Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 13, 2006
It is not surprising that the Congress should
fall back on its traditional strategy of vote-bank politics to retain power
in Assam, which goes to the polls later this year. What is not only surprising
but shocking in the extreme is the blatant and outrageous manner in which
it did so last Friday when, following a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on
Political Affairs, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced that the United
Progressive Alliance Government would set up tribunals under the Foreigners
Act of 1946 to ensure that before being declared a foreigner and deported,
a person's case was referred to a tribunal and he or she was given full opportunity
to present his case.
Needless to say, behind the engaging concern
for fairplay that surrounds the pronouncement, lies a diabolical attempt to
undo the Supreme Court's historic judgement of July 12 last year setting aside
the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act 1983 which, according
to it, had created the "biggest hurdle" and was the "main impediment
or barrier in (the) identification and deportation of illegal migrants".
The hallmark of the IMDT Act was the establishment
of tribunals for the detection and deportation of illegal migrants into Assam
and the framing of procedures that made deportation almost impossible. As
a three-judge bench of the Court had pointed out in its judgement, though
inquiries had been initiated under the Act in 310,759 cases, only 10,015 had
been declared illegal migrants and a mere 1,481 of them physically deported
by April 30, 2000.
Needless to say, the judgement had aroused
strong resentment among illegal Bangladeshi migrants whose arrival has been
the main factor behind the rise in Assam's Muslim population from 12 per cent
of the State's total population in 1947 to 33 per cent in 2001. The Congress,
whose enactment of the IMDT Act lent credence to the allegation since 1950s
that it had been encouraging illegal migration from what was earlier East
Pakistan and is now Bangladesh, quickly set up, along with its partners in
the UPA Government, a group of Ministers, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, to study the fallout of the judgement and suggest measures to cope
with it.
The decision to set up the tribunals has clearly
been the outcome. If the allegation that it bears the unmistakable imprimatur
of vote-bank politics draws considerable credence from a look at the Congress's
support base and the fact that Muslims determine the outcome in at least 30
of the State's 126 Assembly constituencies, the fact that decision was announced
on the eve of Congress president Sonia Gandhi's visit to Assam to launch what
is clearly the party's election campaign, removes all doubt. Any argument
that tribunals would be set up only to ensure justice would carry little conviction.
The same was said about those established
under the IMDT Act. In the present instance, the consequences would not be
limited to Assam but be felt all over the country given the nationwide applicability
of the Foreigner's Act. This has serious implications considering that cells
of terrorist outfits like the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh, Ahle Hadith
Andolan Bangladesh, Jamaatul Mujaheedin Bangladesh and Jagrata Muslim Janata
Bangladesh, have mushroomed in India's districts bordering that country. Parts
of these have become Talibanised and frequently host Bangladeshi terrorist
leaders who cross over with impunity. The Congress has much to answer for.
