Latest news with #Bengali-speaking
The Hindu
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Don't use religion to identify illegal migrants: CPI(M)
The government should deal with those who have entered the country illegally according to the well-laid-out procedures, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau said in a statement on Saturday (May 31, 2025) in New Delhi. The party said that in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, the BJP-led State governments and the Central government are targeting particularly Bengali-speaking Muslims and have, without any verification, pushed them to Bangladesh. According to reports, it said, some genuine Indian citizens, too, were arrested and sent to Bangladesh. In some cases, even those whose appeals were still pending before the Assam High Court and the Supreme Court were forcibly pushed back. 'This should not be allowed,' CPI(M) said. Calling the decision to 'push back' the 'suspected Bangladeshi citizens' as 'inhuman', the CPI(M) urged the government not to use religion to identify illegal migrants. 'Those who have entered the country through illegal means should be allowed access to a fair trial. Poor and undocumented migrants, who enter the country without any mala fide intentions, should be treated with dignity and dealt with according to the laid out procedures,' the Polit Bureau statement said. The party also flagged the BJP-led Assam government's recently approved policy to give arms licences to 'indigenous people living in vulnerable and remote areas.' 'This is a dangerous decision with far-reaching ramifications. It is the duty of the government to maintain law and order and also prevent infiltration. Pushing them back and arming communally selected sections of the people are not the solutions,' the CPI (M) Polit Bureau said in its statement.
The Hindu
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Arms license policy not for people near inter-State borders: Assam CM
GUWAHATI Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, on Thursday (May 29, 2025), clarified that his government's arms licence policy will not be applicable along the State's borders with Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland. Assam has had bloody border disputes with these four northeastern States, claiming more than 200 lives over more than five decades. The border disputes with Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya have been resolved partially. On Wednesday, the Assam Cabinet approved a policy to issue arms licences to 'original inhabitants and indigenous communities' living in vulnerable and border regions. 'There were some queries regarding whether the arms license policy would also apply to inter-State border areas such as those shared with Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Nagaland,' he posted on X. 'Let us clarify: Assam has always maintained that inter-State border issues are matters that can and should be resolved through mutual understanding and trust. We do not view these regions as vulnerable in the context of national security threats. Accordingly, the arms license policy will not be applicable to the inter-State border areas of Assam,' the Chief Minister said. 'The Government of Assam firmly believes that inter-State boundary issues are not security vulnerabilities, but matters best resolved through understanding and peaceful negotiation,' he said. According to the Cabinet decision, the arms licence policy will be applicable in the Barpeta, Dhubri, Goalpara, Morigaon, Nagaon, and South Salmara-Mankachar districts. Bengali-speaking Muslims are a majority in these districts, two of which — Dhubri and South Salmara-Mankachar — border Bangladesh. 'The Cabinet decision is important and sensitive. The indigenous people in these districts live in an atmosphere of insecurity due to the recent developments in Bangladesh. They face the threat of attacks from the Bangladesh side and even in their own villages,' Mr. Sarma told journalists. Insisting that the objective of the Cabinet decision was not to militarise the indigenous populations, he said the people in the vulnerable areas have been demanding arms licences for a long time. 'The government will be lenient in providing arms licences to eligible people, who must be original inhabitants and belong to indigenous communities. The government will not help such people living in vulnerable areas buy arms,' he said. 'Casting doubts on BSF' Reacting to the Cabinet decision, Trinamool Congress MP Sushmita Dev from Barak Valley said the arms licence policy 'takes the credibility of the Assam government to zero.' She said the decision conveys a message to the people in border areas that the Border Security Force and the Assam police cannot protect them from 'illegal immigrants' and issues from across the (Bangladesh) border. 'The government can issue an arms license, but cannot tell someone what he can or cannot use a gun for. Once a person gets a gun, he can use it against anybody,' she said. 'Lastly, till today, nobody knows the proper definition of indigenous people. It is the Chief Minister of Assam who wakes up in the morning and decides who's indigenous and who's not. The NRC [National Register of Citizens] is in a hanging position. This issue has been raked up only because elections are round the corner,' Ms. Dev. She said the arms license policy sets a bad precedent and conveys to the country that the people of Assam are not safe under the 'double-engine sarkar'.
