Pretence over IM(DT) Act

Author: Editorial
Publication: Sentinel Assam
Date: November 10, 2004

Having decided to retain a discriminatory and anti-people immigration law called the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983, the UPA Government at the Centre and the Congress Government of Mr Tarun Gogoi in Assam are beginning to feel the heat of strong public resentment and public rejection. Statements are being made with increasing frequency by Congress leaders and Mr Gogoi on illegal immigration from Bangladesh and on the IM(DT) Act that cleverly distort the basic issues. This is understandable because the sheer survival of the UPA coalition by hook or crook is far more crucial to the Union Government than secondary issues like the security and integrity of the country or the future of a peripheral State like Assam and the destiny of its people. And the survival of the UPA Government is bound to be further jeopardized by the Left if the IM(DT) Act gets repealed or even diluted from its present form. After all, at least four prominent CPM leaders are first-generation Bangladeshis, and for them Bangladesh will never be regarded as a foreign country, no matter what happens as a consequence of the large-scale illegal infiltration into Assam from Bangladesh. They want a law that will make it impossible to ever detect and deport illegal migrants at least from Assam. And the double standards are so glaring. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharyya has made it amply clear on more than one occasion that he will not have the IM(DT) Act for West Bengal, even though introducing the law in his own State entails nothing more than just a gazette notification. He will do nothing of the sort because he knows what a bad and toothless immigration law it is. But Mr Tarun Gogoi is an Assamese, and ought to know what the IM(DT) Act is doing to his own State and people. True, he underscored his Indian identity above all else a couple of years ago in an interview with The Sentinel. However, it is important for him to bear in mind that he is an Indian because he is an Assamese in the first place. What is happening now is that in the perverse process of trying to justify the retention of the IM(DT) Act he is being compelled to take shelter in the kind of sophistry that stubbornly refuses to face the fundamental questions about the black law. When the question hinges on the repeal of the IM(DT) Act, the stock Congress response is who did not repeal the Act even though they were in power at the Centre for seven years or in the State for ten years. No one is answering the question about who brought in the Act in the first place or how long the Congress (in one or the other of its avatars) was in power at the Centre and in the State. Likewise, no one in the Congress is answering questions on the discrimination that the Act imposes on the people of Assam, or the fact that there is no other country in the world with two immigration laws. This is a serious matter for the simple reason that a second immigration law just for one State of the Union is a clear sabotage of the existing immigration law for the rest of the country. Likewise, there is no one in the Congress to explain to us how any immigration law can function if the onus of proving nationality is not on the illegal migrant but on the individual citizen who has to risk life and limb in making a complaint against a foreign national in the jurisdiction of his own police station. But worst of all, even the custodians of the law cannot deport a known illegal migrant because the immigration law for Assam does not permit them to do this. And so there is a mushroom growth of Bangladeshi habitations all around the Kaziranga National Park, and the police force must remain a mute spectator because the IM(DT) Act does not permit the force to move a finger in respect of foreigners. And the State Government will not allow eviction of encroachers because it is busy practising 'secularism'. It was most amusing, therefore, to find Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi suddenly discovering new statistics on the number of Bangladeshis deported from Assam between 1985 and September 2004 that we have never come across before this. Last Thursday, the Chief Minister said that after 1983, the influx of Bangladeshis had gone down. But though he was able to discover the new figure of 26,000 Bangladeshi infiltrators who have been pushed back, strangely we do not find data of any kind on the number of Bangladeshis who have infiltrated into Assam from year to year. How is it that the Chief Minister has one kind of data and not the other?

Far more significant than the layman's views (or even the Chief Minister's views) on whether the IM(DT) Act should be retained or not, are the views of someone who has been actually connected with the tribunals set up to carry on the pretence of detecting and deporting the blue-eyed boys of the State. In fact, it is such views that the State Government and the Centre should rely on to arrive at decisions that are democratic instead of being aimed at keeping the ruling party in power. Justice N.B.Asthana, the outgoing president of the Illegal Migrants Determination Appellate Tribunal, who retired on October 31, has said that the IM(DT) Act has failed to achieve its desired result, and that the controversial Act should be repealed, with the Foreigners Act of 1946 coming back into force in Assam (as in the rest of the country) to deal with the foreigners issue. He blamed the lack of sincerity among all political parties (including the AGP and the BJP) to make the law more effective. He was of the view that the IM(DT) Act was so defective that it could not work effectively, mainly because of the stipulation in the law that the complainant should provide proof against a suspected foreigner. This observation of Justice Asthana serves to underscore the reason why every civilized immigration law stipulates that the onus of proving nationality should be on the illegal migrant who claims that he is not a foreigner. But the greatest indictment of the State Government came in the form of the allegation that of the 16 tribunals set up all over the State, six have not functioned at all till today. He also referred to the Government's apathy towards improving the condition of the lower tribunals and to provide assistance to public prosecutors for smooth functioning of the IM(DT) Act. All such requests have fallen on deaf ears. This is hardly surprising. The present Government would prefer not to have any immigration law for Assam if it could have its way. And yet Chief Minister Gogoi insists that it is the Congress that is more concerned about the illegal influx of Bangladeshis than anyone else! Wonders will never cease.
 

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