Events & Issues

New Delhi, 20 December 2011

Pak Hindus’ Overstay   

INDIA, SUB-CONTINENTAL REFUGE!

By Proloy Bagchi

The recent case of a group of 140 Pakistani Hindus overstaying and expressing a desire to make Delhi their home is not just a human interest story. It has wider implications for India, which in the normal course have gone unnoticed. A fresh look at this and similar other cases is thus critical.     

Last month the group of Pakistani Hindus decided not to return and stay in Delhi. They came from Sindh on tourist visa and are afraid to go back for fear of being targeted. With visas expired, they live in utter penury in Majnu Ka Tila in Delhi and have only one appeal for the Government of India--their visas be extended. They would, however, also like the Government to provide them proper accommodation.

These people from 27 families waited for years for their visas and were so desperate that once they got them they walked across to India. According to them they always felt unsafe in their own country and were subjected to discrimination. Not only had they no religious freedom, their children were ill-treated in schools, i.e. if they were allowed to join one. Always being told to convert to Islam, they would like to give up their home country and live in India, they said, just as numerous Bangladeshis, Nepalese and Tibetans do.  

They are mistaken if they think they are the only Pakistani Hindus who want to permanently make their home in India. Before them, hundreds and thousands of them came here with or without valid visas and never went back. And, all of them did not come only at the time of partition. Off and on, whenever, there were atrocities against Hindus, India would see an influx of Sindhi Hindus from Pakistan. A large number of them came after the 1971 War that resulted in dismemberment of Pakistan, arousing in it great antipathy for India and, of course, local Hindus.

Even in normal times the process of ethnic cleansing has been going on. Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are two States which seem to have been receiving these people in large numbers. In fact, the two have been welcoming them more or less with open arms, presumably, for political gains. They constitute a solid vote bank for the BJP. An August 2011 report said that around 3500 Sindhis, who migrated over a decade ago on long-tem visas and residing in Madhya Pradesh, are still awaiting citizenship. If anything, this is a great under-statement. The number is far more, with many having merged with the local population without observing official niceties and having established themselves in business.

The ones camping in Majnu ka Tila are right when they argue that numerous Bangladeshi and Nepalese are also living in India. Hindu Bangladeshi refugees always made a beeline for India whenever they were subjected to atrocities. Though their numbers were never accurately determined, it is estimated that a million came post partition, another million in the 1950s and around 5 million in the 1960s. During the struggle for independence in 1970-71 about 10 million East Pakistani Hindus crossed over to India to avoid a veritable genocide. Not all of them went back and around 1.5 million are estimated to have stayed back here.

However, there has been no respite even after Bangladesh came into being. Migration, in fact infiltration, into India has been continuing and, currently, 20 million illegal Bangladeshis, mostly Muslims, are reportedly in residence in India. There is practically no State in Upper India which does not have their colonies. They have particularly swamped several districts of Assam and border districts of West Bengal changing their demographics. As many as six districts in Assam now have Muslims in majority and two in West Bengal. Remember Assam has witnessed a violent socio-political movement for their eviction.  

While the porous borders have helped easy accessibility, poor enforcement and rampant corruption has ensured the illegal immigrants to avail benefits they are not entitled to. Their presence in great numbers, largely by design, especially in West Bengal and Assam (where their number is reported to be 5 million out of 26 million) has given rise to fears of emerging Islamic fundamentalism and consequential security threats to India.

The case of Nepalese in India, however, is entirely different. They are here in pursuance of the Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty of 1950. Each, seemingly, fell into other’s lap out of fear on the emergence of the Red Dragon on their northern borders. The rise of Communist China in 1949 and its subsequent invasion of Tibet heightened their security concerns.

Under the Treaty, Nepalese citizens in India have all the rights of an Indian citizen and they do not require visas to enter the country, except a valid identification card while entering India by air. Both countries have also agreed to grant, on a reciprocal basis in each other’s territories, the same privileges in the matter of residence, ownership of property, participation in trade and commerce, etc.

Curiously, however, while the citizens of Nepal have been exercising the rights under the Treaty, the Indians not only need visas to enter Nepal but are prevented under Nepalese laws to own and acquire property there. An estimated 10 million Nepalese are, as a consequence, residing and working in India, doing all kinds of jobs, including in public and private sectors and in the Army, strengthening their country’s economy by remittances – largely informal – which amount to approximately 10 per cent of its GDP.

Although the Nepalese find the 1950 Treaty unequal, strategic concerns apart, it appears to be highly unfavourable to India. The open borders have allowed Nepalese to flood the country, take away from the locals millions of jobs in both formal and informal sectors and share resources which are becoming increasingly scarce. Besides, the open borders have been freely used by the Pakistani jihadists to spread mayhem and chaos in the country.

While Nepal exports its so-called labour as a national policy, Bangladeshis are plain and simple illegal intruders having no right to be in India in such large numbers. Sadly, the Centre has hardly made any effort to prevent their ingress and has made, if at all, very feeble efforts to send them back. Pakistan, on the other hand, is solving its communal problem by easing out its unwanted Hindus in hundreds and thousands.

This is not all. Apart from millions of Pakistani Hindus, Nepalese and Bangladeshis, there are a few thousand foreigners including Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who have overstayed their visas having entered the country with valid documents. Add to this hundreds and thousands of Tibetan, Afghan, Sri Lankan and Burmese refugees to complete the picture. In India’s 1.2 billion people its neighbours have, thus, made the substantial contribution of close to 10 per cent. Had the country – virtually a sub-continental refuge – not been weighed down by these foreigners, its economic profile perhaps would have been far different. --INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)