[Assam] Who is the Sentinel of Freedom?

Mon Jul 30 05:11:19 PDT 2007

santanu-da,

thank you for your response.  it is good to hear from
you.  i am afraid this might get a little long.  but
do give it a read and i look forward to your comments.

--- "Roy, Santanu" <sroy at mail.smu.edu> wrote:

> 
> The flow of human beings from the plains of Bengal
> (including
> Bangladesh) to Assam is and has always been driven
> by differences in
> economic opportunities except possibly the middle
> class Hindus who moved
> after 1947. 
> 
> [Even in the latter case, it is not clear that all
> of the migration to
> Assam is driven by the fear of political persecution
> - for after all,
> poor Hindus (not babus) from these areas had moved
> into Assam throughout
> 20th century.]
> 
> The differences in economic opportunities arise
> mainly from differences
> in availability of natural resources per person
> (land, fishing water,
> forests) and from differences in availability and
> the degree of access
> to common property and state owned resources. 
> 
> These differences in economic opportunities are
> dying out for obvious
> reasons - except possibly in tribal/hill areas of
> Assam, Arunachal
> Pradesh, Nagaland etc where natural resources are
> still up for grabs. 
> 
> [Sanjib Baruah has written very authoritatively on
> the historical
> process related to some of these issues.] 
>

difference in economic opportunities is only a partial
explanation for immigration, and even then it is not
as innocent as it sounds.

from sanjib-da's works, we get that the immigration of
peasants from bangladesh did not start till between
1901 and 1911.  this was preceded by the british
creating economic opportunities for the immigration to
occur.  but that alone did not trigger the
immigration.

the economic opportunities, land, existed in abundance
in assam.  the moamaria uprising and civil war reduced
the population of the ahom kingdom (mostly upper
assam) to half (late 18th century). the burmese
invasion depopulated it further (early 19th century). 
the decennial lease and new property laws of the
british (later half of 19th century) led to a
dispossession of land for the assamese peasants,
something sanjib-da discusses in great detail in one
of his papers.  at the end of the 19th century, with
all economic opportunity differentials in place,
immigration was still not occurring and this puzzled
the british.  sanjib-da writes:  'the 1901 census
superintendent also expressed similar regret that
assam had not attracted "spontaneous" immigration.'   

i wanted to make a couple of points with this aside. 
first, difference in economic opportunities alone does
not explain immigration.  second, economic
opportunities are not always spontaneous, and they are
created by interested agents, in this case, colonial
agents.  and third, economic opportunities were
created by taking away economic opportunities from the
native peasants.  

the immigration  did not become a torrent immediately,
 and in fact it decreased for some time immediately
afterwards.  and the immigration reached only the
westernmost portions of assam.  my explanation for
this is inertia.  it took some time for the peasants
of bangladesh to catch on to the idea of immigration,
and for the immigration networks to establish
themselves.   from the "coyotes" that smuggle them
across the border, to the bsf guards, the government
clerks that give them false documents, the contractors
who benefit from the cheap labor to the brokers and
finally to the politicians who get their votes.  

this is a powerful network.  this network is capable
of creating more economic opportunities for more
immigration.  in other words, immigration explains
immigration.

i don't even have a problem with that.  my problem is
with the clandestine nature of this operation.  i know
you accept corruption as a means of overcoming
regulated economies.  but you ignore the fact that
they are also a means of monopolizing the system.  

if there exists a demand for immigration, there exists
a corresponding demand against it.  this corruption
denies the opposing voice any expression, and leaves
the field open for the demand for immigration.  a
monopoly situation.

flies at the principles of free market, unfortunately.

i am not the first person asking this operation to be
above board.  sanjay hazarika made a case for work
permits, etc, in his book "rites of passage...".  in
other words, he argues, let this entire operation be
done in full view of everyone.  based on policies that
all of us agree on.  currently, we don't know anything
about this operation.  leading to rhetoric, and a
situation that is creating jingoism, chauvinism, and
what not.   have you been reading the aamsu and aasu
threats and counter-threats in the last couple of
days?

unfortunately, that book by hazarika is not popular,
and when the suggestion is made that we need to look
at the networks on the indian side of the border it is
so out of the blue people say "oh, you are looking for
independence".  duh!  or in the spirit of things,
doh!!        

