Demographic Jitters

According to the National Census of 2001, the Muslim population in the Northeast Indian State of Assam is 30.9per cent out of a total of 26.6 million. Although the last Census was conducted three years ago, it was onlyon September 6, 2004, that the office of the Registrar General of India, which carries out census operations,released the statistical break-up on religious lines. The latest figures demonstrate that the proportionategrowth of the Muslim population in Assam, in comparison with other religious communities, is second only toJammu and Kashmir (67 per cent Muslims).

The 2001 Census put Assam's population at 26,655,528. Of this, 17,296,455 were recorded as Hindus and8,240,611 Muslims. Among the critical elements made public by the Census authorities is the fact that six ofAssam's 27 districts have a majority Muslim population. The district of Barpeta tops the list with 977,943Muslims and 662,066 Hindus. The other five districts where Muslims constitute a majority: Dhubri, Goalpara,Nagaon, Karimganj and Hailakandi.

The issue of Muslim population growth in Assam has a disturbing resonance. The State has long been in the gripof a murky politics of citizenship over the issue of unabated illegal migration from adjoining Bangladesh,with which it shares a 262 kilometre long border. 

The particular significance of the recently released Censusdata is the fact that the rates of growth of Muslim populations are the highest precisely in the districtsthat share a border with, or lie close to the border with, Bangladesh - particularly Dhubri, Barpeta,Karimganj and Hailakandi - giving credence to the widely held belief that illegal migration from Bangladeshwas the source of these demographic trends. Such migration clearly continues unhindered, despite thebarbed-wire fence being erected in stretches and the presence of the Border Security Force (BSF) along theborder.

A look at the census figures of 1971 and 1991 (there was no census in Assam in 1981 due to unrest in theState) shows that there has been a steady to rapid rise in the Muslim population in districts proximate to theborder, confirming apprehensions of a continuing illegal influx. This, perhaps, goes a long way to explain therather high Muslim growth rate in Assam, estimated at 77.42 per cent between 1971 and 1991.

In 1971, Muslims, for instance, comprised 64.46 per cent of the population in Dhubri district. This rose to70.45 per cent in 1991 - a total growth of 77.42 per cent between 1971 and 1991. By 2001 the proportion ofMuslims had risen further to 74.29 per cent of the population in Dhubri. By 2001, the Muslim population inBarpeta rose from 56.07 per cent in 1991 to 59.3 per cent; in Goalpara, from 50.18 per cent to 53.71 per cent,and Hailakandi from 54.79 per cent 57.6 per cent.

Significantly, two new districts joined the list of Muslimmajority districts in Assam by 2001: Karimganj, where the Muslim population rose from 49.17 per cent in 1991to 52.3 per cent; and Nagaon, where the community's population grew from 47.19 per cent in 1991 to 50.99 percent.

There is need to make a clear distinction, here, between indigenous Assamese-speaking Muslims and Bangladeshimigrants before analyzing the demographic and security implications of such population growth. Aside fromGuwahati, Assam's capital (that is part of the Kamrup Metro district), the heartland of the indigenousAssamese Muslims - whose origins can be traced to the forays of the pre-Mughals in the 13th century - islocated around the tea growing eastern districts of Jorhat, Golaghat, Sivasagar and Dibrugarh. 

In Jorhatdistrict the Muslims comprised just 3.89 per cent of the total population in 1971, rising to 4.32 per cent in1991. The growth rate was 48.04 per cent between 1971 and 1991. In Sivasagar, Muslims accounted for 6.65 percent of the population in 1971, climbing to 7.63 per cent in 1991; in Dibrugarh from 3.66 per cent of thetotal population in 1971 to 4.49 per cent in 1991; and in Golaghat, Muslims comprised 5.17 per cent of thepopulation in 1971, rising to 7.11 per cent in 1991. It is useful to note, in this context, that the growthrate of the Hindu population in Jorhat, Sivasagar, Dibrugarh and Golaghat was between 32 and 49 per cent overthe 1971-1991 period, closely comparable to the rates of growth for the indigenous Muslim populations.

Evidently, the Muslim growth rate in areas dominated by indigenous Assamese-speaking Muslims, located far fromthe Bangladesh border, have been registering marginal increases, as compared to areas located close to theborder.

With these startling facts being brought to light, influential groups, such as the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) - which had led the six-year-long anti-foreigner (that is, anti-Bangladeshi) uprising in the State between1979 and 1985 - have once again upped the ante, reiterating fears that the illegal aliens will eventuallyoverwhelm the indigenous population. They have also stepped up demands for effective action against thisunremitting population offensive, including the updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), with 1971as the cut-off year.

