. When our politicians talk of security of India from illegal refugees (Bangladeshi’s) and migrants (Rohingyas), what security are we talking about? The security of India? For that to be can the government tell me if the illegal refugees have started organised crime or takeover of Indian state, because petty theft and isolated heinous crime does not account to threat to Indian State (but give politicians some time, they will create out of thin air an organisation supported by middle east with plans to take over Indian state through terror).
If it had been 1974 and we would have been talking about security I might had agreed to the many forms of security that India would face because of the refugee crisis, but most importantly food security. But that question doesn’t stand today (even Bangladesh are magnanimously serving Rohingya’s in terms of providing basic resources). And for India food security and feeding refugees was never a question, just after independence we provided Pakistan with some food grain and fed one crore Bangladeshi’s in 1971. Thus food security is not an issue. We can also talk about resource security or rather resource diversion from us to them (pretty much how Nazis started their Anti-jewish propaganda). But to find the rational in saying that 40 lakh illegals are eating up the so much resources that the rest “sava sou crore deshvasi”, 1.25 crore Indians, are unable to find sufficiency is hard to believe.
What this argument truly sheds lights on is the complete failure of state in the past 30 years to satisfy the needs of Assamese (economical and social) such that they themselves stop asking this question. The fact that Assamese still support the exercise is enough proof of our failure as state to meet the aspiration of it’s people. Thus as the writer only blames BJP and leave the previous government unquestioned must also look at it from this lens. It has been the failure of all previous government which has brought us to this situation.
What can be done now or rather what are we capable of doing?
The answer is very simple, ask the right questions in the right way. Change the discourse of public sphere so that we can change the political discourse. Can we do this, I would ask the fourth pillar if they have the required strength to actually reach out to the stakeholders and influence their understanding.
Shubham Kothari: student of Masters in Arts in Urban Policy and Governance at TISS Mumbai
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