> Migration should then cease after a period of time. 

from the look of it, this will not cease for a long
time.  the population density in bangladesh is in the
900s.  it is in the 300s in assam.  the situation in
bangladesh countryside can only deteriorate, with
decreasing land and increasing population, how long do
you think it will take to catch up with the
bangladeshi countryside?  

i think it is already getting too long.  i shall leave
the rest for later.

cheers,
x

> As for politicians encouraging migration and the
> existence of corruption
> in state agencies that legitimise illegal migration
> - these should seen
> as mere exploitation of the fact that migrants want
> to move in search of
> economic opportnuities. The migrant is willing to
> pay with money and
> vote for the right to live here - there is a market
> - the politicians
> and the bureaucrats will be suppliers in this
> market. Nothing that one
> can think of can prevent this. 
> 
> And then all this talk about Bangladeshi versus
> Indian migration. If
> Bongals had not filled up the land, the vacuum
> created by the wedge
> between per capita resource availability in Assam
> and rest of "Bharat"
> would have meant a huge migration of people from
> mainland India.
> Counterfactual history is always dangerous. But
> think about it for a
> moment. If walls of fire were erected to prevent
> people from coming to
> Assam from East Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1947, the
> Indian constitution
> would not have defended the state from potential
> migration that the
> economic mechanism would have engineered instead
> from mainland India.
> The pace would be different. The fact that the poor
> arid regions of
> central and eastern India do not have the skills to
> exploit wet areas
> would have been a factor. In the long run, however,
> the socio-economic
> picture would probably not be very different. The
> faces would have
> looked different. Less of lungis, less Bengali, more
> Hindi, more Hindu
> possibly.   
> 
> Then, what remains of the 1979 agitation? Perhaps,
> an awareness of the
> reality that just won't go away. A gnawing feeling
> in the indigenous
> soul that something has changed, something has been
> lost - realized in
> hard facts. For the urban dwellers, the veils have
> been lifted. And as
> the last thirt years have taught, the change is
> irretrievable. The
> politics of camouflage has been replaced by the
> politics of ethnic
> polarization. The middle class has learnt that
> language. Even the
> oxomiya bhdralok has.  
> 
> Santanu. 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: assam-bounces at assamnet.org
> [mailto:assam-bounces at assamnet.org] On
> Behalf Of xourov pathok
> Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 10:17 AM
> To: assam at assamnet.org; Dilip/Dil Deka
> Subject: [Assam] Who is the Sentinel of Freedom?
> 
> > I can see you are trying to steer the discussion 
> > to the same issues that you are so fond of and 
> > have discussed here so many times - that India has
> > totally failed and Assam will be better off by
> > opting out of India.
> 
> dilip-da, that is c-da, not me.  could you show me
> where i have argued assam is better off opting out
> of
> india?  the possibility of that happening is too
> remote, imho, and there is not point in speculating
> on
> it.  it is not going to happen.  period.
> 
> i am trying to keep to the issue of immigration, and
> not going on a tangent on freedom.  independence.
> principles.  or thought experiments.  
> 
> i am trying to focus on the failure of the assam
> agitation and what it means for assam.  also, i am
> trying to focus on the mechanism how immigration is
> happening.  what sustains it.  etc.
> 
> >  On your email below - All of your allegations are
> >  valid, not always but in many instances. India is
> >  still experimenting with democracy 
>    [snipped]
> 
> i am not interested in the discussion on indian
> democracy in the present context.  i am strongly
> interested in the issue of democracy, of course. 
> but
> that is an entirely different issue.
> 
> x
> 
> 
>        
>
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