India's continued push-ins need better response
India's continued expulsion of ethnic Bengali Muslims to Bangladesh, as again highlighted by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently, is totally unacceptable. According to HRW's Asia director, "India's ruling BJP is fuelling discrimination by arbitrarily expelling Bengali Muslims from the country, including Indian citizens." By falsely labelling them as "illegal immigrants", Indian authorities are unlawfully deporting Indian Muslims to Bangladesh—at least 200 of whom have since been returned by Bangladeshi border guards after being found to be Indian citizens.
The Indian government has provided no official data on the number of people expelled so far. However, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) has reported that India expelled more than 1,500 Muslim men, women, and children to Bangladesh between May 7 and June 15, including around 100 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. Among them, some were found to be Bangladeshi nationals. Others were unable to prove their Indian citizenship due to various factors, including India's controversial new citizenship laws and verification processes. But the bypassing of established legal channels and international obligations renders all such push-ins—whether of Indian citizens, Bangladeshi nationals, or Rohingya refugees—unlawful. Moreover, as HRW has noted, it also reflects the Indian authorities' disregard for due process, domestic legal protections, and international human rights standards.
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According to HRW's findings, authorities in BJP-run states such as Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, and Rajasthan have rounded up Muslims, mostly impoverished migrant workers, and handed them over to Indian border guards. In some cases, Indian border guards threatened and assaulted the detainees to force them to cross into Bangladesh, without adequately verifying their citizenship claims. The Indian government has had to readmit dozens of such individuals who ultimately proved their Indian citizenship. One such citizen, a former schoolteacher from Assam, said that Indian border officials tied his hands, gagged him, and forced him into Bangladesh along with 14 others.
Meanwhile, in May, Indian authorities also expelled around 100 Rohingya refugees from a detention centre in Assam across the Bangladesh border. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that Indian authorities forced another 40 Rohingya refugees into the sea near Myanmar, giving them life jackets and making them swim to shore.
Despite repeated protests by our government, India has continued its illegal push-in campaign, in blatant violation of international norms and in an unneighbourly manner. Given these circumstances, while we must keep diplomatic channels open, it is perhaps time for Bangladesh to internationalise the issue and seek intervention from global forums like the UN to ensure that India puts an immediate stop to these operations.
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