Monday, August 27, 2012

The Radicals Have spoken clearly on Assam. Is the Nation Hearing ?


Speaking on the Assam issue on 8th August 2012 , Mr.Asaduddin Owasi, the MP from Hyderabad belonging to MIM ( Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen) said

“Lastly, I warn the Central Government; I warn the hon. Members over here. ¦ (
Interruptions) If proper rehabilitation does not take place, you be ready for a third wave of radicalization among Muslim youth. ¦ (Interruptions) You are not bringing it to the notice. … (Interruptions) I am bringing it to your notice. … (Interruptions)” 
 
Full text of discussion in parliament can be looked at
 
 
Point # 1 that the nation must note is 
 
Mr.Owaisi is clear that the Muslims are one community irrespective of the country to which they belong. Therefore, even when the Bodos are actually fighting the Bangladeshi infiltrators ( which the state must be doing ), his sympathy lies with the Muslims over the Bodos. No matter to him that the Bodos belong to Bharat and the Muslims in question here are from Bangladesh. It also does not matter to him that Hindus also are languising in rehabilation camps.
 
Point # 2 :
 
He says that this will lead to the 3rd radicalization of the Muslims. I guess by this he means, after Ayodhya in 1992 and Gujarath in 2002. The history over the world shows that Muslims esp in India do not need any particular reason to get radicalized. Because of their concept of Jehad, the Ummah and Jannat, it is easy for the recruiters of Jehadis to get recruits by showcasing any problem across the world as an issue of Islam. For example, they recruited people over the Khalifa during Khilafat, on the Iraq issue when Saddam was attacked, they recruited when Osama was attacked and many many more such incidents which lead to recruitment and radicalization.
 
Will the country ask Mr.Owaisi what makes the Muslim youth so prone to radicalization ?  Why is it that the Hindu victims like the Kashmiri Pandits, the victims of partition, the Hindu victims of Pakistan and Bangladesh, the family members of riot victims in so many parts across the country don’t get radicalized while it is so easy for the Muslims to get radicalized ?
 
Point # 3 -
 
As if taking the cue from Mr.Owaisi ( or orchestrated events by bigger powers that Owaisi), the Muslims took out protests in Hyderabad, Mumbai and other parts of the country which “suddenly” got violent. It is another matter that the “peaceful” protesters were armed with petrol bombs and other armaments.
As per reports, in Madhapur at Hyderabad, a goonda by name Momin with his gang has gone about threatening Assamese & others from North East to vacate Hyderabad before 20th August 2012 or face death. This is on the lines of the warnings given to the Pandits in Kashmir valley during the 90′s.
 
 
Today’s reports suggest that Assamese in Bengaluru have also been asked to vacate.
Thousands of Hindus who hail from Assam and other parts of North East have evacuated these cities and are moving back to their home. Is this the security that the nation-state is going to give to its citizens ? The only source of support to the Assamese seem to be the swayamsevaks who are offering support and solace to them.
 
 
Is the country going to be taken to ransom to the radicalization call and warnings of these goons. It must be remembered that whenever the state fails in its duty of protection, the people would be forced to take their own measures for protection of their folk.
 
Owaisi is a Parliamentarian who has sworn by the Indian constitution. What are the measures he is taking to arrest these radicals rather than succumbing to them ?  Is he a member of Parliament of only Muslims Or a Member of Parliament of India ?
 
Mr. Owaisi and his folk are clear. Is the nation willing to hear the import of these words and actions ?
 
Arise Bharat !
 
 http://arisebharat.com/2012/08/15/the-radicals-have-spoken-clearly-on-assam-is-the-nation-hearing/
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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Pre-meditated madness in Mumbai: An insider’s view

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         S N Ganesh 
 

Watching the burning vehicles on television, the mind raced back to December 1992 when Muslims went on the rampage after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. Then, as now, their strategy was broadly the same: protest violently, provoke, take a small incident and use it as a reason to make a point. When police try to control restive crowds by lathi-charge, and then firing when nothing works, say Muslims are being persecuted in India if a Muslim dies...  Actually, the police are mandated to maintain law and order. If they fail to control the mob they are blamed, if a Muslim dies in firing they are blamed. Either way, they bear the brunt of the dispute.


This time, the Media was the target of focused Muslim anger. Three TV broadcasting vans were set on fire, media men and policemen roughed up, and the new glass façade of The Times of India building in VT (close to Azad Maidan, the venue of the protest) shattered. Muslims participating in Saturday’s [11 Aug] protest sent a clear message to the Media not to make any statement perceived as against their community or the cause it was espousing – alleged concern over the fate of the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar, and determination to keep the Bangladeshi infiltrators within the frontiers of India.

This is reminiscent of the violence in Sholapur when American pastor Jerry Falwell called the Prophet a ‘terrorist’, with no repercussions anywhere in the Western world, in 2002. Thereafter, the Congress MP from that constituency rose and rose in the esteem of his party supremo, and is today the Union Home Minister. His statement on the recent Pune blasts was as awe-inspiring as his comments after the massive power blackout of 31 July, when three grids collapsed all over northern, eastern and north-eastern India. If he said anything of note after Saturday’s violence, it has failed to grab attention. The new Union Home Minister has clearly got the message that nothing must be said or done to annoy his party’s principal votebank.

The perpetrators of violence also sent a message to the Mumbai Police not to take any tough measures when Muslims protest. Azad Maidan is just minutes away from Police Commissioner’s Office.

Broadly, Muslims conveyed to the Congress leadership that for continued electoral support, it should not dare to take any action against Bangladeshi Muslims in Assam. They warned the Supreme Court not to pass any judgment that stops or inhibits Bangladeshi infiltration. The next Chief Justice of India is a co-religionist; perhaps they were telling him what they expect from the august court under his dispensation.

So what actually happened last Saturday? As best as one can piece the information together, it seems that the Raza Academy, a cultural organisation, supported by the Sunni Jamait ul Ulema and Jamat e Raza-e-Mustafa, took permission to hold a meeting of 1500 persons at Mumbai's Azad Maidan, to protest against the recent riots in Assam and alleged attacks on Muslims in Myanmar.

Then, armed with the permission, hundreds of activists sporting black badges converged at Azad Maidan and expressed concern over the ‘massacre’ of the Muslim community. Maulana Syed Moinuddin Ashraf, president of Jamia Qadriya Ashrafiya, demanded that the Central and state governments intervene to “protect the Muslims”. Conceding that Myanmar was an external problem, he alleged that Assam “reflects on the state of affairs of the country,” surely a blatant falsehood.

When the protest turned violent – some claim 15,000, some say over 50,000 protestors turned up at the venue in contrast to the permission granted for just 1500, and policemen on the spot were a meager 800 – police were helpless. As the situation deteriorated, and Media and Policemen were made the target of mob ire, police fired in the air to disperse protesters. Television vans were torched by the well-prepared mob.

As expected, the Raza Academy which organised the protest was quick to claim innocence and blame the violence on some unnamed radical elements. From the scale of the violence, it is obvious that it was pre-planned, and well-planned. Photographs reveal the extent of violence and the damage caused to the city.

The police were rattled enough to force Mumbai Police Commissioner out on the streets in his headgear. But is it the role of the Chief to direct mob control; should he not stay in the control room and strategize, monitor, guide? In November 2008, Hemant Karkare made the same mistake and paid for it with his life.

At the end of day, as the situation was brought under control, the toll was two dead (both rioters), 54 injured, of which an astonishing 45 were policemen. They were clearly the victims of targeted violence. One newspaper quoted a young constable as saying that the mob attacked him with sticks, helmets and stones. He reported seeing them tossing a policeman up several times. It was a bad day for the Police; newspaper pictures show many constables running to save their own lives.

Media drew its lessons in proportion to its property in the city. The venerable Times of India did not mention that the rioters had damaged its building, and played down its reportage as compared to rival papers situated outside the city. Other papers with huge landed property also played safe.