Indian Express
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
A new immigration law reflects India's rising paranoia over the ‘undesirable outsider'
Written by Aashish Yadav and Angshuman Choudhury 'India is not a dharamshala' — that's how the Supreme Court responded on May 16 to a petition by a Sri Lankan Tamil individual to not be deported to his home country out of fear of persecution. Remarkably, this is the exact language that Union Home Minister Amit Shah recently used in the Lok Sabha to defend the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, which came into effect in April. This dovetailing of the judiciary and the executive on the issue of immigration control and refugee rights reflects a troubling anti-humanitarian flare-up in the Indian state apparatus, conspicuous in a series of recent events. Four days before the 'dharamshala' remark, another Supreme Court bench called media reports on the Indian government allegedly abandoning some 40 Rohingya refugees forcibly at sea near the southeastern coast of Myanmar 'a very beautifully crafted story'. Just over a week prior, yet another bench concluded that Rohingya refugees were 'illegal immigrants' who could be deported as per due process. However, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently announced that India had now begun to directly 'push back' undocumented individuals and refugees into Bangladesh, instead of following legal procedures. This was not just bluster. It coincided with reports on India pushing hundreds of undocumented individuals into Bangladesh through the land borders in Assam and West Bengal, much to Dhaka's chagrin. Meanwhile, various state governments have been rounding up undocumented, mostly Bengali-speaking working-class individuals in recent days while the Centre seeks a countrywide verification of the identities of suspected illegal immigrants within 30 days and subsequently, deportation of those found to be undocumented. These developments cannot be seen in isolation and must be placed in a threefold context. First, they mirror a global surge in anti-immigrant rhetoric and action, accompanied by a hardening of border control regimes. The Trump administration's actions against both undocumented and documented immigrants in the US have been the most pronounced manifestation of this xenophobic surge. Second, the anti-immigrant and anti-refugee actions come on the heels of India's Operation Sindoor against Pakistan and the attendant anxiety over national security and borders. This phase saw the Narendra Modi government not only deporting Pakistani nationals from India, but also adopting a parallel, allusive process of expelling a broad set of 'others' who have long been profiled as threats to India's internal security. Bengali-speaking Muslims and Rohingya seem to be first among these unequals. Third, they are synchronised with the Modi government's decision to reform the legal regime on immigration control. The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, under the garb of streamlining immigration laws, sets new norms of entry, stay and exit while giving unprecedented powers to central immigration authorities to enforce them. It is the second and third contexts that Indian civil society should be most concerned about. The Home Minister has framed the Immigration and Foreigners Act as an outcome of the Modi government's 'compassion, sensitivity, and awareness of threats to the nation'. But, by vesting extraordinary powers in a central bureaucratic node — the Bureau of Immigration — and introducing vague norms of immigration control, the new law creates an arbitrary legal regime with broad executive discretion. For starters, the act is littered with excessive delegation of power. Rather than formulating clear provisions through any parliamentary process, it provides sweeping powers to the Centre to specify any new ground for the entry of foreigners and even restrict their activities within the country. Under this regime, such executive decisions would be made without any institutional oversight, leaving no recourse to a statutory remedy. This is unlike the multi-tiered immigration appeal systems most leading democracies have, including those with strong immigration laws. Particularly concerning is the act's provision on restricting the entry of a 'specified class or description of foreigner', which could potentially justify a blanket travel embargo akin to US President Donald Trump's 2017 ban on nationals of Muslim-majority countries. The law also gives immigration officers carte blanche to restrict the entry of foreign nationals to India on vague grounds of national security and public health, among others, without providing any concrete reasons. In recent years, the government has adopted a punitive immigration stance against foreign journalists and academics critical of the regime. This includes the deportation of a British professor in 2024 and the revocation of her OCI status this week, and similar actions against a French journalist and a Swedish academic. If these actions are to be taken as precedent, the government could weaponise the new law to deter and expel 'undesirable' foreign nationals. Beyond standard border control, the act constricts an already restricted asylum regime, including for stateless refugees (like the Rohingya). Not only does the law remain silent on these vulnerable groups, but it also strengthens the legal rationale to expel them from or deny them entry into Indian territory through its arbitrary provisions on 'national security' and expansive government discretion. The new law fundamentally fails to address a critical gap in the Indian legal regime — the absence of a comprehensive, protection-centric asylum law. Instead, it has fallen on the heels of the discriminatory CAA and its opaque procedures, disingenuously painting it as a humanitarian, pro-refugee law. More concerningly, the government has signalled its intention to terminate the long-standing policy of recognising UNHCR refugee cards, which is the primary form of identification that refugees in India have. These cards are issued after a meticulous vetting process to verify the claims of each person. