SHILLONG: The North East Students’ Organisation (NESO) has hit out at the Centre for being adamant on implementing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and described it as treachery towards the indigenous people of the North East.
In a statement issued here on Tuesday, the organisation said that the Centre should make laws to protect its own citizens from external aggression rather than one to facilitate illegal immigration of foreigners.
The NESO said, “So the pertinent question is: This government is for whom? Is the government of India for its own citizens or for the illegal foreigners from Bangladesh?”
The statement said that people of the North East have all along been demanding that illegal migrants be deported back to their country of origin. However, by promulgating CAA, the government is instead not only legitimising their presence in the region but will also encourage more infiltration from Bangladesh thereby threatening the language, culture and the very identity of the microscopic indigenous communities of the North East.
The NESO reiterated that the CAA is unconstitutional and communal as it defines citizenship on the basis of religion. It said that persons should not be differentiated on the basis of religion and asserted that a foreigner is a foreigner irrespective of religion.
It said large scale influx had reduced the indigenous people of Tripura to a minority in their own land accounting now for only 30 per cent of the state’s population. Similarly, indigenous people in11 districts of Assam have been reduced to a minority.
The NESO further pointed out that the CAA has nullified the provision of the Assam accord signed in 1985 by changing the cut-off date.
“This CAA is only adding to the already burgeoning problem of illegal infiltration from Bangladesh which is continuing unabated thereby changing the demographic structure of the region”, NESO said.
The NESO recalled that the then Home Minister in the United Front government, the late Indrajit Gupta, on May 6, 1997 had stated in the Lok Sabha that there were nearly one crore illegal migrants; the Intelligence Bureau in 1998 had cited the figure as 1.1 crore with the greatest concentration in Assam and West Bengal; the Group of Ministers (GOM), while dwelling on the law and order situation in North East in 2001, had pegged the number at an estimated 1.2 crore or 12 million since 1971.
The then Minister of State for Home Affairs, Prakash Jaiswal, on July 14, 2004, had stated that more than 1.2 crore illegal Bangladeshi immigrants were present in India, out of whom 50 lakh were in Assam, 3,25,400 in Tripura, 59,000 in Nagaland and 30,000 in Meghalaya.
The then Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju, in 2016, had stated in the Rajya Sabha that the estimated number of illegal Bangladeshi migrants was two crores.
