West Bengal
Here Are Seven Steps That Union Government Must Take To Secure The ‘Chicken’s Neck’ Corridor
- The threat is real. The response must be swift and comprehensive.
Illegal Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants (representational image)
The threat by radical Islamists to choke the ‘chicken’s neck’ corridor is real and existential (read this). In order to ward off and neutralise this threat, the Union Government must take strong measures right now.
Swarajya spoke to a large number of retired and serving officers of central intelligence agencies, the Border Security Force, defence forces and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), besides people’s representatives, strategic affairs experts and others to chart out measures that ought to be taken to meet the threat.
Based on these conversations and interactions, here are seven important steps that the Union Government has to take to secure and sanitise the vital but vulnerable link that connects Northeast India with the rest of the country.
1. Start updating NRC in all border districts
The Union Government should notify all states that share borders with Bangladesh--Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram--that a comprehensive exercise to update the 1951 National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the border districts will be undertaken.
Except Bengal, all other states will be happy to undertake the exercise to update the NRC. But Bengal’s opposition should be vetoed in the interest of national security.
The reason for conducting this exercise in all border districts is because of the huge demographic changes that they have undergone. Limiting the exercise to only North Bengal (where the corridor is located) will not serve its intended purpose.
The Union Government should frame foolproof rules and procedures for this exercise to ensure that it does not turn out to be a futile one like what happened in Assam.
The entire exercise should be conducted in a time-bound manner.
2. Disenfranchisement of infiltrators
A foolproof exercise to update the NRC under strict supervision of central officials will definitely result in lakhs of illegal infiltrators from Bangladesh and Myanmar being detected.
It will be impossible to deport them since Bangladesh has always denied that its citizens have crossed over to India. Interning the infiltrators, or their descendants, in detention camps will also trigger international outrage and lead to internal political turmoil.
Therefore, the best way to deal with them is to allow them to stay on in India but disenfranchise them and impose restrictions on them. And all documents like ration cards, Aadhar cards, voter ID cards, PAN cards, driving licences and passports that they possess should be confiscated and cancelled.
The restrictions imposed on these infiltrators or their descendants should include cutting off access to government jobs, government-run education and healthcare facilities and rations under the public distribution system.
A database of these infiltrators with their biometric details needs to be built.
Restrictions should also be imposed on the free movement of these infiltrators or their descendants within the country and identity cards specifying their ‘stateless’ status issued to them.
It needs to be mentioned here that Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh will not be affected since the CAA is in force and will provide Indian citizenship to them.
3. Follow Assam’s example by providing protection to tribals and indigenous people
Assam has implemented measures aimed at securing the rights and interests of indigenous people. These measures need to be implemented in the border districts of Bengal, including the chicken’s neck corridor.
Assam has notified vast tracts of land all over the state for its tribals and indigenous communities. Non-tribals and non-indigenous people cannot possess lands and immovable properties in such areas. Non-indigenous people (illegal infiltrators) who already possess properties in such areas notified exclusively for tribals and indigenous people will have to sell off their properties at government-determined rates.
Assam has also reserved seats in panchayats, local civic bodies and the state Assembly for tribals and indigenous communities so that illegal infiltrators, or their descendants, are denied access to public offices and political power.
It should be easy for the Union Government to implement these measures in North Bengal which is home to indigenous communities like the Rajbongshis and Gorkhas and also tribals.
The Union Government should launch a comprehensive programme to de-radicalise Muslims, especially in the border areas.
Citing national security concerns, the MHA should set in place a mechanism to monitor what is taught in madrassas and also the sermons delivered in mosques and other religious gatherings.
Here, too, the steps being taken by Assam need to be emulated. All unregistered madrassas ought to be shut down and the syllabus in government-registered ones revised so that science, mathematics, humanities and other subjects are also taught by qualified government-appointed teachers.
All imams of mosques have to be registered with the government which should carry out a thorough background check on all the preachers. No religious congregation should be allowed without prior permission of the state government and clearance from the Union MHA, and all speakers and preachers at such congregations have to to be vetted in advance by the MHA.
Salafi preachers should be disallowed and the syllabus of madrassas detoxified.
The example of Assam, which has banned child-marriages and initiated steps to end polygamy ought to be emulated. Those having more than one wife or two children should be denied access to government facilities like healthcare and education.
5. Increasing presence of security forces
While the Dooars area of North Bengal comprising eastern parts of Darjeeling district and Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts has a heavy concentration of army and Air Force bases as well as a heavy presence of other central security forces, the same is not true of the ‘chicken’s neck corridor’ (North Dinajpur district and southern parts of Darjeeling district).
Vast tracts of land in this corridor should be requisitioned for setting up army and BSF bases. The presence of army and central security forces would act as a natural deterrent against any misadventure by radical Islamists in the region.
6. Securing the international border and making it inviolable
The India-Bangladesh border is still porous in many parts because the fence has not been erected, especially in the riverine areas.
The fence should be erected in every inch and the border and surveillance systems installed in the riverine areas.
The border should be declared inviolable and Bangladeshi authorities should be told in very clear terms that attempts to breach the border by nationals of that country would be met with lethal force. The BSF should also be empowered to deal very sternly with infiltrators who try to breach the border.
7. Resettlement of displaced communities along the international border
The border districts of Bengal, Assam and also Tripura were once inhabited mostly by indigenous communities who were, over the last few decades, displaced by Muslim infiltrators.
This process should be reversed and indigenous communities as well as Hindus fleeing terrible religious persecution in Bangladesh should be encouraged to settle in the border areas.
This project aimed at demographic correction should be a top priority project of the Union Government.
It is a given that the current ruling dispensation in Bengal which depends on the Muslim vote bank for its political survival will strongly oppose all these steps. The Trinamool Congress government, and the Left Front regime before it, had encouraged illegal influx of Bangladeshi Muslims to build this vote bank.
But Bengal’s objections and opposition to these steps should not come in the way of ensuring national security.
The Union Government has to make it clear to the Trinamool Congress government that it has to fall in line. Opposition to steps necessary to ensure the nation’s security and integrity should be construed as anti-national acts and dealt with accordingly.
