Sparksflyover General’s remark Comments poorly judged, ahistorical

WAR OF WORDS BJP salutes Rawat, AIUDF terms his statement against the Constitution

NEW DELHI: Army chief General Bipin Rawat has sparked a political row with his remarks that the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) has been growing faster than the BJP in Assam because of the support of Muslims, with Pakistan and China pushing Bangladeshi migrants into the North-east part of the country to destabilise India.

The BJP said the army chief has to be saluted for his comment, but the Congress attacked the government, saying it was trying to divert attention from the fraud at Punjab national Bank.

AIUDF chief, Badruddin Ajmal, tweeted: “By making such a statement, the army chief has indulged in politics which is against the constitutional mandate given to him.” Later, he told reporters in Guwahati, “We respect General Rawat a lot but I think he has been misinformed and misguided. If the Army chief is saying demographic change is happening in Assam, it is the government’s job to check it. We are the only party which said, ₹Shoot anyone who infiltrates our borders’.”

Infiltration from Bangladesh, and the possible change to Assam’s demography, led to a violent agitation in the state between 1979 and 1985. It ended with the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985.

For the first time since 1951, the state government is updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to weed out illegal immigrants.

Ajmal formed the AIUDF in 2005 to champion the cause of the Muslim community. The party currently has three MPS in the Lok Sabha and 13 legislators in Assam.

He clarified that his party believed in inclusiveness. “People say we are a Muslim party, which is false. We have always given 20-25 seats to our Hindu brothers in all elections. We all are Indians,” Ajmal said.

BJP Spokesman Sambit Patra said on TV that the army chief was commenting on an “important aspect of national security”. It is only natural that the “socio-political, demographic, cultural aspects should be discussed,” he added. “In fact, the army chief should be saluted for his talk.”

Other BJP leaders found the comments about illegal immigration from Bangladesh in sync with their political and ideological standing.

Two senior BJP office bearers, who asked not to be identified, said Rawat merely repeated the “known fact” about the threat illegal immigration posed to India’s security in the northeast.

“What’s wrong with what he has he said?” said one of the two leaders. “Even we feel, and have reiterated on several occasions, that demographic profile of the northeast has changed significantly because of illegal immigration.”

He said the RSS, too, had in 2015 passed a resolution on India’s changing demography in which it said “the religious imbalance of population in the north-eastern states has assumed serious proportions”.

The other BJP leader said his party’s growing influence in the northeast will lead to the rise of outfits such as the AIUDF in opposition.

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad refused a direct comment on the army chief’s remarks. “I would simply say that in the coming days you will get to hear many outrageous things. BJP will point fingers on many leaders, many parties in order to divert the attention from the PNB fraud. So the BJP ministers - seniors and juniors – and spokespersons will move heaven and earth to divert the attention of the people.”

All India Majlis-e-ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief, Asaduddin Owaisi, was critical of General Rawat. On Twitter, he said that it was neither the Army Chief’s job to interfere in political matters nor to comment on the rise of a political party.

The Chief of Army Staff’s remarks on February 21 at a seminar co-organised by the HQ Integrated Defence Staff have triggered a flurry of responses. To understand why his comments are problematic, we need to unpack their content and place them in a wider context. Start with his analysis of the problem of illegal immigration from Bangladesh into the northeastern states.

General Rawat acknowledged that such movement of peoples happens owing to two reasons. The first is the sheer demographic pressure on the land in Bangladesh. The second, which he emphasised, is “planned immigration” taking place owing to the machinations of Pakistan with the support of China. Pakistan, he argued, was waging a form of proxy war: “they will always try and ensure that this area is taken over”.

Each of these assertions is open to question. The point about demographic pressure is well taken, though it is surprising that the army chief chose to use the word “lebensraum” to describe it: apparently he is unaware of the deeply distasteful association of the word with the policy of the Nazis in eastern Europe. More importantly, large-scale movement of people from Bangladesh is a long-standing trend going back to the late 19th century.

During the colonial period, the integration of rural eastern Bengal into global circuits of commercial exchange led to increased agricultural production — not because of better technology or higher productivity but by the sheer extension of the land under plow. By the end of the 19th century, this process had reached its ecological limits. It was in this context that migration of eastern Bengal began not only to Assam and Tripura, but also the Arakan (Rakhine state in Myanmar). This secular long-term trend has not been easy to control or regulate for the states in the region. To suggest that we are witnessing “planned immigration” overseen by Pakistan and China appears to be an absurd overstatement.

It is casts an unwarranted aspersion on the sovereignty of Bangladesh. The current government has made strenuous efforts to root out the ISI’S activities in the country and maintained a balanced posture towards China. Such observations could lead to avoidable diplomatic friction with China as well as Bangladesh. If the army chief does feel so strongly, it better to raise it within the councils of government rather in a public forum.

Equally surprising was General Rawat’s statement that the AIUDF was growing even faster than the BJP, particularly in the light of what he previously said. The claim that Pakistan wants this area to be “taken over”— seemingly by Muslim immigrants — is a serious one for the army chief to voice, as anyone familiar with the history and politics of Assam will recognise. The suggestion that a regional political party is the direct beneficiary of the “planned immigration” by Pakistan is a significant observation — especially in the context of the bubbling unrest over the preparation of the National Register of Citizens and incendiary claims that Assam is fast turning into a Muslim-majority state. Surely the Army Chief was not unaware of this political context?

This is not, of course, the first occasion when General Rawat’s remarks have occasioned criticism. The army chief is welcome to express his views on military and operational issues, but he has to be mindful of the domestic and international audiences that will interpret his statements and of the need to avoid venturing into the terrain of domestic or foreign policy. At a time when the credibility of our public institutions— ranging from the Supreme Court to the RBI—IS under question, it is imperative that the army chief’s statements should comport with the apolitical character of his office.