[Assam] Nehru favoured flow of migrants to NE

[xourov pathok]

--- umesh sharma <jaipurschool at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Xourav-da,
>    
>   Really?
>    
>   The question which you have to answer is that
> whether nehru favored illegal migration from
> Bangladesh, Burma or China etc into Assam.
> Bangladeshi illegal immigrants are all over India
> --even about 200,000 in Delhi slums and even on
> Western border in Rajasthan. Did Nehru favor all
> that. Was that because he hailed from Kashmir from
> where the Hindus had to run as refugees into rest of
> India?
>    

yes and no.  first, it is likely they are discussing
the refugee problem following the partition of india,
and not the "bangladeshi immigration" issue.  the
letter is dated 1949, which is very close to indian
independence; and in this period it is likely that
some muslims returned to the then east pakistan and
not the other way around, especially since sylhet had
decided in a referendum to break away from assam and
go with pakistan.

what is very interesting is nehru's threat of
withholding financial payments.  bordoloi and gang
were known to be not nehru's men.  i hope some
scholars look into the archives and tell us what
actually happened.

second, who shoulders the burden of the illegal
immigrants is a different issue.  it will naturally
attract imdt and other sub issues.

x-da


>    
>   Umesh
> 
> xourov pathok <xourov at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   http://www.assamtribune.com/oct0806/at02.html
> 
> Nehru favoured flow of migrants to NE
> By Prabal Kr Das
> GUWAHATI, Oct 7 – “The refugee problem is one of
> the two or three problems to which we give first
> priority in India at present. This applies to the
> utilisation of our financial resources also. Our
> development schemes are thought of in terms, to some
> extent, of refugees. If Assam adopts an attitude of
> incapacity to help in solving the refugee problem,
> then the claims of Assam for financial help
> obviously
> suffer.”
> 
> The peculiar pro quid pro finds mention in a letter
> written to former State Chief Minister, the late
> Gopinath Bardoloi by the then Prime Minister
> Jawaharlal Nehru. The communication to Bordoloi
> dated
> New Delhi, May 18, 1949 and bearing number 413
> –P.M.
> was in response to a letter the Assam Chief Minister
> had written on May 7 that year.
> 
> The letter was found among the dossiers belonging to
> the eminent politician late Gauri Shankar
> Bhattacharya, who shared close ties with Bardoloi.
> Handing it over to The Assam Tribune today, his son
> Siddhartha Bhattacharya, senior lawyer at the
> Guwahati
> High Court, attested its authenticity.
> 
> Apart from linking financial flow to the issue of
> refugees, Nehru in his two-page correspondence
> expresses his surprise that Bardoloi was finding it
> difficult to deal “with influx of Muslims into
> Assam.” He then becomes somewhat tentative and
> says,
> “I do not think there is a permit system in regard
> to Eastern Bengal and Western Bengal and possibly no
> such system exists in regard to Assam either.”
> Later, Nehru hints at devising ways and means to
> deal
> with it.
> 
> In his letter Nehru takes note of Bardoloi’s
> belief
> that dearth of land in his state was an issue, and
> contends that if availability of land was a problem
> in
> Assam, “it is still less available in the rest of
> India which is very heavily populated, barring the
> deserts and mountains.”
> 
> Nehru’s posture is in stark contrast to
> Bardoloi’s
> concern in protecting the interest of his State when
> the Chief Minister is asked, “Where are these
> [refugees] to go if each Province adopts the
> attitude
> that Assam apparently has done?”
> 
> Subsequently, the Prime Minister makes his position
> clearer on the issue and states what appears like
> words of finality – “Therefore, we have to
> absorb
> them and make provision for them so that they might
> be
> good citizens. In doing this all provinces have to
> help and cooperate and it will do no good to a
> province to refuse cooperation in the national
> work.”
> 
> Nehru took exception to the stance of one minister
> of
> Bardoloi’s Cabinet, “I understand that Medhi,
> your
> Finance minister, is a strong opponent of any
> further
> refugees coming to Assam. I think he is wrong in
> this.”
> 
> >From the letter it becomes patently obvious that
> Nehru
> favoured Assam to act as host to refugees flowing in
> from erstwhile East Pakistan. Some other parts of
> the
> letter highlight corresponding views approving an
> easy
> acceptance of migrants flowing into the region.
> 
> On the other hand, Gopinath Bardoloi’s concerns
> revealed a deeper understanding of contemporary
> reality. In retrospect, no less manifest is the fact
> that what once was perceived as “national work”
> by
> a statesmanlike figure has now become the root cause
> of a grave problem afflicting the State.
> 
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> 
> 
> Umesh Sharma
> 5121 Lackawanna ST
> College Park, 
> (Washington D.C. Metro Region)
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> 
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> 
> Ed.M. - International Education Policy
> Harvard Graduate School of Education,
> Harvard University,
> Class of 2005
> 
> weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
> website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
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