Centre & NE states favour stricter measures to check illegal B’deshis
Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani seeks a national consensus on citizenship identity cards to prevent illegal migration.

CONTINUING illegal migration from neighbouring Bangladesh is  threatening to change the  demographic composition of the North-East. Not only Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura are also feeling the heat. There the State Governments have expressed serious concern and planning various measures to prevent the flow of illegal Bangladeshis. Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani also joined the debate with them and in a meeting as part of his ‘Bharat Uday Yatra’ in Rajasthan  described illegal migration to India as “horrific” and  sought a national consensus on citizenship identity cards to stem the flow of illegal foreigners. According to Mr Advani, “Illegal migration is a major problem for India and it has reached horrific proportions. No other country faces this problem to the magnitude that India does. There is a need for consensus for creating a national register of citizens and providing citizenship identity cards, important for internal security.” The issue had been discussed at the conference of the Director Generals of Police and Chief Ministers. If the Election Commission and political parties should also take up the matter for making a model voting list as it was unfortunate that the voters came to know that their names did not exist on the list only on the election day, the Deputy Prime Minister said. This would strengthen Indian democracy besides facilitating the detection and deportation of illegal immigrants, he added. The Assam Government has urged the Centre to formulate measures like raising of River Police Battalion, remodelling the Indo-Bangladesh border fencing on the lines of the Punjab border and issuance of multipurpose national identity cards to check illegal infiltration. Assam is the worst sufferer as a result of the unabated migration from across the border. Assam Governor Lt Gen (retd) Ajai Singh informed the State Assembly that the State Government was committed to detect and deport foreign nationals from Assam as per the provisions of the Assam Accord. He said the Government was in favour of the continuation of the Illegal Migration Determination by Tribunal Act not for protecting the foreigners but to detect them through a judicial process and prevent harassment to religious and linguistic minorities. Lt Gen Singh claimed that the law and order situation in the State had improved substantially and the keen interest shown by the investors in the North-East business summit at Delhi in January was the testimony to the fact that Assam was now considered a safe destination. He said that the salaries, wages and pension of the employees were now paid regularly and a bold decision has been taken to normalise Plan posts from 2002-03 to 2004-05.

Outlining the Government’s policy to improve the law and order situation, the Governor said the approach of dealing firmly with any kind of violence and at the same time, keeping the doors open for dialogue have paid rich dividends. In the aftermath of ‘Operation All Clear’, the State Government had given a call to the militants to avail conditional amnesty by surrendering to the police and the Army and following the call, 477 militants laid down arms, while, 205 ULFA and 89 NDFB militants were arrested. The Government would rehabilitate the surrendered militants to bring them back to the mainstream, he added. Echoing similar sentiments Meghalaya Governor M M Jacob said the porous International Border had led to large scale infiltration and easy movement of insurgents from Bangladesh. The Centre had been apprised of the problem with a request to strengthen the security deployment along the Indo-Bangla border. Mr Jacob said more than 7,500 Bangladeshis had been detected in the state in the past three years and most of  them had been pushed back and a few prosecuted. Using the porous border to their advantage, the militant outfits of the North-East with their base and training camps in Bangladesh had been moving across the border for arms transshipment and other criminal activities. Meanwhile, Nagaland has launched a drive to deport illegal Bangladeshis. Non-tribals, especially illegal migrants from Bangladesh are fast changing the demographic composition of not only Assam but other states of the North-East as well. The Nagaland Government has recently launched a massive drive to deport non-tribal people mainly the illegal Bangladeshis from the State on charges of non-possession of special permits mandatory for entering the region. “The deportation drive has been started with the primary target being illegal Bangladeshi migrants staying in the state without any valid Inner-Line Permits,” Nagaland Home Minister T Lotha said. “The district administration has taken the help of village chiefs in carrying out the exercise,” he added. An estimated 500 to 600 non-tribal people were rounded up recentl by the authorities in Kohima for not possessing valid documents required for staying in Nagaland. Most of them were herded into buses and let off at the border town of Dimapur. The East Bengal Frontier Regulation Act makes it mandatory for all Indians other than Nagas to procure an Inner-Line Permit to enter Nagaland.

“While the main aim of this exercise of checking documents of non-tribal people in the State is to identify illegal migrants from Bangladesh, we are also being very strict in our mission to see that no non-Nagas overstay here without valid papers,” Dr Lotha said. Demographic profile of North-East India THE total geographical area of Assam is 78,438 sq km, which is 2.4 per cent of the country’s total area. As per 2001 census the share of population of Assam to the total population of India is 2.59 per cent. Assam has the largest population among all the North-Eastern states. The total population of Assam is 2,66,38,407 in 2001, which is 69.27 per cent of the total population of the North-East. In terms of area Arunachal Pradesh is the largest state, but in terms of population it is 6th. On the other hand, Tripura is the smallest state in terms of area, but it is second in terms of population. According to 2001 census, the total population of the North-East is 3,84,95,089. The total male population is 1,98,74,535 and female population is 1,86,20,554, which is 51.63 and 48.37 per cent respectively.

The total population of the North-East is 3.75 per cent of the country’s total population. It is 0.02 per cent more than in the current decade than during 1981-91. In the last decade, the rate of growth of population was 22.02 per cent and it is less in comparison than during 1981-91, which was 27.46 per cent. In the national level, the rate of growth was 21.34 per cent in 1991-01 and it is 2.52 per cent less in comparison to 1981-91.

The rate of growth of population is much more in the North-East in comparison to national average. The immigration from  the neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal to the North-East is the main cause of rapid growth of population in the region. The decadal growth rate was much more than the national average in various states of the North-East excluding Assam and Tripura in 2001. In Tripura, the decadal growth rate was 34.30 per cent in 1981-91, but it was 15.74 per cent in 1991-01. Nagaland recorded an abnormal growth rate in 1981-91 and 1991-01, which was 56.08 and 64.41 per cent respectively. The growth was highest in the country.

Immigration from neighbouring countries to Nagaland was the main cause of such an unprecedented growth. The decadal growth rate of Assam from 1951-81 was much more than the national average. But from 1981-01, it is gradually decreasing. During 1981-91 and 1991-01 it was 24.24 and 18.85 per cent respectively. The abnormal growth of population of the North-East is also explained by the average annual exponential growth rate. The average annual exponential growth rate of the region in 1991-01 was 2.0 per cent and it is much more than the national average i.e. 0.07 per cent.

The arithmetic density of population of the North-East is 151 persons per sq km. In 1991, the density was 123 persons per sq km. It is very less in comparison to national average which is 324. The population densities of different states of the region are Assam 340, Tripura 304, Nagaland 120, Manipur 107, Meghalaya 103, Mizoram 42 and Arunachal Pradesh 13 persons per sq km. Arunachal is the only state which has the lowest density in  the country. The sex ratio in the North-East is 937 females per thousand males and it is more than the national average. Sex ratio is highest in Manipur (978) followed by Meghalaya (975), Tripura (950), Mizoram (938), Assam (932) Nagaland (909) and Arunachal Pradesh (901). The total urban population in the North-East is 59,72,074 which was 15.51 per cent of the total population in 2001. It is 27.78 per cent of the national average. Assam has the lowest percentage of urban population (12.72%), followed by Tripura (17.02%), Nagaland (17.74%), Megh alaya (19.63%), Arunachal Pradesh (20.41%), Manipur (23.88%) and Mizoram 49.50 per cent.

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