Seal the Assam border, save state from illegals

“No, we don’t need any bridge that connects Majuli to mainland Assam,” the owner of a popular resort in Majuli island told me.

I was baffled by his response to a simple query. For, it was heartbreaking to take the 90-minute ferry ride from Jorhat to Majuli — the picturesque river island that attracts exotic migratory birds and thousands of tourists every year.

It was heartbreaking because Majuli is facing a serious threat to its existence due to large-scale erosion every monsoon, with scientists even predicting that the island could completely disappear in the next 30 years.

It was heartbreaking because I know how the hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants of Majuli have been suffering from the mighty Brahmaputra’s rage for several decades.

And how their cries for help have been falling on deaf ears.

My heart broke when I saw mothers with crying babies in their arms jostling for space in the overcrowded ferry.

It’s not just about the floods that destroy their crops and that massive erosion that sinks their homes. They also have to live with the tragedy of having just one high-speed ambulance boat during a medical emergency to take them to the nearest town — Jorhat.

So, naturally, I thought Majuli would be delighted when the Indian government promised to build a bridge to connect the island to mainland Assam.

A bridge to a new dawn, I thought.

I asked the owner of the resort how the people of Majuli reacted when the Indian government announced a bridge over Brahmaputra.

And that was when I had to hear the shocking reply: “No, we don’t need any bridge…”

“Why?” I asked. “It would end your sufferings,” I prodded him. “Who told you that it would end our sufferings? I know a lot of people in Majuli who don’t want that bridge,” he shot back.

And what he said next hit me.

“The bridge will also bring those illegal people from Bangladesh. Touch wood, they haven’t been able enter Majuli till now,” he added.

“If they build the bridge, these people will come in waves. And just like the flood waves Majuli battle every monsoon, people will have a new wave to battle. Majuli will not survive this wave,” he predicted.

In the middle of Assam’s historic fresh water island, I was drowning in the whole irony of it all.

I realised how Assamese society has been crippled by the ‘Bangladeshi’ phobia.

Growing up in central Assam’s Nagaon district in the 1990s, I was witness to the sheer helplessness of the indigenous people in the face of the relentless waves of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

It was like being at the receiving end of a barrage of full-blooded punches from a heavyweight boxer.

And the blows become even more painful when you realise how your own country has left you exposed to the threat of a large number of illegal immigrants from a friendly neighbour that hasn’t seen a Syria-like crisis since their struggle for freedom ended in tears of joy in 1971. Of course, our country’s constitution has armed us with voting power. So we vote, hoping that our leaders will do what they should to stop the bleeding.

Their promises of sealing the border ring in our ears. But for more than four decades now, the political class has simply turned a blind eye and ear to the agony of myriad Assamese that have fled the riverine villages after being hit by the Bangladeshi waves.

Now when the Supreme Court-monitored National Registration of Citizens (NRC) in Assam has polarised the whole country and raised human rights concerns for illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, the Assamese society has fallen into major depression.

They now wonder why the moral guardians have been silent when the politicians took no steps to seal an international border and put an end to the sense of fear that had engulfed the Assamese people in their own land.

And yet not a single Assamese I have spoken to wants the government to deport the people whose names would fail to make it to the final list.

“No one can deny Assam’s right to get the NRC. We needed to know the number of people that have entered our soil illegally after 1971 — the cut-off year set by the Assam Accord signed by the Indian government and Assam’s student leaders in 1985 after the end of the six-year Assam agitation,” Jarir Hussain, a senior Guwahati-based Assamese journalist, said.

When I reminded Hussain how several national media houses have now branded the Assamese ‘racist’, he was just blunt in his response.

“No one can deny that illegal immigration has been a big problem for Assam. And let me tell you something. If we had a referendum in Assam on whether to have the NRC, 99 per cent of the people would have voted yes,” he said.

We must also not forget the long battle fought by an octogenarian Assamese couple and their friends in Supreme Court to bring this NRC.

The media-shy couple, who reportedly spent millions from their savings to fight the lengthy court battle, says it was their homage to Assam’s five-decade struggle against the menace of illegal immigration.

But despite the sacrifices of these unsung heroes, this northeastern state is unlikely to come out of this mess.

Unless the political opportunists do the simple act of sealing an international border, Assam will continue to suffer.

And I can imagine what the answer will be from the long-suffering people of Majuli if they have a referendum on the planned bridge over Brahmaputra! —rituraj@khaleejtimes.com

Unless the political opportunists do the simple act of sealing an international border, Assam will continue to suffer