And why not? The Hindustan Times reported its senior photographer as saying that he heard an orator [at the Maidan] blaming the media for not giving adequate coverage to the plight of Muslims in Assam and Myanmar. Feeling something was amiss, they clicked pictures and left. Some minutes later, they were informed that an OB van was on fire. As the journalists ran towards Azad Maidan, a mob of about 400 people clashed with them; they were separated and each journalist was attacked by at least 25 men. Five or six photographers were beaten up; their cameras smashed and taken. Policemen were also targeted. As a man in the crowd begged a policeman for help, the beleaguered officer asked, ‘should I save your life or mine?’

After all, there are just 39,000 policemen for the whole of Mumbai, clearly inadequate to take on a motivated gathering of 50,000-odd protestors. Newspaper pictures clearly show some of the rioters with big stones in their hands – it was like a capsule of the stone-throwing incidents in Srinagar Valley last year.

Worse, given the shoddy record of our human rights industry and our political leadership, one can expect that the policemen who fired and were responsible for the death of two rioters would be grilled like Gujarat policemen after the 2002 riots there, and those who took action during the 1992-93 Mumbai riots. What else can one expect from a regime whose Home Minister, R.R. Patil, was caught on camera with a Dawood Ibrahim aide?

Mumbai citizens don’t expect things to get better. Rioters and terrorists know that they are unlikely to pay for their crimes. After all, convictions in the 1993 Mumbai blasts are still pending with the Supreme Court since 2008; nothing is known of the fate of the 2003 Gateway of India blasts probe; trials in the 2006 train bombings are going on at snail’s pace; the 2011 multiple bombs in Opera House and Dadar are festering somewhere; while there is no progress in the Pune German Bakery bomb blast. Then there are the fresh Jungli Maharaj Road bomb blasts in Pune of 1 Aug 2012, the day Sushil Kumar Shinde was elevated as Union Home Minister.

As one unclosed chapter of violence piles upon another festering sore, life goes on for the hapless denizens of the city – it is called the famed resilience of Mumbai. Congress MP Milind Deora garners the maximum number of votes from the Muslim areas of South Mumbai from where hail the rally organizers, the Raza Academy. We have not heard a peep out of him.


Sources:






Source : http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=2418
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Saturday, August 4, 2012

What is new in Assam Violence?

by Anil Chalageri

Suddenly we are seeing the news about Violence in Assam. Visual and Social media are feasting over it, especially for first time news followers. It looks like there is something wrong with Assam, but if you closely see the history of Assam, there is nothing new about these incidents. Poor Assamese have been going through this, almost every day, for decades. There were even attempts like making Assamese language as compulsory (in education) in 1961 or Assam agitation in 1980’s to send back Bangladeshi infiltrators.But there hasn’t been a single successful solution for this issue. The use of North Eastern border by Pakistani infiltrators is also no news to us.



The moment we take the name Assam we should ideally be remembering the natural beauty of the state, the jungles, the landscapes, the Brahmaputra, wildlife, the tree plantations, the monuments and the temples.  Once Swami Vivekanandnanda had said “next only to Kashmir, Assam is the most beautiful place in India” unfortunately the situation in Assam is no different from Kashmir when it comes the socio-political instability.  The people are suffering same issue ofillegal infiltrators and vested interests in both the states, who want to make strong existence in India through the back door entry.

State government, being helpless duck, is not able control the situation.Even when we are reading this article, the state and central government has named this as “unprecedented ethnic violence” which actually started in Kokrajhar district of lower Assam.

On top of it, Chief Minister of Assam saying that he cannot assure if there wouldn’t be any fresh violence which can happen because the situation is beyond control.  If you closely watch the social stability in Assam for past few decades, nothing has happened overnight, the state and central governments have seen that this work is done by illegal infiltrators of Bangladeshi and Pakistan, who have been trying to capture the beautiful land of Assam through various ways.  Again, as per some of the reports the main cause for the violence is related to land encroachment which lead to killing of four youths who resisted inJoypur under Kokrajhar police station limits.

The government one-sided lenience about the issue, just for Vote Bank politics, is hitting hard for the local tribes.  The locals are suffering for decades together.  People who have entered in our nation illegally are owners of tea estates, business establishments, retail shops and almost every business.  It is making the local Assamese life more difficult in their-own motherland.Tribals who were once leading a happy and peaceful life are being harassed by these infiltrators.

It is a well-known fact that post-independence, there have N number of proofs about illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and governments-after-governments have been silent about the issue.  Sudden rise of registered voters have been a proof of people entering the borders in groups, because at some point the number was so high that even biologically it wasn’t possible to increase the population.  But even today there has been no attempt from the governments to differentiate between the locals and the immigrants.  They have been enjoying the all the facilities of central governments minority scheme.

It’s unfortunate to see that even after 65 years of independence Indian government is trying hard to control the situation in their own state.  Year after year, there have been temporary reasons given by governments killingall expectations of Assamese locals.  Today the number of these infiltrators has grown high, so much so that even local police cannot handle the situation they had to call the military and paramilitary forces to control the situation.  The government should really stop giving the smaller reasons like ethnic violence or land issues, the problem is much bigger and deeper then what we have been told and shown.

First government should stop calling this violence instant and probe into these well planned attacks which are repeated every year. The so called human right activists who make noise even if a rapist is beaten by the police and most of the famous visual media who have been making continues allegations about Gujarat(not Godhra) incident even after ten years, but today they have been silent about the entire issue. Isn’t it unfortunate to first allowing people to cross borders illegally and on top of it they troubling the local helpless tribals.

It was great feeling to see India’s outrage(on social networking sites & outside) over the shocking molestation of a girl on 10th July in the same Assam, by seeing every Indian’s interest about this case, within 15 days the state government with the help of central government nabbed all 15 culprits(that’s the result of people’s involvement and media’s report). But at the same time of the incident, there was planned violence which was started by some vested interests, which has lead to a shocking disturbance in Assam today. 40+ people lost their life(by the time I could finish this article the number has increased by 8 pople), thousands of people have been injured, nearly 2 Lac people have fled from there home’s in search of security, this includes women, kids and aged people. Don’t you think that government should have taken action about it before/along with solving the molestation case? Doesn’t this show the government double standards? Don’t you think that entire Indians/Media should be with our Assamese brothers and sisters in this time of crises? Let us spread the news and raise our voice.

The situation is not new and no different from Kashmir, Tripura, Bengal or Odisha, till the government seriously handles the issue at the root level, i.e. border issue, we will continue to have such planned attacks, will our government really put effort to save our own people??

http://samvada.org/2012/articles/what-is-new-in-assam-voilence/
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Thursday, August 2, 2012

Assam Rioters and Bangladeshi Muslims have reached North Bengal from Kokrajhar. Red Carpet Welcome by WB CM & TMC. A sinister design to change WB demography.

How can West Bengal Govt accept illegal BD Muslim infiltrators without any treaty?

Mamata Banerjee is ready to accept illegal Bangladeshi Muslim migrants from Assam. West Bengal is not a Paternal property of any Pro Muslim element.

~ Upananda Brahmachari & Sambuddha Gupta.

Siliguri | Kolkata | 27th July, 2012 ::  Her Ugly Islamic face unmasked again. Terming the situation in violence-hit districts of Assam as “deplorable”, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said the state of West Bengal will provide shelter to refugees fleeing trouble-torn areas of Kokrajhar and adjacent due to disastrous Indigenous Bodo and Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators’ riot in Assam.

“The situation in Kokrajhar and other districts in Assam where the conflict is on is deplorable … Bengal will give shelter to the people coming from Assam in the wake of the conflict,” she said at the launch of employment bank and social freedom (Samajik Mukti) card at Netaji Indoor Stadium, Kolkata on Thursday.
“The administration in the bordering districts has given shelter to those leaving Kokrajhar. It is our social responsibility to provide them shelter and food even if we are half-fed,” Banerjee said.

The chief minister also appealed to political parties to behave in a restrained manner and not to incite any violence in the present volatile condition in Kokrajhar.

