Assam: The Patriotic People’s Front Assam (PPFA) has called on the Union government to implement a stringent policy to detect and deport illegal migrants, particularly from Bangladesh, citing concerns over the growing threat they pose to India’s demographic and resource balance.
The forum warned that the failure of successive governments to address the issue has brought Assam to the brink of a crisis, endangering the majority Hindu population’s demographic stability in the region.
In its statement, the PPFA highlighted alarming statistics shared during a 2016 Rajya Sabha debate, which estimated that 20 million illegal Bangladeshi nationals were residing in India, a sharp rise from the 12 million reported in 2014.
The group also expressed concern over the continued influx of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar entering India through Bangladesh, which it warned could further exacerbate the problem.
The forum reminded the nation that Assam had sounded the alarm about illegal Bangladeshi migration during the Assam Agitation from 1979 to 1985. It criticized the lack of decisive action from political leaders and intellectuals at the time, arguing that the current crisis could have been avoided if the warnings had been heeded. The unchecked influx, the PPFA claimed, has overwhelmed Assam’s resources and disrupted its socio-economic fabric.
While acknowledging a growing national awareness of the issue, partly due to increased media coverage, the PPFA questioned whether political parties would unite to take decisive action. The forum emphasized the need for bipartisan cooperation to identify and deport illegal migrants, or at the very least, to strip them of voting rights and access to state benefits if deportation proves infeasible due to international obligations.
The PPFA’s call comes as public sentiment against illegal migration grows stronger, reflecting the urgency of the issue in Assam and across India.
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