20 million 'illegal Bangladeshis’ in India – Really!

The same old issue is being trumpeted again by the Indian establishment. This has been a common refrain by the BJP since it attained the status of the main opposition in India almost 20 years ago.  It was used as much to exert pressure on India's small neighbour as to reap political benefits.

Illegal migration has been an election issue and has been cleverly exploited by some political parties in India particularly to seek votes in the Northeastern States. And predictably this was also used by the BJP in the 2014 Indian elections when Modi had threatened to pack off all illegal Bangladeshis. 

And only yesterday the Indian Minister of State for Home said that as per available inputs there are 20 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants in India. According to him, they entered India without valid documents. The point of interest is that the figure of 20 million is based on 'inputs' and there is no way of knowing what that input happens to be.

One wonders whether inexact means should be employed to ascertain the number of 'migrants', and the minister himself has admitted it being so, entering without valid papers, even if one were to accept that phenomenon as true. But it merits reaffirmation that, since there is no "legal migration" regime existing between the two countries, the question of "illegal migration" is inappropriate.  However, a redeeming aspect that one sees in this  statement is that the figure of 20 million, which was bandied for the first time 20 years ago, has remained constant in the last decade. And we can assume that there has not been 'illegal movement' of Bangladeshis into India recently.

One wonders how come when almost the entire length of the Bangladesh-India border has been fenced off and when the points of exit and entry are controlled by the Indian border forces, people from across the border can cross over – without the connivance of those who are guarding the border?

Our border is unique, its creation even more so. Cross border movements across Bangladesh-India border is an old preoccupation of people living in the border areas, and it varied from season to season. And certainly, the movement is not unidirectional.

We have no idea how much of their earnings these so called illegal Bangladeshis in India repatriate home. But we know that Bangladesh happens to be the third largest source of foreign exchange for India – something to the tune of 3.7 billion dollars. And, reportedly, a large number of the Indians, many of them in white collared jobs, are working here illegally.