Within hours in India and abroad, the administrative exercise’ to detect and deport illegal Bangladeshis in Assam’ has turned into a bitterly debated squabble. The Delhi-based political establishment could not anticipate that the release of the second updated list of Assam/Indian citizens would have such a mega impact beyond India’s shores.
“The contrast between the fortunes of the Rohingiya Muslims in Myanmar and Bangladeshi migrants in Assam could not be sharper! Even before the second list of the National register of Citizens (NRC) was published in Guwahati on July 30 and Indian officialdom could take a single step, Delhi was facing queries from UN agencies and organizations about its plans, to say nothing of the steady but unrelenting press coverage in world media,” says Charubrata Ray, a Kolkata-based political analyst.
The world was eagerly waiting to see how India handled such a massive number of illegal aliens (estimated at four million) on its soil, within the larger geopolitical context of the Rohingiya crisis in South Asia.
As for domestic political reaction in India, the country has been split down the middle. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) virtually finds itself alone. It proposes to follow up with the NRC-related work and take such steps it considers necessary vis-à-vis illegal Bangladeshi migrants, without spelling out the specifics. Its caution is understandable. Even some of its traditional allies like the Shiv Sena, known to be extremely hostile to ‘Muslim infiltration into India’, have not jumped into the blazing controversy over the Assam NRC exercise.
In contrast, the Bengal-based Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by Ms Mamata Banerjee has challenged the concept of the NRC itself, a defiance of the Supreme Court! The support it has received from the Indian National Congress (INC) and regional parties like the SP, the BSP, the RJD parties, the two Communist parties and left forces, has been staggering. Naturally BJP hardliners led by party President Mr Amit Shah have lost no time in branding Ms Banerjee and the INC as ‘anti Indian, pro Muslim Bangladeshi infiltrators’ for the position they have adopted. Mr Shah could not complete his speech in the Rajya Sabha on the issue because of loud opposition heckling in the Rajya Sabha. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh got the same treatment.
Several broad conclusions could be drawn from what has happened in Assam so far. The BJP, prior to the 2019 Look sabha polls, is clearly aiming at consolidating its hard core traditional Hindu support base, never mind offending the sensibilities of the ‘secularist’ opposition parties or their supporters. Insisting that it is only implementing the orders of the Supreme Court in tracing illegal Immigrants in Assam, it may risk losing some Bengali support in the Northeastern states, even among the Hindus. Ironically it was because of the Bengali Hindu support that the BJP gained its first political toehold in the NE region, later to be supplemented by its organisational work among the tribals.
With the economic situation improving very slowly and its slew of public welfare measures making a laboured progress, the BJP can only maintain the status quo—carry on doing what it does best, avoiding innovative experimentation with general elections so close. Recent reports however suggest that for all the negative publicity about the targeted lynchings and the criminal excesses against dalits, the outlook for the saffron party is not too bleak.
Contrary to popular perceptions that the party is on the ropes facing the attacks of the combined opposition in some sections of the media, the political situation has not really gone out of control for the BJP, according to latest intelligence.
A senior correspondent who travels widely all over the country had this to say: “I have been visiting many states and especially the spots where there have been riots and religious tensions. Unreported by the big press where secular views prevail like a fashion, I found signs of a quiet consolidation among the Hindus. Even in Bengal this is true of areas like Deganga, Dhulagarhi, Canning and so on, where the BJP was targeted by TMC supporters because it was weak. But of late, the support for the BJP has increased. A communal polarisation is on, but this happened because of the TMC’s policy of keeping the police inactive under local pressures, to please its armed supporters.’
At another level, the supply of subsidised gas, the opening of 4.5 crore jan dhan bank accounts, providing free toilets for the people etc have had some positive impact. Ditto the massive employment generated through the large railway and highway development schemes currently under way.
It can be asserted that the BJP is playing opportunistic vote bank politics, which broadly amounts to ‘keeping Hindus happy.’ That would naturally entail giving its full support for the upgrading of the NRC in Assam. And this is just what has happened.
Surprisingly, by opposing the NRC–related work and apparently ‘standing up for Muslims’, major opposition parties cannot be said to be displaying a more exalted form of political behaviour. This is unusual because normally they should have held the moral high ground. The reason: their past opportunism has caught up with both the INC and the TMC, parties spearheading the anti-BJP drive.
Today, Mamata Banerjee has taken the extreme step of offering to shelter all 4 million disenfranchised people in Assam, as she rules Bengal and is facing the scheduled Lok Sabha polls a few months from now. She does not conceal her prime Ministerial ambitions any longer.
But back in 2005, the same Ms Banerjee as an MP had stormed out of the lok Sabha in a huff as she was not allowed to speak during a debate, throwing papers she was carrying at the presiding Speaker of the house! The reason for her ire: she wanted to present evidence of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Bengal who had been enrolled as Indian voters with help from the then ruling Left Front! For all the vitriol she hurls at the BJP today, the fact remains she had joined BJP-led Ministries twice. She had also described the RSS as a ‘nationalist organisation” at the time.
What has changed for Mamata Banerjee in 2005 and in 2018? She has moved from opposition ranks into state power, first at the centre, courtesy the BJP and then at the state level. ‘Earlier, the Left parties had used the illegal Bangladeshi migrants as their vote bank, now it is Mamata’s turn to do the same with a vengeance,’ says INC leader Abdul Mannan.
Only problem: in Assam, most parties accuse the INC, Mr Mannan’s party, of having done the same as the Left, and the TMC has done in Bengal; treat poor Bangladeshi immigrants as a captive vote bank. It is usual for the weaker sections of voters always to go with the ruling party in elections in India, for reasons of security and financial help.
Whether for the Left front, the INC or for the TMC at present, the policy of helping illegal voters to settle down and treat them as vote banks has paid off handsomely during elections time and again. Therefore as the LS polls in 2019 come closer, it is not only the ruling BJP that stands accused of opportunism. All major Indian parties are tainted by the same sin, with the difference that parties presenting themselves as ‘secular’ have the advantage of using an exalted rhetoric that in precise terms means---- nothing!
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