North East and 35 million climate migrants from Bangladesh: Chronicle of an invasion foretold

People ride on a boat through flooded waters in Sunamgong, Bangladesh, 14 July, 2020. AFP

Panic buttons that should have been pressed almost two decades ago began to ring in a conference hall in Myanmar on 4 March 2014 when Sheikh Hasina told the delegates from BIMSTEC countries that a rise by one degree Celsius in the planet’s temperature — as a result of global warming — would submerge one-fifth of Bangladesh. The consequence would force 35 million people to become “climate migrants”.

Worldwide measurements have indicated that an increase in the rate of incidence of natural disasters in the region would entail migration. Resettlement due to climate change would be the newest manifestation. However, the scare that Sheikh Hasina’s statement brought — especially to India — was the fact that the complete flock of migrants would float to India.

Positioned at the base of the mighty Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna river system, Bangladesh is awashed by a total of 57 trans-boundary rivers that snake down to it. Fifty-four of the rivers flow in from India and another three from Myanmar. Without any control over the water volume and course, 90 per cent of the total run-off water that is generated annually drains into the Bay of Bengal. Poverty, narrow adaptive capacity, inadequately funded and ineffective control fuelled with a nightmarish population has ranked the country as one of the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change.

The displacement of population from Bangladesh would also be exacerbated as a result of two other important factors. The severity and timing of the floods in Bangladesh is one of untold sorrow. Indeed, the entire region’s story of floods in 2020 including Assam has been particularly ruthless. Despite the fact that the bane is becoming increasingly unpredictable, there has never been a year when floods have not visited Assam. It is unfortunate that successive governments have not cerebrated on the underlying causes, and are content with the patience that they have been endowed with: waiting for the next wave to come after the one that has just devastated the population, especially the ones who are “Below the Poverty Line”.

Additionally, Bangladesh’s economy, with a purchasing power parity that decreased to 2.67 per cent in 2019 after an increase to 5.96 per cent in 2009 does not seem to have the wherewithal to respond or battle natural disasters. Indeed, its poverty rate is all set to double to 40.9 per cent from what it was prior to the outbreak of Covid-19.

Furthermore, Islamism — more specifically its incorrect interpretations — that demonstrates itself in unplanned family management and the inability of successive dispensations to educate the populace about the ill-effects of politically motivated religious adherence has taken a toll, ferrying an otherwise fair land to the brink of catastrophe.

Also, certain pronouncements by leading intellectuals of Bangladesh about the crisis seem to state that despite the awareness that has dawned upon them, the people of Bangladesh are clearly banking on the lebensraum in Assam and thereabouts. Sadeq Khan wrote in the Holiday, (“Lebensraum for Bangladeshis?” Holiday (Dhaka), 22 November 1991), “A natural overflow of population pressure is therefore very much on the cards and will not be restrainable by barbed wire or border patrol measures. The natural trend of population overflow from Bangladesh is towards the sparsely populated lands of the South East in the Arakan side and of the North East in the Seven Sisters side of the Indian subcontinent.”

In 1931, SC Mullan, the British census superintendent, had written, “Where there is wasteland thither flock the Mymensinghias. In fact, the way in which they have seized upon the vacant areas in the Assam valley seems almost uncanny. Without fuss, without tumult, without undue trouble to the district revenue staff, a population which must amount to over half a million has transplanted itself from Bengal into the Assam valley during the last twenty-five years.”

It would be noticed that Mullan appended phrases such as “wasteland” and “without undue trouble” when he wrote about the movement of the Mymensinghias into Assam. Almost a century later, the demographic shift has not only caused massive socio-political “tumult,” with violent agitations, pogroms and politically tectonic upheavals, but the disappearance of the wastelands that Mullan had referred to. Every inch of land in Assam is populated with even its forest cover having declined over the years.

It is no longer a matter of speculation as to how the depletion has occurred. The invading hordes of “insecure” and “economic” migrants — as stated by Mullan, census superintendent of Assam, in 1931, which he compared with a “mass movement of a large body of ants” — have taken over almost every inch of cultivable and habitable land. The bemoaning of loss of forest land in a once green expanse was only a matter of time, especially as even the Kaziranga National Park has not been spared.

It is also no longer a matter of surprise that the cheapest trip in the world is from Bangladesh to India. It is a mere Rs 2,000! But, as is well known, only a few Bangladeshis who would soon lose a fifth of their land area to the surging Bay come to India legally. A visit to Assam would necessitate only a straight cross-over across a “manned” border, a short stay in the already established house of a distant relative in and around Dhubri (including chars and chaporis), the procurement (in advance) of a perfectly valid document for as less as Rs 200, and one that proves, without doubt, the holder’s Indian citizenship and thence travel and permanent residentship in Guwahati where demand for labour is in plenty.

The hypocritical middle class Assamese who had once taken to the streets to rid their state of illegal Bangladeshi migrants, hiring all class and form of such a visitor permanently, would ascertain it. Indeed, as the author wrote in his book — Terror Sans Frontiers: Islamist Militancy in North East India (Vision Books, 2004 & 2008) — “On certain days the bustling streets of Guwahati would wear a deserted look. On days of Islamic celebration and observance, and on polling days, this celebrated “citizenry” would disappear.”

Intense migrant-native conflict such as the one that was witnessed in the Bodoland Territorial Area District will occur with greater frequency. Religious divide is perhaps the last reason for the conflict. In the opinion of the author, land is the primary factor. The fight over resource rich land is on. It has now metamorphosed into rights over political power. New political formations are emerging to protect the illegal migrants, as have strategies.

The 2024 general elections would witness vanguards coming onto their own, marching deeper into the North East and taking over the last inch of barren land. The emergence of new social formations such as the sema-miyas and the lo-miyas in Nagaland is a direct result of the illegal entry of people from Bangladesh. The numbers and the combat resources of the illegal migrants would soon compellingly enter Arunachal Pradesh, where land continues to be — for the time being — available. Conflict would have spread, but the militias of the migrants — who would be right off the global salafi assembly line-ups, or most likely after having completed a successful tour of duty with the Quetta Shura or the resurgent al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent — would have been activated by then, taking over the trenches that would have been vacated by the ethnic insurgents. Lebensraum, Brihot Bangladesh (Greater Bangladesh) and Nizam-e-Mustafa would have been established.

If “economic migrants” of today have constructed the foundation, the 35 million “climate migrants” waiting across the border for the next Cyclone Aila to hit would determinedly enter the North East in order to complete the invasion that had been foretold.

Jaideep Saikia is a well-known conflict expert and author of several best-selling books. He is also a Fellow, Irregular Warfare Initiative, West Point, USA. Views expressed are personal.

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