Hidden among those escaping the havoc wreaked by natural disasters are drug-traffickers, arm smugglers, and Islamic terrorists.
To contain this ‘illegal’ immigration, the Indian government has already fenced half of the 4053 kilometre-long Indo-Bangladesh border. The fence’s completion has been hampered by the riverine landscape and incomplete demarcation of the international boundary. Even if it is feasible, completing the fence will block the easiest escape route for the targets of Islamic extremism — including not only non-Muslims but also syncretic Muslim Bauls, Ahmediyas, and many other interest groups and minorities.
The share of minority religions in Bangladesh’s population has halved since its independence. The struggle for scarce resources is routinely and conveniently provided a communal flavour that allows Islamic extremists to fish in a troubled delta. A major atrocity against fenced-out minorities of Bangladesh will translate into greater support for the Hindu majoritarian parties in India, which will endanger Indian minorities as well as existing Bangladeshi immigrants. It would also provide an ex-post justification for attacks on minorities in Bangladesh. So, completing the fence between Bangladesh and India will strengthen religious extremists on both sides of the border.
Faith-based screening of immigrants at designated points along a completely fenced border would enable the vulnerable to escape, but it would also allow the Islamic extremists to portray India as a Hindu majoritarian country toward which Bangladesh should not be friendly.
In any case, this proposal would be struck down by the Supreme Court as repugnant to the basic structure of the Indian constitution. It would also be opposed by politicians who depend on immigrant votes or have links with human traffickers. In short, it is highly difficult to monitor illegal immigration due to a combination of geographical, historical, political, and legal factors. The second best solution would be to regulate the influx by issuing work permits. The existing employment visa scheme cannot serve this purpose because it assumes that India is a capital-scarce economy that has space only for skilled immigrant labour in a few sectors.
So, a work permit scheme capable of handling large numbers of unskilled and semi-skilled Bangladeshi workers needs to be introduced. A scheme like this would face stiff resistance from those who fear an Islamic invasion. They will argue that work permits will encourage Bangladeshi immigrants, which is misleading because not issuing work permits has not discouraged them. They would insist that all the existing ‘illegal’ immigrants, many of whom have already acquired the insignia of Indian citizenship, must be identified and given permits before immigrants-in-waiting could be given permits. Not only will the alarmist approach not stop immigration but it will also leave genuine security concerns unaddressed.
Once a legal option is made available, those presently paying bribes to acquire and retain the insignia will find it cheaper to acquire permits as long as the fees are reasonable. After taking the Bangladeshi government into confidence, Indian authorities should declare that Bangladeshis found without a visa or work permit after the introduction of the scheme will be deported. The proposed combination of carrots and sticks will not hurt genuine economic migrants.
This work permit scheme has a number of other benefits. It will reduce the captive labour available to the underworld, since a person who enters illegally is likely to end up in illegal economic activities and tends to look to the underworld for protection in the absence of legal remedies. Bangladesh should in fact be invited to open more consulates to meet the requirements of Bangladeshis working in India. Further, a work permit scheme will help immigrants to obtain better wages and reduce travel costs, which will encourage seasonal, rather than permanent, immigration, and will result in greater remittances being invested into the development of Bangladesh. It will also drastically reduce confrontations between the border security forces of India and Bangladesh, which will help in facilitating better anti-terrorism and anti-narcotics smuggling operations. These developments will substantially reduce negative attention on Bangladesh among the Indian media and likewise reduce the scope for knee-jerk reactions from the Bangladeshi media.
In short, a work permit scheme will contribute to improvement of the Indo-Bangladeshi relationship. The scheme should ultimately cover other South Asian countries, in line with the Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed’s suggestion that India ought to make its neighbours stakeholders in its growing economy.
Vikas Kumar is an independent researcher based in Bangalore.
A longer version of this article was first published here on South Asia Masala.
A work permit scheme for Bangladeshi migrant workers has long been thought of as an option. A former Meghalaya chief secretary was a leading votary of this. The problem with it is that those who gain permits and come in, can also easily tear up the permit and stay back. India is a large nation and travel within India is easy and cheap. A poor Bangladeshi on a work visa could reach Delhi in 24 hours after crossing the border, maybe reach Bangalore in 48 hours. Checks are almost impossible.
Yes, one viable alternative is to give day permits to allow unskilled and semi-skilled Bangladeshi workers to come into designated zones in West Bengal, Assam, Tripura to work in factories, as maids or as rickshaw-pullers and go back at nightfall.
The scheme actually works unofficially in Tripura even now. Most rickshaw pullers in the state capital of Agartala are Bangladeshis. They are allowed in with the connivance of border guards, early in the morning and then allowed to go back at nightfall!
The guards count heads and penalise groups if any stay back. Only excuse allowed for a stay-back is illness. Rickshaw pullers say they come over to India as earnings here are higher than in Bangladesh.
Longer term work permits for Bangladeshis and other Saarc citizens should however perhaps be considered seriously – not for
unskilled labour but for highly skilled professionals – like software pros, engineers, doctors, nurses etc. The reason – with India’s growth story creating jobs at a fast pace, we can absorb some extra hands from among our neighbours – while we export some of our skilled professionals abroad. Also these top level white collared workers are unlikely to stay back in India. They will gain experience, earn some money and go back home, hopefully carrying goodwill for their neighbour.
Dear Jayanta,
Thank you very much for the detailed comment. I will try to respond to the important issues raised in your comment.
1. The Tripuri experience you refer to is, in fact, nearly ubiquitous along the Indo-Bangladeshi border because Bangladeshi labour is cheaper. Interestingly, till mid-20th century undivided Bengal supplied skilled (accountants, teachers, and even farmers because most of the Hill tribes were familiar only with slash and burn cultivation) as well as unskilled labour to the North Eastern region dominated by hill/plain tribes. The labour market fragmented after 1947 due to the creation of new international and provincial boundaries. And now, with rising population and spread of education, the North East does not depend solely on outsiders to do usual jobs like teaching, book-keeping, or even administration.
2. The well-to-do Bangladeshis can anyway access Indian labour market, e.g., some of them come to study in IITs and National Law School (Bangalore) and are absorbed by the labour market through the campus placement route. It is the poor, unskilled/semi-skilled worker, who constitute the majority of Bangladeshi workforce, whose needs have to be addressed.
3. Now let me come to the most important issue raised in your comment, namely, permit holders can “easily tear up the permit and stay back”.
Restricting the scheme to the North Eastern region, where workers can travel on a daily basis, is not a solution because that will further aggravate ethnic tensions in a region that has seen numerous mass mobilizations against Bangladeshi immigrants. The following might be a more appropriate solution.
First of all, to avoid a political backlash in the North East, work permit holders should be distributed across Indian provinces according to a formula based on economic (productivity, labour scarcity, nature of industries, per capita provincial domestic product, etc) AND demographic (population density, working age population, etc) factors.
Secondly, permits should be issued only to Bangladeshis (a) having electronic citizenship cards (with India distributing its own smart unique ID cards one has to have either a Bangladeshi/Indian card or visa) AND (b) registered with bilaterally recognized labour contractors. Contractors will unilaterally monitor those who are likely to tear up their permits to protect their long term business interests.
Further, valid permit holders’ salaries should be paid through banks, they should be allowed to access pension, health and life insurance, etc facilities and discounted seasonal travel passes. When a valid permit holder wants to return permanently to the Bangladeshi labour market he should be allowed to transfer his pension and insurance accounts to Bangladesh. With all this at stake genuine economic migrants will find it difficult to tear up the permit.
Sincerely,
Vikas
Most of the immigrants from Bangladesh are highly unskilled labour who are brought to India as votebank. They continue staying in India, get all the necessary citizenship documents for themselves and their children, avail free schooling and books for their children, get all medical facilities, illegally encroach land and then convert it into their own name by bribing officials. They join political organisations like syndicates to create pressure on their employers to pay them higher wages, or strike. They don;
‘t even allow other people to be recruited at the same position and they dont work efficiently. They have so much political connection that the employers even get death threats. Then they start driving out the citizens from Bihar and UP saying they are “bideshi” in West Bengal because these people do hard work at lower wages and are today their biggest competition. We don’t need unskilled labour from outside the country, nor do we need skilled labour from outside the country. We have a mix of both, and we need to stop calling people from Bihar, UP and other states as biharis, abangalis, bideshi…stop infighting….because that is exactly what the immigrants from other countries are waiting to take advantage of. Any takers?