Thousands of people were crossing over to Coochbehar and Jalpaiguri due to the violence in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous districts which entered its sixth day today.

As Per report the bordering Kumargram, Baxirhat  Udalgur, Salmoni, Barovishai and various towns of Jalpaiguri with other market places, bus stops and railways stations are now over populated with the Bangladeshi infiltrators.  They entered West Bengal being unsuccessful to have their encroachment over Bodo people in Assam. These Muslim miscreants initiated the Riot in Kokrajhar as per established reports. These new Muslim and so called refugees are now trying to find there safe heaven in a Muslim influenced state of West Bengal, where Mamata Banerjee may be their new protector and propagator at a time  without any doubt.

The situation in certain areas of north Bengal that border Assam continued to remain on the edge on Wednesday with reports of about 2,000 people having entered the State in the last few days to escape the ongoing violence.

  “We have information that about 2,000 people have entered areas like Kumargram, Baxirhat and other adjoining areas over the last few days. We have identified about 556 of them and they are being provided necessary relief material at the camps set up by the administration,” told by Amal Kanti Roy, Sub-Divisional Officer of Alipurduar subdivision in Jalpaiguri district, as reports came in.

Anuj Sharma, Inspector General of Police (North Bengal), said additional police personnel were deployed in the areas bordering Assam in Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar districts of the State. Some people who had come from Assam had taken shelter in the houses of locals and the situation was under control.

TMC Welcome Camp for Assam Riots. Pic.- ePratidin.

Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Surya Kanta Mishra met Speaker Biman Bandyopadhyay and urged him to send an all-party delegation to areas in north Bengal bordering Assam.

“The Speaker said he will inform us about his decision after a day,” Dr. Mishra said.
 Chairman of the Left Front Committee Biman Bose demanded that police and paramilitary forces be deployed immediately in the areas bordering Assam.
 He urged the people of border areas, including Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar districts, to remain alert and play an effective role in curbing violence.

It is a great irony that despite of all financial crisis Mamata Banerjee’s magic volt is always full of fund to help illegal Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, honorarium of Imams and Muazzins, Cycles for Muslim Girl students and all other Muslim Welfare activities. She can’t spend lavishly the valuable revenues for Muslim appeasement which is  earned mostly from the Hindu Tax payers. Enough is enough. Exploiting the ‘Change’ sentiments, Mamata Banerjee is not doing the simple betrayal to the Hindu people of Bengal, she is doing more dangerous to design a demographic change of West Bengal by settling these foreign Muslim elements ( trouble of Assam) about to come here in more than 50000 in these days.

Keeping eyes to Muslim Vote Bank and under the pressure of Muslim operators of TMC led Govt. in West Bengal, both the opposition and the ruling parties will not act the justified to check this Muslim invasions in West Bengal in the name of rehabilitation of Riot victims.

It is heard that  team of Left Front legislators team will visit border areas of Jalpaiguri district where refugees from Assam have taken shelter in the wake of violence in adjoining Kokrajhar. CPI(M) leader Anisur Rehman told PTI today that the team will leave here tomorrow and visit Kumargram, Salmoni and Barovisha. “Our mission is to call for maintaining peace and harmony.” Leader of Opposition in state assembly and CPI-M Politburo member Suryakanta Mishra termed as ‘unfortunate’ chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s criticism of Left Front’s proposal to the speaker to send an all-party delegation to areas in north Bengal bordering Assam. “We are for peace and harmony in Assam,” he added.

Riots and Victims are always fatal and not pleasurable to anyone. But rehabilitating foreign elements certifying riot victims under some hidden agenda is more dangerous than anything and unbearable to any patriotic person.

Capture all the Muslim infiltrators coming North Bengal bordering Districts after Kokrajhar Riot in a very descent manner. Keep them in the refugee camps and feed them whatever they like.  Check the Indian Citizenship. If they are not Indians, proved Bangladeshi Infiltrators, punish them under National and International laws appropriately. And finally, KICK THEM OUT from Indian border.

Sorry, for the harsh words. But, every Bodo people, any son of the soil of Assam know the danger of Bangladeshi Muslim influx there. The Bangladeshi Muslims are the main cause of  these lines of fatal Riots and Crisis of Assam. West Bengal cannot accept these rowdy and fundamental people whatsoever in the nature of illegal refugees.

Over three crore Bangladeshi infiltrators in India are the severe threat to Nation’s Safety, Security, Sovereignty and Economy as the experts opine. No Monmohan or Mamta has any  right to upsurge the infiltration problems anyway any more in this country.

If Mamata Banerjee accepts these Bangladeshi Muslims in West Bengal, it is her first and last term of Chief-Minister-ship so far.


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Recurring Assam Riots. Solution to the roots is to uproot illegal Bangladeshi Muslims from Assam and North East.


BLOODSHED IN KOKRAJHAR FOR ANNEXATION OF ASSAM.


By Brigadier Chitranjan Sawant.

Who is going to annex Assam, one may wonder. Are there phalanx of battle ready armies moving around lower Assam to attack and annex? Indeed, that is the game plan of Bangladesh and it had been there since the days of formation of East Pakistan on 14 August 1947. In any case the Sylhet district of Assam was given to East Pakistan and the leaders of the Muslim League, including Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, had coveted the rich mineral resources, jungles and vast vacant lands of Assam. The sinister design of Islamic Republic of Pakistan to make the Lower Assam a Muslim-majority area, foment communal trouble and annex it for good. The successive govts of East Pakistan had been playing this game and the power-hungry Indian politicians had been banking on the vote-bank of the Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh to remain in power and enjoy the loaves and fishes of their high offices.

The warnings of losing Assam in the long run were sounded by patriots from time to time but they fell on the deaf ears of the traitors. The latest man in authority to sound the warning bell is no less a person than Lt Gen S.K. Sinha, Governor of Assam who wrote to President Narayanan in 1998 about gravity of situation and precarious security situation but the deaf and dumb politicians did sweet nothing to ward off the danger of losing Assam to Greater Bangladesh. Instead,the General was maligned as a rank communalist and an anti-Muslim fellow bent upon creating trouble.Now we all know how right was General Sinha and how wrong were the 22 Members of Parliament who moved heaven and earth to have General Sinha recalled as Governor of Assam. The traitors tasted success and were emboldened. The blood of Kokrajhar today is on the hands of traitors and all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten their hands.

As a citizen of Bharat, I am a sad man today as I read the accounts of riots, arson, murders of the Bodo Hindus by the illegal Muslim immigrants from the neighbouring Bangladesh. The Govt of India under PM Manmohan Singh and the Dacca govt of Sheikh Hasina have done precious little to stop the influx of illegal Muslim immigrants because the power hungry political parties treat the illegal immigrants as their vote-bank.
May I suggest that the report of General S.K. Sinha, the Governor of Assam in 1998 be made public so that the Indian Nation knows that a Patriot named General Sinha had analysed the Assam problem threadbare and cautioned all those who mattered to take remedial measures. And the Patriot was hounded out by the politicians and other pro-Muslim elements who wish Assam to be a part of Islamic Bangladesh. The names of that 22 MPs who wrote to the President and Govt of India for recall of General Sinha be made public so that the Indian people know who is a Patriot and who is a traitor.

My condolences to the bereaved families and a word of advice to Tarun Gogoi to keep India that is Bharat Above All interests and push the illegal Muslim immigrants back into Bangladesh Let the Bangladeshis be reminded of their history and told that hundreds of Indians had shed blood to give birth to Bangladesh and drive away Pakistani demons who preyed on the population of the then East Pakistan, mostly Muslims.

Be that as it may, the political and economic situation in the Lower Assam is very serious It is time the Government of India took decisive action and drove back the illegal immigrants rising above party politics and narrow gains of electoral battles. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must dig out the comprehensive report on the causes of the present situation of deep distrust that has developed between the Hindus of Assam and the Muslim immigrants because of the devilish designs of the latter. Any mollycoddling of communal elements at this point of time will be an anti-national act and the history of India, as and when written objectively, will not forgive those politicians who have been keeping their selfish interests above the National interests.

