Migration has been a part of the Northeast Indian landscape. Long before Partition, Independence, and the colonial cartographers drew their arbitrary lines, people crossed the plains of the Brahmaputra, the hills of Manipur, and deep into the thick forests of Tripura. But today, the word “migration” has been weaponised. It has turned into a dog whistle, a rallying cry, a political tool to be used by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to pull Hindu nationalist votes together and systematically neglect the structural economic conditions that lead to movement in the first place.The most important thing to remember when thinking about migration in Northeast India is that there is a real crisis, but the diagnosis that is being given to the public is not true.
The Demographic Shift in Assam
The undocumented movement of Bangladeshi people into Assam and the earlier migrations, which occurred before 1971 have significantly changed the demographic structure of the Brahmaputra valley.The Census of India, reveals that in such districts as Dhubri or Barpeta, the majority of the population is Muslim; over several decades, this population has increased and has caused a change in the demographics of such areas which has drastic consequences in terms of land use, linguistic identity, and political representation. But the BJP reaction has been to grab the most crude tool at hand: the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which has in effect been found to disenfranchise approximately 1.9 million individuals, many of whom happen to be Hindu and indigenous tribal groups, without any reference to the underlying issues of land rights, jobs, and cultural conservation.
Internal Migration & the CAA Betrayal
Migration is not solely a transnational occurrence. The internal migration of labourers (Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to Assam), Nepali-speaking (to Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh) and Bengali-speaking (to Tripura) workers, were equally transformative, as well as politically charged. The native Borok people of Tripura today form less than one-third of the state population, a downfall of a state approaching majority population in one generation. The BJP that is in power in Tripura has failed to do anything substantial in terms of this dispossession other than paying lip service to it. In the meantime, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) of 2019 that provides faster citizenship to non-Muslim migrants in three neighboring nations has intensified the feeling of indigenous people that the ruling party is worried about religious identity politics, rather than their survival. The Hindu has reported, As CAA has elicited some of the most violent protests in the Northeast, communities there have a visceral and historical understanding of what demographic replacement really entails.
Economic Neglect: The Root Cause BJP Won’t Name
The economic drivers of migration hardly feature in the story of BJP and this is an intentional exclusion. The northeast part of India continues to be one of the most marginalised economically in the country. The poverty of the region, caused by the absence of infrastructure, the absence of industrial capital, the ineffective land tenure system and the continued existence of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) have developed a regional economy that sells its own educated youth to Bangalore, Delhi and elsewhere and imports unskilled labour in the Hindi heartland. This did not happen by mere chance of geography; it is a result of decades of oversights on the part of the successive central governments, including that of the BJP. To blame the migrants instead of engaging in constructive investment in the region in terms of manufacturing, tourism or agro-processing is to feign a sense of concern without providing the very conditions that drive them to migrate. Since 2016, the BJP has been in power in Assam, and most of the state governments in the region cannot be held to account by a single government based in Kathmandu or Dhaka.
Cultural Plurality Under Threat
Migration has also ended the region’s amazing cultural diversity in a way that can’t be ignored.In the Northeast, there are more than 200 different ethnic communities with language belonging to four major families. This is not just a number; it is an achievement for civilization. However, the diversity is being eroded at an worrying rate by the uncontrolled flow of demographics and the homogenising forces of the Hindutva cultural nationalism. The consolidation of power by the BJP has been accompanied by imposition of Hindi as the medium of instruction, marginalization of Assamese and tribal languages in government affairs and rewriting of the local history in Hindu nationalist terms. A party that purports to defend the indigenous identity, and at the same time, enforce a cultural homogeneity in New Delhi is in a deep contradiction a contradiction that the civil society organisations in the region, student unions and literary bodies have not overlooked. According to the records released by Economic and Political Weekly, the BJP has always been keen on majoritarian consolidation rather than the actual pluralism through their cultural interventions in Northeast.
Governance by Optics — NRC, Tribunals & Detention
The simplest form of migration policy involves a state that is dedicated to evidence and not feelings. BJP has never passed this test. The NRC process was carried out at colossal financial and human expense and resulted in a list full of mistakes, not encompassing millions of rightful citizens and providing no distinct way forward on the stateless is an example of governance-by-optics.. The Foreigners Tribunals are understaffed, ill-trained and are now a tool of harassment and not adjudication. The detention centres, which hold people who are awaiting deportation which may never come, are a humanitarian scandal that the national media does not pay much attention to due to the poor, brown, and mainly Muslim victims. It is not by chance that a party that claims to protect the cultural heritage of the Northeast Indian states has presided over this institutional failure. This is because the party’s governing philosophy values toughness over the difficult, unglamorous work of building functional state capacity.
What the Region Actually Needs
Migration will remain a contributing factor to the Northeast of India in the coming generations. The Brahmaputra will keep on flooding and displacing people along its banks. The problems of climate change will compound the pressures of displacement in Bangladesh and Myanmar. As long as the Northeast is an economic periphery, internal economic migration will continue. It is not whether migration can be prevented it cannot but whether India can establish migration governance systems that are humane, evidence-based, and sensitive to the real concerns of indigenous people without turning into ethnic persecution. BJP has proven that it is neither intellectually nor morally qualified to develop such a structure, based on over a decade of ruling in the region. What the area needs is not another round of fear-mongering before the next round of elections. It needs money, a change in institutions, respect for culture, and a government that is ready to see the Northeast as an ally instead of a problem. Until such a government comes, the demographic fault lines will continue to be pushed deeper and those who thrive on the fear will proceed to do just that. For more information, look at the work of scholars at the Northeast India Studies Institute and other research centers in the area.