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court, too, has dismissed the value of these cards, most recently in a Rohingya deportation-related hearing on May 8. Clearly, Trump's bellicose immigration policy echoes in many provisions of the act. But, its most serious radiating effect has been felt in the recent deportations in India. Both actions reveal a paradox that, despite passing the new act, the government did not invoke it in the deportation of Pakistani citizens after the Pahalgam attack. In the case of Rohingyas, the government appears to totally circumvent any legal procedure. In that sense, the law itself appears to be overshadowed by extra-legal interests over national security and domestic politics. What is perhaps more troubling is that the Supreme Court has indirectly supported the systematic and incremental erosion of refugee rights by not just adopting narrow interpretations of fundamental rights, but also refusing to critically scrutinise the rhetorical positions and actions of the executive. Instead, it has chosen to simply recapitulate the hostility that the government has shown towards refugees and other vulnerable groups that are routinely profiled as 'infiltrators' without any evidence. Aashish Yadav is a doctoral candidate at the University of Melbourne. Angshuman Choudhury, formerly at the Centre for Policy Research, is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Asian Studies jointly at the National University of Singapore and King's College London. Views are personal
Deccan Herald
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Deccan Herald
Fear, welfare, and weak opposition: Why BJP expects Muslim votes in Assam
The BJP-led government plans to set up a new battalion headquarters of the state police on the plot. Since assuming office in May 2021, the Sarma government has carried out several eviction drives across Assam, clearing land from Bengali-speaking Muslims — who are often labelled by the ruling BJP and others as 'Bangladeshi migrants' and a 'threat' to the identity of the indigenous Assamese.
Time of India
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Govt launches drive to clear illegal occupants from Unit-II quarters
1 2 Bhubaneswar: To evict trespassers from govt quarters, the general administration department and Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) on Tuesday commenced a massive anti-encroachment drive in Unit-II area along the stretch from Master Canteen to Raj Mahal Square. A joint enforcement team with eviction notices targeted illegal occupants , who transformed the govt quarters in Unit-II into unauthorised commercial establishments, including kitchens, hotels, offices, warehouses, and even wedding venues. The authorities sealed several properties after giving occupants sufficient time to vacate the premises. The operation marks a significant step in the govt's efforts to reclaim encroached public properties in the state capital. "We issued notices and provided adequate time for evacuation before proceeding with the sealing of the quarters. Numerous quarters officially listed as vacant were actually occupied illegally, prompting us to take stern action," said Prakash Chandra Behera, rent officer of GA department. On Tuesday, the GA department while issuing a list of 222 such illegally occupied govt quarters in Unit-II and adjoining areas has also sought cooperation of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, Water Corporation of Odisha, TP Central Odisha Distribution Limited in the eviction drive that will continue on Wednesday. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Switch to UnionBank Rewards Card UnionBank Credit Card Apply Now Undo "It is very much essential to evict these persons on threat perception point of view. Proper watch and ward of these govt premises is highly required to avoid any untoward incident," reads the letter issued by joint director, GA department, Manas Ranjan Samal. Local residents expressed their shock at the bizarre nature of these encroachments. "It is the height of illegality. These occupants knowingly misused govt properties in such a prime location without any fear of consequences," said Mrinal Jena, a Unit-IV resident. While the squatters have sublet the encroached properties, many of those staying on rent are Bengali-speaking people. Police have launched a probe if there are any Bangladeshi nationals among them. "We have already initiated a probe to identify the undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants with a specific focus on Bhubaneswar. We will definitely interrogate the evictees of Unit-II today and initiate action if they are found to be illegal immigrants," a senior Odisha Police official told TOI. Sources within the BDA revealed that the enforcement drive is part of a larger capital region redevelopment plan. Following the evictions, the govt quarters along the stretch are scheduled for demolition. "Bhubaneswar is rapidly transitioning from horizontal to vertical development. Core areas like Unit-II, which were originally designed following neighbourhood planning and garden city concepts, should now be reimagined for vertical plans to address space constraints," said urban planner Dipu Nanda. Officials said the enforcement drive represents a crucial step in Bhubaneswar's urban evolution, as the urban planners of the state govt work to optimise space utilisation while maintaining order in govt properties. The authorities have indicated that this is just the beginning of a comprehensive campaign to address illegal occupancy of govt properties across the city, with more such drives planned in the coming months. "There are several mega development projects coming up in the city, such as the metro rail, the IT Tower, redevelopment of the city railway station, and more. There is a need for space for all these from the city's core area, and there is a need to create it," a BDA official said.