Let us remember: If India lives, we live: if India dies, we die. Let India live forever !
The writer can be reached at: sawantg.chitranjan@gmail.com or upvanom@yahoo.com


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How BANGLADESHI MUSLIMS wiped the Assamese out in their OWN land

http://www.assam.org/news/how-bangladeshi-muslims-wiped-assamese-out-their-own-land

In the absence of any definite policy of the Government, the infiltration gradually assumed an alarming proportion and the aliens became politically so strong that no political party in this state is in a position to form the government without their support.

British annexed Assam in 1826 and placed it under the administrative unit of Bengal Province . They brought educated and English knowing Bengalese to assist them in its administration. After partition of Bengal in 1905 the geo-political reconstitution of the region increased the flow of Bengali speaking population particularly the Muslim peasantry from the over populated East Bengal to sparsely populated fertile lands of Brahmaputra and Surma valleys of this isolated northeast corner of India. The formation of All India Muslim League (AIML) in 1906 at Dhaka also hatched a political conspiracy to expand its numerical strength in Assam and initiated organised migration of Muslims from East Bengal . Nawab Salim Ullah Khan, a prominent Muslim leader and one of the founder members of AIML in his public meeting after the concluding session of the League, “exhorted the Muslims to migrate to Assam and settle there”.

The alarming forecast of Census Superintendent C. S. Mullan in his Census report of 1931validated the political conspiracy of AIML in Assam :

“Probably the most important event in the province during the last 25 years – an event, moreover, which seems likely to alter permanently the whole feature of Assam and to destroy the whole structure of Assamese culture and civilisation has been the invasion of a vast horde of land-hungry immigrants mostly Muslims, from the districts of East Bengal. … wheresoever the carcass, there the vultures will be gathered together ” (Politics of Migration by Dr. Manju Singh, Anita Publications, Jaipur, 1990, Page 59).

By late nineteen thirties the AIML turned its expansionist design into a confrontationist Muslim politics in Assam . It encouraged the Muslim migrants to settle in Assam and since then the immigrants have became a chronic problem in the provincial politics of the state. Influx of Muslim peasantry in Assam converted its wastelands into cultivable fields and helped in development of its economy. But exposure of this otherwise closed society to new socio-political environment adversely affected its socio-cultural scenario.

After 1937 election, Gopi Nath Bordoloi headed a Congress led coalition Government in Assam and tried to stop the unhindered flow of immigrant Muslims. But his Government had to resign in November 1939 to respond to the Congress High Command’s call for resignation of all its Provincial Governments in protest against the War policy of the British. This decision of the party however facilitated the formation of an alternative Coalition Government in Assam headed by Sir Saadullah of AIML. “During the period between 1939-1941, Saadullah Government allotted one Lakh bighas (Little less than an acre) of land in Assam valley for the settlement of East Bengal immigrants” (Political History of Assam – Edited by A. C. Bhuyan and Shibopada De, Vol. III, Publication Board of Assam, 1999, Page 262). He ignored the protest of Assam Congress leaders like Bishnuram Medhi and others on the plea that the Muslim exodus from Bengal to Assam was necessary for the success of ‘Grow more food’ scheme in the state.

Lord Wavel, Viceroy of India in the Viceroy’s Journal, London Publication,December 22, 1943 said: ” …The chief political problem is the desire of Muslim Ministers of Assam to increase the immigrations into uncultivated Government lands in Assam under the slogan of ‘Grow more food’ but what really is to ‘Grow more Muslims’ (Politics of Migration by Dr. Manju Singh, Anita Publications, Jaipur, 1990, Page 70). Mahatma Gandhi too expressed his concern over the problem of such unrestricted immigration but he could not do anything to check the exodus for the reason best known to him.The resignation of Congress led Government in Assam was the first blunder committed by the party in respect of its policy on Muslim immigration. Even Subash Chandra Bose and the Congress leaders of Assam had argued for exemption of Assam from the decision of the party on the plea that it would help the AIML in settling the Muslim immigrants in the state. The Congress High Command was however, not convinced.

With large-scale settlement of alien immigrants following the installation of Saadullah Government, AIML established a tremendous influence on the Muslim population of Assam , who later aggressively supported the demand for Pakistan . After 1946 general election Bordoloi again headed the Congress Government and took a firm and tough stand for eviction of immigrants. Alarmed with the eviction plan of Bordoloi, AIML Legislators’ Convention held at Delhi in April 1946, demanded inclusion of Assam in Pakistan and strongly opposed the eviction plan of immigrant Muslims. Abdul Hamid Khan, popularly known as Maulana Bhasani, a volatile League leader, who had dominated Muslim politics in Assam till partition was deputed to execute the “AIML plan to turn the non-Muslim majority state of Assam into Muslim majority state”. Meanwhile Jinnah came up with the demand of the League for inclusion of Assam in proposed Pakistan . The central leadership of the Congress party had virtually made up its mind to give up its claim over Assam and Bordoloi had to run from pillar to post and convince Mahatma Gandhi whose intervention could only save Assam from going to Pakistan . Since whole energy of Bordoloi was to save Assam from the geo-political design of AIML, he failed to give proper attention to implement his plan to cleanse Assam from Muslim immigrants. Assamese people for their centuries old closeness with cultural current of India had fought shoulder to shoulder with the freedom fighters of the country against the British power, but the attitude of the Congress High Command created an emotional distance from the centre.

After partition, the Assamese people expected that there would not be any further trans-migration of Muslims from East Pakistan to their new political territory. Muslim populations in Assam considerably decreased in 1947 partly due to inclusion of Sylhet in Pakistan and also return of sizeable number of earlier immigrants to their original land due to fear of backlash. But the situation changed, when Mainul Haq Chaudhary, the Private Secretary of Jinnah and also a prominent leader of the youth wing of AIML till partition joined Congress party along with the supporters of Pakistan en-mass. On the eve of partition, he was shaky whether to opt for Pakistan or stay back in India . He was however told by Jinnah, “wait for ten years, I shall present Assam on a silver plate to you” (Politics of Alienation in Assam by Bhawani Singh, 1984, Page 72). Jinnah died in 1948 but the Congress Party fulfilled his promise by inducting Chaudhary in the Cabinet of Congress Government led by Gopi Nath Bordoloi. It is often alleged that Chaudhary stayed back in Assam on the advice of Jinnah and other Pakistani leaders to help the immigrants from Pakistan for their settlement in Assam .

After Independence the flow of illegal migration from East Pakistan again increased aggressively as in absence of any population planning by its government or any social movement for creating awareness to control population, its people remained facing the problem of living space for survival. To carry forward the political legacy of AIML that East Pakistan / Bangladesh needed more lebensraum or living space, its leaders continued their plan for Islamic expansionism in Assam through infiltration of Muslims as the country was unable to shoulder the burden of its multiplying population. The successive governments in Pakistan pursued the twin policy of squeezing out the Hindus and infiltrating the Muslims to settle down in Assam and other bordering states in India .
Against the evil geo-political design of Pakistan , which scared the Assamese middle class of the threat to their marginalisation in their own land, Government of India never had any organised plan or definite policy. Nehru-Liaquat Pact (April 1950) with “special provisions for restoration of rights of immigrants over their properties if they would choose to return not later than the 31st December 1950″ (Assam Issue -The Biginning – The End -The Beginning by Vijay Kumar Dewan, United Publishers Guwahati, 1985, Page 34-35) rather facilitated the Pakistan Government to accelerate infiltration. The Pact, which validated the entry of immigrants up to 31.12.50, was against the spirit of Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam ) Act 1950 enacted by Parliament on 13.2.1950. It is said that the Congress leadership applauded the increase of Muslim immigrants as a God sent opportunity to consolidate the ‘Muslim vote banks’ and accordingly ruled Assam without any break for thirty years.

