From: kalita@pikespeak.uccs.edu (Jugal Kalita)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: The Assamese and the Bangladeshi illegals
Date: 27 Jan 1993 00:12:20 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: pikespeak.uccs.edu

This is in response to the blatant, racist, Bengali-centric diatribe
against the Assamese poured out by Deb Chatterjee a couple of days ago.
Ironically, being the son of an immigrant to India (a son who has 
then immigrated to the US), he has become more Indian than any other Indian 
and has taken a holier-than-thou attitude.

I must inform this uninformed,  venomously ethnocentric (Bengali-
centric) Chatterjee of something he doesn't seem to know, but everyone else
does: 99% of Bengali residents in Assam, Hindus and Moslems, are illegal.
They didn't get a Bangladeshi (or Pakistani) passport and an Indian permanent
residence visa when they migrated to India.
They just came, crossed the border, found a pocket where there were
already a lot of Bengali (Hindu or Moslem) immigrants and decided to 
stay put. I would think Deb Chatterjee's parents may fall into the same 
category. (I apologize if I am wrong).

Now, there have been different reactions in different states to this
enormous, and illegal immigration of Bengalis. 
(1) In West Bengal, the Bengali Hindus regarded the Bangladeshi Bengalis as 
	their harrassed brothers and sisters, and welcomed them. 
	I don't think it was done out of love for India. It was more
	a response which was based on the fact that the immigrants were
	Bengalis. In other words, it was  based on ethnocentric feelings,
	not out of Indian patriotism.
(2) In Tripura, the tribals were too weak to do anything. In due course of
	time, the Bangladeshi immigrants became majority. Now, Bengali 
	is the state language and all their chief ministers for a 
	long time have been Bengali Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh.
(3) In Assam, the Assamese people did not feel the closeness the Bengalis
	in W.B. (see (1) above) felt toward the Bangladeshis, not even to
	the Hindu ones. That's why they protested.


Slowly, over the years, the Bangladeshi immigration to Assam
has continued unabated.
This is caused tremedous amount of strain on the Assamese psyche, because
the mathematics of population has caused the Assamese to fear
that they will be outnumbered by the Bangladeshi immigrants in 
a matter of decades. 

So, when the Assamese people rebelled in the 1960s
demanding that the Central Goverment put an end to immigration by taking
tough measures, the Calcutta-based "national" press described it
as "Bongal Kheda" to vilify it. In fact, it should have named 
"Aboidha Pakistani Kheda" (Deport the Illegal Pakistanis)
or "Bangladeshi Kheda" (but Bangladesh had not come into existence
then). The Assamese used the term "Bongal" to describe the East Pakistani
illegal immigrants (Hindus and Moslems). And, I repeat, 99% of Bengalis
at that time in Assam (as it is now) were illegal immigrants from East
Pakistan (Bangladesh).

So, the stand taken by the Assamese against illegal immigration has been
demonized by the Calcutta press based on Bengali-centric judgements,
not based on patriotic love for India. It has always been so. For the 
Calcutta press which forms the opinion of people in W.B. and through 
newspapers like the Statesman and magazines like Sunday throughout the 
country hasn't changed its stand. 


Finally, I would like to remind Deb Chatterjee and people like him 
that Assam has been a state which has accepted outsiders (Bangladeshi
illegal immigrants as well as other other Indians) in vast numbers
over the past 45 years or so. As a result the Assamese people are on the 
verge of becoming minority in their own state. The Assamese people need
protection from the onslaught of continued influx of Bangladeshis. This 
is a national problem; the whole of India must support the fervent wish of
the Assamese that illegal immigration be stopped forthright, 
that the sanctity of the international border not be violated any longer. 
It's the duty of every 
patriotic Indian. If some  people of West Bengal don't like it, they
must be branded anti-national. Their opinions (like the one 
stated by Deb Chatterjee) must be ignored, and the whole country will
have to stand behind the Assamese and spend its
energy in protecting the invasion of land-hungry and
job-hungry Bangladeshis (Hindus as well as Moslems).


----
Jugal Kalita