Santhal Pargana, a tribal-dominated region in the northeast corner of Jharkhand, has been battling Bangladeshi infiltration since decades. Despite the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and other saffron groups waging war against illegal Bangladeshi settlers in the area since early 21st century, the problem has only escalated over the years, claims the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Now, with the three constituencies of the region –Godda, Rajmahal and Dumka—going to polls on May 19, the issue has resurfaced as a political debate. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his rally in Godda constituency on Wednesday, slammed the opposition parties for allegedly providing refuge to illegal immigrants from the neighbouring country and fostering them as vote banks. He warned that such practices for political benefits may put the security of the country at risk.
In a bid to fish out the illegal immigrants from the largely underdeveloped Santhal Pargana region, the BJP-ruled government in Jharkhand also planned to conduct National Register of Citizenship (NRC) here. “We have to look for every Bangladeshi in Jharkhand and deport them one by one,” Chief Minister Raghubar Das had said in September 2018.
If local leaders and activists are to be believed, Bangladeshi infiltrators have been a concern in parts of the region since as early as the 1990s. Sources said that in 1992, the then deputy commissioner of Sahebganj, Subhash Sharma, in his confidential report to the government of erstwhile Bihar, said there were 4,272 suspected illegal immigrants in Pakur Assembly segment, falling under Rajmahal Lok Sabha constituency. His findings, however, may have just been the tip of an iceberg, says the BJP.
Godda MP Nishikant Dubey said that he has raised the issue on several occasions in the parliament and the matter is likely to be addressed soon. The government, he said, has already made it clear that an NRC survey will be done in Jharkhand.
According to local BJP leaders, Jharkhand’s first Chief Minister, Babulal Marandi, who later quit the BJP to form his own party, had said in an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s (ABVP) event in 2002 that identifying and driving back the illegal Bangladeshi settlers from the region was one of the agendas of the government.
Technically, Jharkhand is closest to the Bangladesh border, only separated by river Ganga. But the river border area comes under the jurisdiction of the West Bengal government.
While there is no exact figure of Bangladeshi immigrants with voter cards in Jharkhand, the saffron outfits allege that the number can be anywhere between 50,000 to one lakh. A majority of these immigrants are included in the voters list and reside in the Santhal Pargana, claims the BJP. A survey conducted by ABVP in 2000 highlighted that there were over 3 lakh Bangladeshi immigrants in Jharkhand.
In 2014, Trinamool Congress’ candidate for assembly elections, Bandhu Tirkey, had said that the party would benefit from the support of Bangladeshi settlers in Santhal Pargana. He, however, refused to tag them as infiltrators and called them legal citizens of India.