[Assam] Piece on Assam bombings

[baruah at bard.edu]

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081202/jsp/opinion/story_10190616.jsp#

The Telegraph (Calcutta) Tuesday , December 2 , 2008

THE BORDERLAND OF BELONGING

The contentious history of citizenship, which lies behind the Assam
bombings, emanates from the Partition, writes Sanjib Baruah

Even by the standards of a place quite used to political violence, the
serial terror bombings in Assam of a month ago had crossed a
threshold. While asking who did it, we have not asked what created the
political space for this dangerous turn. So there is a tendency to
think that there may be a technocratic answer, like border fencing.

Citizens and foreigners are contested concepts in Assam. The reasons
are historical. They lie partly in the difference between the way
Partition played out in the east and in the west. While in Punjab, the
?exchange of population? occurred in the immediate aftermath of the
Partition, in the east the movement of population remained open-ended.
Apart from a steady movement of Hindus, the economically induced
migration of poor Muslim peasants to Assam that began in the early
20th century also continued.

But Indian law cannot make a distinction between Hindu and Muslim
arrivals from Pakistan or Bangladesh. Both categories of migrants are
foreigners. They can become Indian citizens, but only through a legal
process akin to naturalization. But in terms of perception, the
Partition complicated the question of the continued migration of
Muslims. And in the case of Hindus, India?s citizenship laws are not
necessarily accepted as the most authoritative.

The politics of citizenship in Assam also has a distinct local accent.
The Assamese view is stubbornly non-discriminatory: it does not
acknowledge any implicit right of return of Hindus. There were no
Assamese Hindus in the territory that became Pakistan who moved to
India because of the Partition. But the attitude of Assam?s Bengalis
is very different because of the effects of Sylhet becoming part of
Pakistan.

For nearly three decades, the Congress-ruled governments in Assam
managed to keep the problem under control. The formula was clever and
simple: almost any adult in Assam could get his or her name included
in the electoral rolls. This could become a matter of political
patronage: what was involved was not a formal certificate of
citizenship, but a document like a ration card. This allowed Assam to
postpone indefinitely a resolution of the citizen/foreigner question
that is both legal and authoritative.

It was not a radical Assamese nationalist who upset this applecart. No
less a constitutional authority than India?s chief election
commissioner spoke in 1978 of the ?large-scale inclusions of foreign
nationals in the electoral rolls?. He warned that ?a stage would be
reached when the state may have to reckon with the foreign nationals
who may in all probability constitute a sizeable percentage if not the
majority of population?. The words proved to be the lightning rod for
the Assam Movement of 1979-85. Suddenly as many as 4.5 to 5 million
people in Assam ? 31 to 34 per cent of the population in 1971 ? were
said to be foreigners. The campaign mobilized enormous support, but
its platform made a large segment of multiethnic Assam?s population
anxious.

Since then India has tried to manage this ambiguity about citizenship
through an intricate set of legal and political manoeuvres. The
arrangements can be described as a hybrid citizenship regime. It has
three elements. One, migrants who moved to Assam from East Pakistan ?
migrants of the 1947-71 period ? were to be deemed Indian citizens.
Two, a distinction was made between those who arrived before 1966 and
those who came between January 1, 1966 and March 24, 1971. The latter
were debarred from voting for 10 years. Three, those who came after
the formation of Bangladesh ? post-1971 migrants ? were to
be given the protection of a judicial process against deportation.

The first element, full citizenship for pre-March 1971 immigrants, is
straightforward. The second is hybrid, since it recognizes a category
of foreigners who would become full citizens, but whose voting rights
are not given for 10 years. The expressed purpose of the Illegal
Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983 was to establish
tribunals to expel illegal migrants in a fair manner. But its function
was to insulate post-1971 immigrants from Bangladesh from the
application of India?s citizenship laws.

Hybrid citizenship is lawmaking by stealth. The government does little
to publicize this conferring of citizenship on millions of people.
Thus, an air of ambiguity envelops the citizenship status of its
beneficiaries.

Two laws that created the hybrid citizenship regime call up a date
that resonates more in Bangladesh than in India. March 25, 1971 was
when the Pakistani military crackdown on East Pakistan began,
initiating a massive exodus to India. According to the Indira
Gandhi-Mujibur Rahman agreement, Bangladesh takes responsibility for
those who moved to India after that date. But this means that migrants
from East Pakistan, whether Hindu or Muslim, had to be deemed Indian
citizens since Bangladesh, as the successor state, is not responsible
for them. Thus in Indian law, only someone who came after 1971 can be
considered an illegal immigrant.

Whatever the legitimacy problems of lawmaking by stealth, the hybrid
citizenship regime enabled the Congress to continue presenting itself
as the sole provider of security to ?minorities? and win elections in
Assam, though it has had to make some room for the Asom Gana Parishad.

In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled the IMDT law unconstitutional. The
law, said the court, had encouraged massive illegal migration from
Bangladesh to Assam and that it created ?insurmountable difficulties?
in detecting foreigners in Assam. The verdict has played a role not
unlike that of the election commissioner?s statement in 1978. Assam
has been on a boil ever since. The immigrant communities in Assam are
more assertive today. Street confrontations over vigilante action
against suspected Bangladeshis have turned ugly. This was the
political context of the terror bombings. That citizens and foreigners
remain essentially contested concepts provided the backdrop.

Border fencing will not provide a magic answer unless we confront how
the Partition has played out in the east. We complain about thousands
of illegal Bangladeshis in India. Bangladesh however, completely
denies such a claim. That is possible partly because the issue is
unresolved inside India. Our citizenship practices have not been able
to negotiate an authoritative line between the Hindu nationalist idea
of homecoming and illegal immigration. To do that risks the Indian
state?s foundational ideology.

It may be productive to consider that cross-border movement of people
might continue with or without a border fence. Theoretically speaking,
a multi-level and transnational citizenship regime that decouples
citizenship from nationality is possible. It could combine voting
rights in Bangladesh, with full rights of personhood in India. A
notion of citizenship as a combination of rights associated with
personhood and the workplace separate from voting rights provides a
possible way out. While some rights could be universal, others could
remain tied to nationality. Resident and migratory foreigners could
have the former, but not the latter.

Once we find a definition of citizenship, both legal and
authoritative, it might be easier to have a rational discussion with
Bangladesh about cross-border population movement. An Indo-Bangladesh
protocol on labour movement can reduce some of the immediate strain.
That may be the first step toward developing a transnational
citizenship regime for an existing transnational economic space.


The author is honorary professor, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.




----- End forwarded message -----