In early sixties, the Government of Assam under the leadership of Congress Chief Minister Bimala Prasad Chaliha launched an aggressive campaign to flush out the immigrants, who settled in Assam since January 1951. He even disregarded Prime Minister Nehru’s plea to go slow on the issue. “Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted the Assam Chief Minister, Bimala Prasad Chaliha to go easy on deportations and even stop them. Chaliha refused, saying that the problem was so critical that Assam ‘s demography and culture would be permanently changed” (Rites of Passage by Sanjoy Hazarika, Penguin Books, 2000, Page 60).

Chaliha Government armed itself with Prevention of Infiltration from Pakistan (PIP) Act 1964 and pursued the campaign. Even though, the Muslim leaders encouraged the Bengali speaking Muslim immigrants to declare Assamese as their mother tongue to dodge the police of their detection, Chaliha’s campaign against the infiltrators pressed a panic button among them. However, twenty Muslim MLAs in the Government threatened him to topple his ministry if he does not stop deportations. Chaliha had to succumb to this pressure and the PIP Act was put in cold storage (Ibid.). Those who, were deported earlier gradually returned and again settled in Assam .

As per conservative assessment about a million of Muslim infiltrators settled down in the vacant areas contiguous to the areas where Muslim migrants in British India were already settled. Moinul Huq Choudhury, who later became a Minister in the Union Cabinet of Indira Gandhi Government and former President of India Fakharuddin Ali Ahmad were widely known for being instrumental in the settlement of illegal Muslim immigrants. Gradually, the Muslim population in Assam , which was about 19 Lakhs in 1947, increased to about 36 Lakhs within 25 years of Independence by 1972. “Late B.K.Nehru, the Governor of Assam between 1968 and 1973, condemned the infiltration as vote bank politics by the Congress” (Prafulla Goradia in Pioneer dated September 15, 2005). “Over the years, the Congress with its activist pro-minority plank was seen as a party which supported the interest of the settlers. It was thus labeled pro-’Bangladeshi’ by its opponents” (Rites of Passage by Sanjoy Hazarika, Penguin Books, 2000, Page 69).

In 1971Bangladesh emerged as a sovereign nation after liberation war against Pakistan with the help of Indian Army. In stead of being grateful, the new nation maintained the same policy of Pakistan on Muslim infiltration in Assam . People of India in general and Assam in particular failed to understand that when the changed geo-political reality of Indian sub-continent in 1947 sealed their political destiny with the respective country of India and Pakistan , how come the infiltration continue? The argument of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh that, “without the inclusion of Assam the East Bengal economy could not be balanced” is ridiculous as a sovereign nation cannot throw its burden on another countries. If he was unable to bear the responsibility of his own people, he should not have gone for liberation of Bangladesh . Such an attitude of Sheikh Mujib proved that he also carried forward the AIML legacy of Muslim expansionism in Assam . He was an equal partner in implementation of the geo-political design of Pakistan to destablise Assam and balkanise it on the basis of religion. Z.A Bhutto had spelt out this design as far back as in 1968. “The late Prime Minister of Pakistan, Z.A.Bhutto, wrote about the geo-political aims of Pakistan in 1968 in his book, The Myth of Independence where he elaborated that it would be wrong to think that Kashmir is the only dispute that divides India and Pakistan, though it is undoubtedly the most significant one, at least is nearly as important as the Kashmir dispute is that of ASSAM and some districts adjacent to East Pakistan” (Insurgency in North-East India-The Role of Bangladesh, Edited by Dipankar Sengupta and Sudhir Kumar Singh, Authors Press, 2004, Page 73-74).

Even after liberation, a huge number of Bangladeshi Muslims stayed back in Assam and helped their co-religionists in influencing the electoral politics of this state. They not only further increased the demographic imbalance in the state but also scared the Assamese middle class of the danger to their socio-cultural identity. One may like to recall that it was a shocking revelation of detection of thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims in the revision of electoral rolls in Mangaldoi Parliamentry constituency in 1979, which sparked the Assam agitation led by All Assam Students Union (AASU) against the Bangladeshi infiltrators.

When the Assam agitation reached to its climax and turned violent, two separate delegations one of legislators (16) led by Janata Party leader Golap Barbora and another of writers(4) led by Dr. Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya emphatically narrated the alarming problem of illegal Muslim immigration in Assam in their respective memorandum to the Rajya Sabha Committee of Petitions. Seventy -third Report of the Committee of Petitions, Rajya Sabha dated March 22, 1982 while quoting the memorandum said:

“The official statistics showed that a total of 2,20,690 Pakistani infiltrators were detected in the state during the period 1950-1961 and another 1,92, 339 were spotted in the following decade. During the Bangladesh War of Liberation (1971) a total of 1,00,000 immigrants stayed behind even after Independence of their country. … The prime factor responsible for this abnormal growth (of Muslims) was the geo-political ambition of Pakistan over Assam ” (Page 2 of the Report).

The Report quoting the memorandum of Legislators led by Golap Barbora maintained:

“No sovereign nation can permit the influx of foreign nationals into its territory. But the North Eastern region of the country in general and Assam in particular have been experiencing the area being utilised as the dumping ground for a large numbers of foreigners being vomited out by a neighbouring country since a long time. Besides, a large number of such foreigners were appeased with political rights by entering their names in the voters’ list of the state for petty political games at the instance of the vested political forces that were at the helm of affairs since Independence” (Ibid.).

The Report quoting the memorandum signed by the writers of Assam said:

“That the problem of infiltration of foreigners in large scale has reached such a stage that unless immediate drastic steps were taken to solve it, the state of Assam , and for that matter, the entire North Eastern Region, faces the danger of being over run by foreigners in the next few years”. The memorandum also quoted the written address of the Chief Election Commissioner to the Chief Election Officers Conference at Ootacamund on 24th September 1978. He said: “I would like to refer to the alarming situation in some states, specially in the North Eastern Region, wherefrom disturbing reports are coming regarding large scale inclusion of foreign nationals in the electoral rolls”. Refering to Assam the Chief Election Commissioner further said: “The influx has become a very regular feature. I think that it may not be wrong assessment to make that on the basis of increase of 34.98 percent between the two Census (1961-1971), the increase that is likely to be recorded in the 1991 Census would be more than 100 percent over the 1961 Census. ..”Another disturbing factor in this regard in the demand made by the political parties for the inclusion in the electoral rolls of the name of such migrants who are not Indian citizens” (Ibid. Page 18-19).

Replying to the debate in Rajya Sabha, the Home Ministry maintained that “the Government is fully seized of the matter. Efforts towards finding a solution satisfactory to all concerned are continuing” (Ibid. Page 25).

During negotiation with the agitating AASU leaders, the Government wanted 1971 as cut-off year for treating the immigrants as foreigners, which meant that all the alien infiltrators, who settled in Assam between 1951 and 1971 were to be accorded Indian citizenship. However, the negotiation broke down as AASU insisted on January 1951 as cut-off year. One fails to understand that why Government of India did not take a tough stand on the cut -off year for the citizenship on the basis of the National Register of 1951? Since infiltrators were the foreigners they would not have been given the citizenship of the country. Justice M.C.Chagla, former Education Minister once said:

“We have our constitution, we have citizenship laws. There are decisions by the highest courts to indicate who is a national and who is a foreigner. What does it matter when a person came to Assam if he is not a national but a foreigner. The year of his entry does not change his legal status. Unnecessary complications have been introduced by talking of the cut-off year”(‘ Assam ’s Agony by Amiya Kumar Das, Lancer’s Publication Delhi, 1982, Page 132). Such logic of an eminent personality had no meaning in the vote bank politics of the Congress.

When the movement picked up momentum the Congress Government at centre led by Indira Gandhi pushed legislation in Parliament in 1983 called Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunal (IMDT) Act. Tribunal was set up in each district of Assam to decide upon the presence of illegal migrants. Under IMDT Act onus lied on prosecution to prove before the tribunal that the suspect was foreigner. This was against the provision of the Foreigner Act under which suspect was to prove his or her Indian citizenship. This lacuna in the new Act hardly brought desired result. Ironically, AASU leaders never raised this point assertively and after repeated negotiations signed Assam Accord in the early hour of August 15, 1985. Violating all the constitutional provisions, the Accord accepted the infiltrators between 1951 to 1971 as genuine citizens of the country. The Accord maintained 1971 as cut-off year for detection, deletion from voters’ list and deportation.

