All the 19 lakh people who are excluded are not Muslims. They include Nepalis, Hindus, Burmese, Tamils, the mentally challenged, beggars and the like. There are also some lazy people who did not produce enough evidence to prove their nationality.
By A.J. Philip
I have a request to make to Shri Narendra Modi ji and Shri Amit Shah ji. They belong to a state where the people are famous for their business sense. Mahatma Gandhi ran six newspapers in his life and they all made a profit.
What is the greatest business sense? The awareness that the profit should be commensurate with the investment. To put it differently, no Gujarati will invest Rs 1000 crore to earn a profit of Rs 50 lakh.
Now, see what happened in Assam. For half a century, the BJP and its forerunner the Jan Sangh, has been claiming that foreigners (Muslims) have been infiltrating into the state from East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. They have become a majority in several districts in the state. What is the reality?
The exercise to identify the foreigners has ended with a figure of 19 lakhs. That is the number of foreigners in Assam. They constitute only SIX (6) per cent of the whole Assamese population. When I read the report, I was reminded of a Malayalam saying, the mountain delivering a rat!
These 19 lakh people have 120 days to file an appeal and prove that they are bona fide residents of Assam. By the way, all the 19 lakh people are not Muslims. They include Nepalis, Hindus, Burmese, Tamils, the mentally challenged, beggars and the like. There are also some lazy people who did not produce enough evidence to prove their nationality.
Among them are some whose parents and children had already been able to prove that they were natural citizens. In short, there will be a considerable reduction in the number of foreigners in Assam once the whole exercise is completed in, perhaps, another six months.
Since the work is supervised by the Supreme Court, the Centre or the state cannot manipulate the figures except at the risk of inviting action under the contempt of court law.
Let’s assume that there are finally 10 lakh people (about 3 per cent of the population). What will the government do? Will Bangladesh accept them? No. Can they be forced out of the state? Or, killed like “termites”, an expression Amit Shah ji has used against them.
Yes, but at terrible cost to the national exchequer. India will become a pariah state. No country would do business with India if it forcibly evict such a large number of people. How will we be able to claim that we are a “spiritual” nation?
That is why I say the exercise to identify the aliens as uneconomical. Already, the government has spent billions of rupees to create the national register of citizens in Assam.
That is why I appeal to Shri Modi and Shri Shah’s business sense to cry a halt to the dubious process of identification of aliens. I have always been arguing that it is a political propaganda that the Bangladeshis are all trying to infiltrate into India.
Has any American or European ever tried to enter India illegally? No. Why? Because their countries are far more developed than India. Now, let’s compare Assam and Bangladesh.
Literacy is better in Bangladesh than in Assam. Infant mortality and mother’s mortality rates are higher in Assam than in Bangladesh. The life expectancy at birth is higher in Bangladesh than in Assam. A Bangladeshi woman is far more educated and capable than an Assamese woman. The Bangladeshi women are pioneers in village banking. The GDP growth rate of Bangladesh is higher than India’s. Bangladesh exports more garments than India.
For a Bangladeshi, Paris, Rome, London and Atlanta are better options than Guwahati, Silchar, Tinsukia and Jorhat. They are far more comfortable in Bangladesh where they can live with their head held high than in Assam where they have to hide from the police and, now, the RSS.
Yes, there was a time when the Assamese had blood relations in Bangladesh and vice versa. Nearly eighty years after Independence of India and fifty years after the Independence of Bangladesh, such relationships are no longer strong enough to pull people to India or Bangladesh. In short, no Bangladeshi is tempted to immigrate into India.
Let me conclude by asking a question, which Muslim would like to come to India to settle down here when your party is threatening to make India a Hindu nation.
So, please stop the nonsense of identification of aliens which is uneconomical and will bring no dividends. Does it have any electoral value? Nothing at all when you can buy MPs, MLAs and convert minority into majority and majority into minority.
Writer can be contacted at [email protected]