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)
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