[Assam] Piece on Assam bombings

Tue Dec 2 05:31:45 PST 2008

Thanks for sharing the very thoughtful piece, Baruah.

m

At 2:42 AM -0500 12/2/08, baruah at bard.edu wrote:
>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 -----
>
>
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