Assamese people, who were tired of long agitation from 1979 to 1985 celebrated the Accord. The power hungry AASU leaders, while taking it as their first political victory formed a political organisation namely Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and contested subsequent Assembly election held by the end of 1985. As expected, they got a landslide victory and formed Government. Soon after forming the Government, they fell into the trap of vested interests and the problem of infiltration went to the back burner. Meanwhile, ULFA an off shoot of AASU/AGP raised armed rebellion against Government of India for cessation of Assam from India .

The people belonging to Bengali descent apprehended a danger to their deportation following the Assam Accord but thanks to Muslim lobby, the process of detection, deletion and deportation remained as slow as it was before the Accord. One may laugh to know that ” between 1983 to 2000, the sixteen tribunals in various districts…. have located about 10,000 illegals (immigrants) of which a bare 1,400 have been deported” (Rites of Passage by Sanjoy Hazarika, Penguin Books, 2000, Page 70).

Ironically, even after the alarming report on the ‘demographic invasion’ by Bangladesh by the Governor of Assam in 1998 the problem of Muslim infiltrators remains as acute in Assam as ever. Report on ‘Illegal Migration into Assam as submitted to the President of India by the Governor, Lt. Gen.(Retd.) S. K. Sinha in 1998 “warned that if the present trends are not arrested, the indigenous people of Assam would be reduced to a minority and there may, in course of time, be a demand for the merger of Muslim dominated bordering districts with Bangladesh” (Insurgency in North-East India: The Role of Bangladesh – Dipankar Sengupta -Sudhir Kumar Singh, Authorspress, Delhi 2004, Page 73). Governor’s report, which called the infiltration a “national threat” and the report “worked out by Group of Ministers, headed by Union Home Minister in 2001 noted that more than 15 million illegal immigrants have entered India over the last five decades from Bangladesh, an intrusion that has completely changed the demography of large parts of Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Tripura and Bihar” (Ibid.).

“The 1991 census shows that the Muslim population of the country increased by 4.02 million, or 65.4 7 per cent over that of 1971, in Assam the increase has been by 77.42 per cent. Muslims now form a majority in the district of Dhubri (70.42%), Goalpara (50.18%), Barpeta (56.07%) and Hailakandi (55.18%)” (Insurgency in North-East India-The Role of Bangladesh, Edited by Dipankar Sengupta and Sudhir Kumar Singh, Authors Press, 2004, Page 51). In addition to these four Muslim majority districts other five districts namely Bongaigaon (32.74 %), Morigaon (45.31 %), Nagaon (47.19 %), Karimganj (49.17 %) and Cachar (34.49 %) are having Muslim population varying between 32.74 percent to 49.17 percent. “Although the 2001Religion census is yet to be declared, an independent analysis that was conducted seems to show that there has been a sizeable growth in population among Muslims in Assam . It records that as a community the Muslims had registered an increase of 16.17 percent growth in 2001 figures (Terror Sans Frontier:Islamic Militancy in North India by Jaideep Saikia, Ford Fellow, July 2003, page 17).

“According to a study conducted by a few scholars of Toronto University and the American Academy of Arts and Science, 15 Million Bangladesh nationals have infiltrated in India . According to another study done by another American organisation, namely, The Advancement of Science, 20 million Bangladesh nationals are presently staying in India” (The Silent Invasion by Hiranya Kumar Bhattacharyya, Spectrum Publications, Guwahat:Delhi, 2001, Page 83). Muslim infiltration from Bangladesh into India is somewhere between 10 millions to 20 millions (Pioneer dated 22.9. 2004 by S.Gurumurthy, a widely known economists). Despite these observations on infiltration, Bangladesh never accepted the illegal migration of its people and often blamed India for deliberately pushing out its principal religious minority to their territory. Infiltration being one of the reasons behind the troubled relation between the two countries but Bangladesh in assistance with Pakistan continues fighting against India for Islamic expansionism as a result Assam has become its first victim. The political leadership as well as the officials, who govern the country are fully aware of this hard reality of infiltration but ironically they close their eyes due to the expediency of the vote bank politics. In absence of any accountably they overlooked the problem of undocumented illegal immigrants settled in Indian soil and threw the Assamese in the cesspool of Muslim vote bank politics.

“The Assam Police claimed to have arrested four hardcore ISI functionaries arrested by Assam Police on August 7, 1999. It was disclosed by them that “ISI had plans to train 10000 people in Assam for jehad to liberate Assam and establish an Islamic country comprising the territory of the state and some other parts of North-Eastern India” (Insurgency in North-East India-The Role of Bangladesh, Edited by Dipankar Sengupta and Sudhir Kumar Singh, Authors Press, 2004 Page 74).

One may wonder how the Muslim population of Assam from19, 81857 in 1951 increased to 63,73,204 in 1991. Census figure suggests over 30 percent growth in Muslim population of Assam after 1951.Taking into account the pace of growth rate between 1951 to 1991 the Muslim populatioin in Assam might have increased to at least 33 percent by 2005. It means the present Muslim population in the State might have increased to another 3 percent. On the other hand Hindu population in the State decreased from 72.51 percent in 1971 to 67.13 percent in 1991. It means the decrease rate of about 5 percent in 20 years. If the trends are allowed to continue a day will come when indigenous people of State may come under Islamic subjugation and would ultimately be forced to face a serious threat to their identity as happened in the case of Kashmir (Terror Sans Frontier:Islamic Militancy in North India by Jaideep Saikia, Ford Fellow, July 2003).

After 22 years of the enactment of IMDT Act the Supreme Court repealed it in last July. The Muslim leaders, who are not happy with the verdict of the highest court in the country already started their arm twisting approach to ensure that the ruling party at centre could bring another legislation or ordinance for a substitute of IMDT Act. Baduddin Azmal, President Jaiat – Ulema -e- Hind , Assam expressed his anguish against the Congress for its failure to defend the IMDT Act. He is also exploring the possibility of mobilising the various Muslim organisations to bring them under a political party for contesting next year Assembly elections. Muslims now constitute over 30 percent of about 26 million population of Assam . They are now at the centre stage of Assam politics due to their commanding influence in about 40 of the total 126 Assembly constituencies. Sensing the mood of the Muslim leaders all the political parties except the Bhartiya Janata Party have already started hobnobbing with Muslim leaders for electoral alliance with them for next year Assembly elections in the state. It is an irony of fate that even AGP and its splinter group AGP (Progressive), whose leaders had led a high voltage agitation against the immigrants are also speaking the same language to appease the Muslim leaders for their support in election as Congress has been doing since Independence .

The higher growth of Muslim population in Assam due to unrestricted infiltration for consolidating the Muslim votes is a threat to its socio-cultural subjugation. It is one of the major sources of bitterness and tension in the region. Now the political clout of Muslim leaders is so strong that no political party is in a position to take a tough stand against the illegal immigrants in this state. But it is ridiculous that United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), an offshoot of ASSU, which fought for detection, deletion (from voters’ list) and deportation of these foreigners – demands cessation of Assam from India with the support of same Bangladesh and Pakistan against whom they had launched agitation. Due to lack of vision they do not understand the design of the communal politics of the Muslims of Assam and neighbouring Bangladesh . They must know that once, Assam is ceded from India , the Muslim militants will throw away the Hindus in Assam as they did in Pakistan and Bangladesh . Their condition will be same as of the Kashmiri Pundits. They must take a lesson from the political vision of the former leaders of Assam like Gopi Nath Bordoloi, Bisnu Ram Medhi and B.P.Chaliha who even at the cost of humiliation by the Congress High Command never thought of secession and pursue their political fight against infiltration to the best of their capacity.