The population explosion in Bangladesh, with 2.8 million added every year in one of the poorest and mostdensely populated countries in the world, creates the push factors for this silent demographic invasion. Theseare, however, compounded by an expansionist political ideology, implicitly or explicitly supported in thecorridors of power in Bangladesh: the idea of Lebensraum ('living space'), which has been variouslyprojected by the country's leadership for a long time, though the use of the expression itself is relativelyrecent. In the early nineties, Sadeq Khan, a former diplomat, stated:

All projections, however, clearly indicate that by the next decade, that is to say by the first decade of the21st century, Bangladesh will face a serious crisis of lebensraum… A natural overflow of populationpressure is very much on the cards and will not be restrainable by barbed wire or border patrol measures. Thenatural trend of population overflow from Bangladesh is towards the sparsely populated lands in the SouthEast, in the Arakan side and of the North East in the Seven Sisters side of the Indian sub-continent…

The idea had found repeated articulation even before the creation of Bangladesh, and enumerated, among itssupporters, Shiekh Mujibur Rahman, the country's first Prime Minister.

The AASU and other organizations behind the anti-foreigner movement in the State had, at the height of theiragitation in the mid-Nineteen Eighties, estimated the number of illegal migrants in Assam to be as high as 4.5to 5 million, or 31 to 34 per cent of the total population of the State in 1971.

As recently as on July 14, 2004, India's Minister of State for Home, Sriprakash Jaiswal, had told the RajyaSabha (Upper House of Parliament) that there were 5 million illegal Bangladeshis in Assam. Groups such as theAASU reacted, saying that their fears and estimates had been officially confirmed. Later, on July 23 anotherMinister of State for Home, Manik Rao Gavit clarified in Parliament that his colleague's statement was notbased on any comprehensive study, but "on hearsay."

But such glaring contradictions simply demonstrated the oft-leveled charge that political parties, in fact,lack the will to tackle the issue for fear of losing a massive 'vote bank'. With the census figures indirectlyconfirming the alarming picture of mass illegal migrations from Bangladesh, sparks are expected to fly inAssam.

Ironically, however, after the AASU leaders transformed themselves into politicians, forming the Asom GanaParishad (AGP) in the winter of 1985 to contest the State Legislative Assembly polls and to capture power inAssam with the key promise of ridding the State of the illegal Bangladeshi migrants, the party, did little toidentify and deport the aliens when it was in Government. In a span of nearly ten years, spread over twoterms, the AGP Government in Assam deported fewer than 1,500 illegal migrants, blaming the poor progress inthe exercise of detection and expulsion on loopholes in the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination byTribunals) Act, 1983 (IMDT).

The IMDT Act operates only in Assam, while the Foreigners Act, 1946, applies to the rest of the country. Underthe IMDT Act, the onus of proving the citizenship of an accused 'illegal alien' lies on the accuser, whereasin the Foreigners Act, the onus lies with the accused. Given the infirmities of the Act and the absence ofpolitical will, progress has been extremely slow. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs admits that thefunctioning of the IMDT Act has been "unsatisfactory", and in a presentation in mid-1999, inconnection with a court case, disclosed that action under the Act had been taken as follows:

• Total enquiries (against suspected illegal migrants) initiated: 3,02,554;

• Enquiries referred to the Screening Committee: 2,96,564;

• Enquiry reports referred to the IMDT Tribunals: 31,264;

• Persons declared as illegal migrants by the IMDT Tribunals: 9,625;

• Number of illegal migrants expelled: 1,461.

In November 1998, the then Governor of Assam, Lt. Gen. (Retd) S.K.Sinha presented a 42-page official reportto the President of India on 'Illegal Migration into Assam,'  noting:  

As a result of population movement from Bangladesh, the spectre looms large of the indigenous people ofAssam being reduced to a minority in their home state… This silent and invidious demographic invasion ofAssam may result in the loss of the geo-strategically vital districts of Lower Assam [on the border withBangladesh]. The influx of these illegal migrants is turning these districts into a Muslim majority region. Itwill then only be a matter of time when a demand for their merger with Bangladesh may be made…

If current trends of inflow of population continue unchecked, the security implications, not only forAssam, but for the entire Northeast region, could be disastrous.

Wasbir Hussain is Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi; Consulting Editor, TheSentinel, Guwahati. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal