BJP leaders, party CMs in Northeast differ on letting in violence-hit Bangladeshi minorities

Border Security Force personnel inspect a truck carrying supplies to Bangladesh at the India-Bangladesh border in Fulbari on the outskirts of Siliguri in West Bengal on August 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in a fix over repeated demands within the party to protect members of the Hindu community facing violence in Bangladesh. The Border Security Force (BSF), however, is denying entry to all undocumented immigrants, irrespective of religion; more problematically for the party, its own leaders in in northeastern India do not want a major influx of Bangladeshi immigrants into their States.

Ever since the Sheikh Hasina government fell in Dhaka, and reports of violence — including against minority Hindus — have surfaced, leaders of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have appealed to the Union government to ensure protection for the embattled community.

‘Help Bangladesh refugees’

West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari met with Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the issue recently, arguing that the instability in Bangladesh could result in “crores” of people trying to cross into India, especially into West Bengal. He is also reported to have told Mr. Shah that the situation underscored the necessity of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that grants Indian citizenship to applicants who are minorities from neighbouring countries seeking to escape persecution, although under the law, such applicants should have entered the country by 2014.

Former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta extended this concern to “Bangladeshi notables who are friendly to India”, after the BSF denied them entry into the country because they had no valid visas. “They were, in effect thrown to the wolves,” he posted on X, appealing to Mr. Shah to “go beyond niceties and be more understanding towards our traditional friends in Bangladesh.”

‘Fully secured borders’

These sentiments were not, however, echoed by the BJP’s own Chief Ministers in northeastern States that border Bangladesh. Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Thursday that, after this week’s events in Bangladesh, the border between his State and the neighbouring country has been “fully secured” and that “no one has yet entered our borders.”

Manik Saha, CM of Tripura — a State that had witnessed a massive influx of Bangladeshi refugees in 1971, during the war that preceded the formation of that country — also said that the border would be kept secure, and batted for strict measures.

BSF officials said that multiple attempts have been made by groups of Bangladeshis to enter India over the past four days. The BSF is sending such people back with the help of Border Guards Bangladesh.

‘No entry sans visa’

“We are stopping Bangladeshis, irrespective of religion. If a person is without any documents, we have instructions from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to not allow them to enter India. State police is also helping us keep a vigil all along the Bangladesh border. They are patrolling in the depth areas,” a top BSF official said on condition of anonymity. India does not officially recognise “refugees” and is not a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol.

A BSF official said that there have been two instances when Bangladeshi officials sought help after their office was attacked by a mob. “Across Dawki checkpost in Meghalaya, rioters struck at a customs office in Bangladesh to loot seized goods. We got a call from the Bangladeshi officials and they were allowed to come up to the zero line till the mob dispersed,” said the official. The zero line denotes a territory beyond the fence at the international boundary.

The MHA’s tough stance regarding the Bangladesh border appears to be in stark contrast to its approach towards refugees from Myanmar; as recently as November 2023, around 5,400 people from Myanmar were accommodated in temporary settlements in the border district of Kamjong in Manipur, amid fears of aerial bombardment by the ruling junta. Since 2021, over 40,000 people from Myanmar belonging to Chin-Kuki ethnic groups have taken refuge in Mizoram. In official records, they are being referred as “officially displaced persons” and the MHA has mandated that their biometrics are recorded so they can be accounted for.