(Email: ramashray60@rediffmail.com)
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It's not a Hindu vs Muslim conflict in Assam, but Indians vs foreigners

Assam's plight has originated in the fact that the Congress party, for its shortsighted political considerations, has refused to acknowledge that infiltrators are foreigners, says Sudheendra Kulkarni
It's a deadly and unending tale of two floods that Assam has been battling. And it's losing the battle on both fronts.

The month of July began by thrusting Assam into national and international news headlines by informing us that floods in the mighty Brahmaputra river and its tributaries had killed nearly 80 people and affected nearly two million people in the state. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh  who conducted the ritual of an aerial survey of the flood-hit areas, told reporters in Guwahati, 'People of Assam are facing one of the worst floods in recent times.'

July ended with Assam once again in the news. The prime minister is to visit Assam again July 28 in response to yet another disaster, this one caused by a flood of a different kind -- the flood of Bangladeshi infiltrators into the state.

At press time, nearly 50 people had been killed and over 200,000 people have been rendered homeless in prolonged communal-ethnic violence in and around Kokrajhar district. Violent clashes have broken out between native Bodos and illegal Muslim migrants from Bangladesh. The root cause of this violence is the joint failure of the federal and Assam state governments to stop wave after wave of Bangladeshis from swarming into different parts of Assam and drastically changing the state's demographic profile, especially of the districts close to the border. In Bodo-populated areas, this 'flood' has caused large-scale usurpation of tribal lands and made Bodos feel fearful that they are being marginalised in their own land.

There is a well-known word for it -- ethnic cleansing.

What is happening in Assam, and it has been happening for decades now, is ethnic and religious cleansing caused by this massive human flood.

This is the stark truth. And Dr Singh knows it very well. After all, he is India's prime minister. He gets regular reports on what is happening in the state from the governor, the Intelligence Bureau and other official sources. And these sources, as we shall see, don't lie. Dr Singh has also been a member of Parliament from Assam -- as a representative in the Rajya Sabha, the upper House -- for the past 22 years. At press time he was yet to go, but one can be certain that Dr Singh, in Assam, will not utter a word recognising the disturbing truth about this second kind of flood.

It's easy to blame Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi  for inaction. No doubt, he and his government have a lot to answer for, especially since there was ample evidence about tension building up in the Bodo-populated areas for the past several months. But a far greater part of the blame lies at the doorsteps of the prime minister and the Congress party president. Both the Congress party and the United Progressive Alliance  government it leads have been indulging in a game of denial and falsification when it comes to infiltration of Bangladeshis into Assam and other states of India.

Here are a few facts: July 15, 2004, Sriprakash Jaiswal, minister of state for home affairs in the UPA government, said in the Rajya Sabha: '1,20,53,950 illegal Bangladeshi migrants were residing in 17 states and Union territories as on December 31, 2001.' He also said that five million Bangladeshis were living in Assam. Dr Singh happened to visit Guwahati the following day. He was confronted by the state's Congress party leaders who were concerned that Jaiswal's reply in Parliament could affect the party's prospects in the 2006 state elections in Assam. They asked the prime minister that the official statement be retracted. Dr Singh succumbed to pressure and publicly stated that he doubted the authenticity of the information provided by his own junior minister. A week later, Jaiswal told Parliament that the information that he had provided about Bangladeshi infiltrators 'is unreliable and based on hearsay'!

Jaiswal was not the first to do this shameful about-turn under the pressure of vote-bank politics. April 10, 1992, Assam's then chief minister, Hiteswar Saikia, stated in the legislative assembly that there were 'between two and three million' Bangladeshi infiltrators in Assam. He was only stating the obvious. This met with intense anger from the Muslim Forum in Assam. The Forum's head, Abdul Muhib Mazumdar, a Congress party man, reminded the chief minister that the Congress party's survival in power depended on 'Muslim votes' and warned that it would take 'just five minutes for the Muslims of Assam to throw your government out'. Saikia soon declared there was not a single illegal migrant in the state.

One can give numerous instances of warnings sounded by people in authority. In 1996, TV Rajeshwar, a former director of the IB who was later made the governor of Uttar Pradesh  by the UPA government, had warned, through a series of newspaper articles, that unchecked illegal immigration from Bangladesh into Assam and other border states in India's northeast 'could someday lead to a third division of India'. When he was governor of Assam, retired General SK Sinha had also cautioned about grave consequences for India's unity and security if the problem of Bangladeshi infiltration is not tackled firmly.

The warning has also come from the judiciary. The Guwahati high court in 2008 heard a case relating to a Pakistani national who came to Bangladesh, then infiltrated into Assam, got his name registered on the voters' list and even managed to contest the 1996 assembly elections. Observing in despair that "this can happen only in Assam", the court noted that "illegal Bangladeshi immigrants are slowly becoming the 'king makers' in Assam and will reduce indigenous Assamese to a minority...."

The warning sounded by India's Supreme Court has been even direr. The prolonged agitation of the Assamese people against infiltration from Bangladesh -- and earlier from East Pakistan -- culminated in the Assam Accord of 1985. The Rajiv Gandhi government enacted the Illegal Migrants (Determination through Tribunal) Act. The Assam Accord was hailed as one of the great achievement of Rajiv Gandhi's premiership. The IMDT Act turned out to be a cure worse than the disease. Far from checking the infiltration of Bangladeshis, it gave it a boost.

This happened because the Rajiv Gandhi government had deliberately introduced certain flaws into the act that enabled infiltration to continue. Neither the Congress party nor any of the self-styled secular parties were subsequently willing to remove these flaws. After a prolonged legal battle by anti-foreigner forces in Assam, the Supreme Court, in its July 2005 verdict, struck down the IMDT Act as 'unconstitutional' and urged the federal government to take effective steps to stop the influx of Bangladeshis. The Supreme Court warned that large-scale infiltration from Bangladesh constituted 'external aggression' against Assam.

In the past seven years since the Supreme Court's ruling, the UPA government has done nothing to 'take effective steps' to check the influx of Bangladeshis. Considerations of vote-bank politics have triumphed over the Congress party's weakening concern for India's unity and integrity.

The problem that Assam is confronted with is not a Hindu versus Muslim conflict; it is an Indian nationals versus foreigners conflict. Native Muslims in Assam have, and should have, the same rights as native Hindus. However, foreigners who infiltrate into Assam -- or other parts of India -- cannot claim to have the same rights as Indians. Assam's plight has originated in the fact that the Congress party, for its shortsighted political considerations, has refused to acknowledge that infiltrators are foreigners.

Bhupen Hazarika, Assam's greatest cultural icon who passed away last year, had expressed his people's anguish in a lyric he composed way back in 1968: 'Today's Assamese must save themselves or else they will become refugees in their own land'.

Today, in 2012, Assam is finding itself in a far more helpless situation. The violence in the Bodo areas is an expression of this helplessness. 

Violence of any kind, and targeted against anybody, is condemnable. Every human life is precious, and snuffing out any human life is a crime. But why is the Congress party silent on the ongoing demographic invasion of India, threatening our nation's unity and integrity, in the form of the never-ending influx of foreigners into our country?

Sudheendra Kulkarni is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party's  National Executive. He can be reached at sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com
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Islamic militants take aim at Myanmar

 
By Jacob Zenn

After decades of isolation under military rule, Myanmar is opening to foreign investment and forms of democracy for the first time in a generation. The reform process, however, is now being attended by unanticipated consequences and influences, both internally and from abroad, that could undermine the country's new trend towards openness.

Recent sectarian fighting between Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar's western Rakhine State has caught the attention of militant Islamists in South and Southeast Asia. Since May, the amount of jihadi propaganda directed towards Myanmar, a country previously unknown in the world of jihadi antagonists, has surged as perhaps thousands of Muslim Rohingyas have been forced to flee the country.

