The question is not an easy one by any standard. Just how is the issue of immigration, economic, political or otherwise, expected to be tackled by those who are at the receiving end? The answer would, to a very great extent depend on the perspective one takes. Against the context of the universal notion of human rights, as enshrined in the UN Charter of Human Rights, economic and political migration is deemed as a basic right. This humanitarian outlook is however premised upon the position that the host nation or region is far superior economically and demographically, and therefore is under no threat from such migrations. Sadly, this condition is not always a reality. The predicament of the Northeast is adequately the proof. Assam today for instance is virtually an extension of Bangladesh, and it is said indigenous Assamese today are no longer a majority in Assam. It is said if the various ethnic communities, like the Bodos, Cacharis, Misings etc were to be excluded as a separate tribal category within the broader Assamese identity, the percentage of Assamese Hindus and original Muslims, would be reduced to a significantly smaller minority, forming perhaps even less than 30 percent of the total population.
It is not as if migration is a new phenomenon in Assam and the rest of the Northeast. But in the olden feudal days, when the power structure was radically different, migrants sooner than later assimilated themselves to the identity of the host communities that their new feudal masters belonged. Hence, Bengali peasant migrants from East Bengal would in no time adopt the Assamese identity (Amalendu Guha: Planters Raj to Swaraj), so that along with the continuous immigration, would be a growth of the Assamese population. This was demonstrated in pre-independence census exercises. Guha also explains, that for the poor illiterate Bengali peasantry who migrated to Assam from the mufossil districts of the then East Bengal, to identify with the powers that be in Assam gave them a sense of greater identity and would readily indigenise. Had they known there was a much greater Bengal and Bengali identity were within their immediate reach, this might not have been. Indeed this was the case with the Hindu Bengali Bhadralok from East Bengal. They wanted to identify with what was then often referred to as the Bengali Renaissance in Bengal rather than rural and backward Assam of the time, creating another layer of ethnic tension. We need not go too far to appreciate this indigenization process Guha refers to, for this was also to a great extent the case in Manipur when it was still a monarchy. The Muslims, again from the then East Bengal, readily became the Pangals, and Brahmins from Kanauj in the modern day Uttar Pradesh and other places from subcontinental India too willingly became absorbed as the Bamons. As long as the indigenization process of immigrants remained a natural phenomenon, demographic frictions were either altogether absent or else within easily manageable limits.
Enter modern times and democracy, and the scenario altered radically. Identity consciousness and knowledge also expanded immensely. To take the Assam example again, in the modern era immigrants from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) are not willing to compromise their origin identity. Viewed against the compulsion of massive immigration on the eve of, and immediate wake of, the Partition of India, this became a huge issue, for then the indigenous Assamese began to see a threat to their own identity by a demographic takeover by Bengalis. Assam even refused to have the Hindu majority Sylhet become part of Assam when the Hindu Bengalis of the district desperately wanted it so in order to be included in India at the time of Partition, and as a result this populous district was forced to join East Pakistan. Sketching the scenario at the time, Sanjib Baruah, another well known Assamese scholar, quotes the memorable and bewildered remark by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru upon reading Gopinath Bordoloi`™s letter, that the way the Assam chief minister was reacting, he might as well treat Assam as an independent country, adding an ironic remark that Nehru`™s remark proved prophetic, that many youth in modern Assam would indeed come to want such a fate. Perhaps not an exact parallel, but the Assam story is generally also the undercurrent behind much of the xenophobia the northeast has now come to be afflicted by. In the democratised world, immigrants no longer are willing to indigenise, setting them apart from the populations of the host regions. Struggles for power and economic spaces between them are the inevitable consequences. Democracy being ultimately a system of deciding who gets to hold the reins of power by a headcount, xenophobic tensions are also only natural. This, in our opinion, is one of the most fundamental challenges in tackling and overcoming the xenophobia issue in the northeast.
Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam