Influx Of Bangladeshis: Why Amit Shah Is Right In Blaming Bengal Government And Trinamool Wrong In Blaming BSF

Home Minister Amit Shah stirred up a hornet’s nest by blaming the Mamata Banerjee government for encouraging the illegal influx of Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims into the country.

Speaking at an event in Kolkata on Sunday (27 October), Shah said, “Bengal is witnessing state-sponsored infiltration.”

The Trinamool Congress was quick to react: its spokesperson said that only the Border Security Force (BSF) is to blame for the failure to stop this illegal influx from across the international border. 

While the Trinamool Congress is right in contending that guarding the Indo-Bangladesh border is the sole responsibility of the BSF, the fact remains that the state government, especially Bengal police, has a greater role in preventing this influx.

The Banerjee government in Bengal encourages infiltration of Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims into the state and grants citizenship documents to the infiltrators in order to use them as vote banks. 

The largescale influx of Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims into Bengal over the years has led to an exponential and abnormal rise in the Muslim population in Bengal. 

Statistics show that since 1951, the Muslim population in Bengal has been increasing at an alarming pace.

The decadal growth of the Muslim population in Bengal stood at more than 25 per cent between 1951 and 1961, nearly 45 per cent between 1961 and 1971, 22 per cent between 1971 and 1981, nearly 24 per cent between 1981 and 1991, more than 51 per cent between 1991 and 2001, and more than 35 per cent between 2001 and 2011.

As per estimates (the census was suspended in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic), the Muslim population of Bengal grew by 30 per cent between 2011 and 2021, and Muslims now (in 2024) form an estimated 31 per cent of Bengal’s population.

This abnormal growth can only be attributed to largescale influx of Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims into Bengal. 

The Congress, followed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front, were the prime beneficiaries of the influx of Muslims and the growth in the Muslim population. And now it is the Trinamool Congress that is able to cling to power in the state because of the near-complete support of the Muslim electorate in the state. 

It, thus, makes eminent sense for the Trinamool Congress to encourage largescale infiltration of Muslims from across the border in order to increase the size of its captive vote bank. 

And this is exactly what the party in power in the state has been doing by misusing the state machinery, including the police force.

State Machinery, Not BSF, To Blame

While it is true that it is the BSF’s primary mandate to guard the border, the reality that such a long border, which has many riverine stretches, cannot be guarded in a foolproof manner needs to be understood. 

Yes, large stretches of the border are fenced. But the fence is often breached by smugglers, human traffickers, and infiltrators, who either cut the fence or use ingenious methods to breach it.

Also, many stretches of the border are riverine and, thus, cannot be fenced. 

It is humanly impossible for the BSF to man every inch of the border and maintain vigil 24x7 to stop the influx.

Borders, even the seemingly impregnable ones, which have sophisticated monitoring systems, like the United States-Mexico border, are routinely breached. 

So it is unfair to blame the BSF alone for failing to check the largescale influx of Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims into Bengal.

It must be acknowledged that the Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims breach the border and enter Bengal illegally in large numbers because they are welcomed into the state.

Most of the areas along the Indo-Bangladesh border in Bengal have undergone a radical demographic change over the last seven decades and have turned into overwhelmingly Muslim-majority areas. 

Almost all the residents of the border districts of Bengal are either infiltrators or their descendants and share close kinship ties with the people (Bangladeshis) from across the border. As a result, the infiltrators find ready refuge on this side of the border. 

And soon after arrival in India, they get help from elected representatives of local bodies like gram panchayats, panchayat samitis, and municipalities in procuring fake birth, education, and residency certificates. 

Based on these fake certificates, the infiltrators apply for ration cards, Aadhaar cards, and voter identity cards, which are provided easily to them by corrupt lower-level government functionaries on the instructions of their political masters. 

It can, thus, be said conclusively that Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims enter Bengal not just because they can avoid and bypass vigil by the BSF but mainly because they find themselves welcomed to Bengal by the party in power and the state machinery acting at the ruling party’s behest.

Assam, Tripura Nab Infiltrators

It is strange that Bengal police have not managed to arrest a single illegal infiltrator, while their counterparts in Assam and Tripura routinely nab Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators in those states. 

In the first three weeks of this month (October) alone, Assam police and Tripura police, as well as the Railway Protection Force (RPF), arrested over 300 Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators from those states.

Those forces could do so because they were asked by the governments in those states to be on the lookout for and nab illegal infiltrators. Not only does any such brief to the state police not exist in Bengal, the state authorities and the party in power are more likely to penalise a cop who dares to arrest an infiltrator.

Had the Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims found themselves unwelcome in Bengal and had they been unable to procure Indian documents with the ease with which they do in Bengal, they would surely not have risked crossing the border. 

According to BSF and MHA sources, Tripura and Assam have witnessed a sharp decline in infiltration from Bangladesh over the past few years. That’s because of increased vigil by security and intelligence agencies ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed governments in the two northeastern states in 2016 (Assam) and 2018 (Tripura). 

Bangladeshis and Rohingyas no longer feel welcome in the two BJP-ruled states and also find it impossible to procure documents like birth, education, and residency certificates with which they can procure government documents in those states. 

That is why most of the Bangladeshis and Rohingyas who manage to cross the international border into Tripura and Assam board trains to come to Bengal, where they know they will be welcomed with open arms. 

Hence, it is the Trinamool Congress, and the state machinery in Bengal that is subservient to the ruling party, which has to take the blame for largescale illegal influx of Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims into the state.

The Trinamool’s gambit of blaming the BSF does not cut any ice and has no takers. 

Also Read: Two Strong Measures Needed To Curb Illegal Influx Of Bangladeshi And Rohingya Muslims