Tensions between the ethnic Rohingya and Rakhine populations in Rakhine State were mostly kept under wraps under Myanmar's previous ruling military junta. Violence erupted on May 28 after an ethnic Rakhine woman was raped and murdered allegedly by three Rohingyas in Rakhine State, and the government was unprepared for the inter-ethnic violence that soon transpired.

A cycle of violence between the two groups has since resulted in widespread arson attacks and hundreds of murders. Perhaps thousands of the 800,000 Rohingyas living in Rakhine State have recently fled to Bangladesh, which many Myanmar citizens claim is the Rohingyas' true homeland.

The violence occurs at a time of growing regional instability in the pivot area where South and Southeast Asia meet, namely the areas along the Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India's Assamese borders. At the same that Muslim Rohingyas and Buddhist Rakhines clashed in Myanmar, fighting erupted between Muslims and Hindus in India's Assam State.

Since mid-July, more than 30 people have been killed and 150,000 displaced in Assam as riots devolved into open conflict between indigenous tribes such as the Bodos and Muslim settlers in the state's Kokrajhar and Chirang districts. As in Myanmar where the Rohingyas are considered illegal Bangladeshi settlers, the Muslims targeted in Assam are accused of being ethnic Bengalis from Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has the highest population density of any country and is woefully ill-equipped to deal with an influx of refugees from Myanmar and India. Bangladesh is home to a population of 160 million people in a country the size of the US State of Iowa, which in contrast has a population of only three million people.

Bangladesh also has its own homegrown problems with Muslim extremist groups, including the Hizb ut-Tahrir, which authorities banned in 2009. The head of the Indian Mujahideen (IM), Yasin Bhatkal, is believed to be hiding in Dhaka and Chittagong, Bangladesh's two largest cities, allegedly with the help of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency.

The Bangladesh government now runs the risk of being perceived by militant Islamists as selling out fellow Muslims, a sentiment expressed in a recent surge of jihadi propaganda condemning it for not doing enough to help the inrush of refugee Rohingyas.

As is often the case with jihadi statements, the videos and essays propagated by militant Islamists about recent events in Myanmar are more rhetoric than substance. Playing up the victimhood narrative, they apparently hope to incite the global Muslim community, or ummah, and win new recruits to their wider cause against enemy "infidel" governments and countries.

While secular Bangladesh has been a target of Islamists for years, Myanmar is apparently a new member of the "infidel" club of countries that propagandists threaten in response to its treatment of the Rohingyas. Given the Myanmar military's ongoing challenges of trying to pacify internal insurgencies, including a major unresolved conflict in northern Kachin State, it is likely unprepared to raise its counter-terrorism capabilities to prevent a possible retributive plot against the country.

The most recent militant statement to target Myanmar came from Lebanon's Hezbollah, which on July 23 said in an official statement:
"The regime-owned killing machine relentlessly works on striking Muslims in different regions, with Rohingya at the forefront...This is a new racial purification trend against Muslims."
On July 20, the Taliban released a more vitriolic statement saying:
The Muslims of [Myanmar] have been facing such oppression and savagery for the past two months never previously witnessed in the history of mankind.

Mercilessly burning children, women and men like toasting sheep on fire is not only against every known law but something no man with any conscious can ever accept but unfortunately the Muslims of [Myanmar] are targets of such a gross crime. Not only that, but they are also being expelled from their lands, forcefully ejected from their homes, their wealth is being usurped and their honor looted while the whole world turns a blind eye to their plight.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, besides considering this crime a black scar on the history of mankind, calls on the government of [Myanmar] to immediately put a stop to this savagery and barbarism and halt such heart rending historical violations against humans and humanity. They should realize that this is not only a crime against the Muslims of [Myanmar] but against all humankind and especially an unforgivable crime against the entire Muslim world…[1]
On July 16, The Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF), the European propaganda arm in support of al Qadea and other radical Islamic organizations, issued a recent question and answer essay called "The Genocide against the Muslims in [Myanmar]" on the jihadist website al Fidaa:
Why did this genocide begin? The Buddhist Rakhine killers placed the dead body [of the raped and killed Rakhine woman] near a Muslim village without any knowledge of the murder. The Buddhist Rakhine and Burmese (Myanmar) authority accused Muslims of killing the woman. As a result, three innocent Muslim youths were arrested. One was beaten to death, and the other two were sentenced to death by the court. The government has shown the world that they created a fake issue to instigate a real event against Muslims.

How did this genocide start and what happened afterwards? On June 3, 2012, eight Muslim pilgrims along with one escort, one bus helper, and one woman were killed by a Rakhine mob in Taungup township in southern Arakan [Rakhine] State. Five others escaped the massacre…The gang of Rakhine terrorists stopped the bus, which had the license plate 7 (Ga) 7868, at an immigration gate, and called, "Come down all, if there are any foreigners," while holding lethal weapons…Then, they started to beat the Muslim pilgrims and dragged them from the bus to the road, where an organized gang of more than 300 Rakhine terrorists beat the Muslims until they died. The gang had been standing at the immigration gate, but no authorities came out to stop the massacre. [2]
These messages and interpretations of events are starting to cause regional ripple effects. On July 13, 300 members of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid (JAT) in Indonesia threatened to storm the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta. One protest leader said over a loudspeaker: "If embassy officials refuse to talk with us, I demand all of you break into the building and turn it upside down … Allahu Akbar … Every drop of blood that is shed from a Muslim must be paid back. Nothing is free in this world … FPI is ready to wage jihad … Go to Myanmar and carry out jihad for your Muslim brothers."

On July 6, the al-Faruq Foundation for Media Production released an Arabic-language video called "Solidarity With Our Muslim Brothers in Arakan (The Tragedy of [Myanmar])" on the Ansar al-Mujahideen Forum. The propaganda film includes a historical narrative focusing on Muslim victimhood played over images of brutalized Rohingyas, although some of the images appear not to have come from the recent violence. The video's narrative includes a passage that says:
They steal the money of the Muslims and they steal their crops and they prohibit the Muslims from communicating with people from other countries. They also prevent the marriages of Muslims and they put a lot of obstacles in the way of Muslim marriages. This is not all as there is a lot of injustice that you can't even imagine and all forms of torture. So where are the defenders of the human rights in the 20th century and where the people who fight for freedom and democracy. This awful silence indicates the acceptance and supporting of this because it is Muslim blood that is being shed and since it is a Muslim blood, then the blood is cheap like the blood of Muslims of 'Arakan', Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya and everywhere else.
These and other statements have put the Rohingyas' plight on the radar of many Islamist militant groups. While their propaganda is directed at militants from all regions, some of the groups who have issued statements on Myanmar are clearly trying to recruit disenfranchised Rohingyas to their radical causes.

They have a potential galvanizing figure. One ethnic Rohingya, Abu Zar al-Burmi, is believed to be the mufti, or religious scholar, for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. Without roots in any nation, as Rohingyas are not allowed citizenship in Myanmar or Bangladesh, al-Burmi has promoted the creation of a global Muslim community which exists without respect to international borders.

The growing inter-religious fighting and spillover humanitarian crises in Rakhine and Assam States is exerting new pressures on Bangladesh, Myanmar, and India. As the violence spirals and governments fail to restore order and dispense of justice for crimes committed, the situation could quickly become a new regional, if not international, security dilemma.

For their part, Islamist militants have shown they are prepared to exploit the plight of the Rohingyas for their own radical purposes, while neither Myanmar nor Bangladesh have demonstrated they are able to manage the crisis at a local or national level. Should the crisis escalate and become an effective recruiting tool for transnational Islamist militant groups, the international community will one way or another eventually be dragged into the mire.

Notes:
1. Statement of Islamic Emirate regarding the bloody tragedy of the Muslims of Burma, July 20, 2012.
2. The Genocide Against the Muslims in Burma, Jihadology, July 16, 2012.
3. Solidarity With Our Muslim Brothers in Arakan (The Tragedy of Burma), Jihadology, July 6, 2012.


Jacob Zenn is a political risk analyst and legal adviser based in Washington, D.C., who focuses on militant groups in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Nigeria. He can be reached at zopensource123@....
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