Migration and the Politics of Othering
FOR some time now, shock waves have been raging across the country. The issue at hand concerns the large number of Bengali-speaking migrant workers being labelled as Bangladeshis. The combination of being Bengali-speaking and Muslim is perceived as a “lethal” marker, almost automatically branding one as “illegal Bangladeshi infiltrator.”
This is, of course, a false narrative. It is the same premise that underpinned the drafting of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has been at the forefront of this campaign. He is surely aware of the response from the people of Assam to the CAA – a response that he now implicitly refers to while pursuing this line of campaign. He went so far as to claim that anyone who speaks Bengali will help identify Bangladeshis, implicitly suggesting an inseparable connection between the two. The outrage provoked by this blatantly unconstitutional remark forced Sarma to admit: “Agree. Legally, all of them may not be foreigners. But we, the people of Assam – especially Hindus – are becoming a hopeless minority in our own land. All this has happened over a span of just 60 years. We have lost our culture, our land, our temples. The law gives us no remedy. That’s why we are desperate – not for revenge, but for survival.”
However, this tone of desperation contains not a trace of remorse. The aggressive campaign against Bengali-speaking migrants, on the presumption that they are Bangladeshis, is hollow. It is borne out by the fact that, in all attempts to push these hapless people back across the border, authorities have consistently failed to produce any documented proof. It is becoming increasingly evident that the true intent behind these actions is to evict them from their land – often using bulldozers – to hand it over to corporate land grabbers and to enable further land-related corruption.
Apart from this, the campaign also serves to deepen polarisation among the state’s multi-ethnic, diverse population, particularly in the lead-up to upcoming assembly elections. Ultimately, these controversies help divert public attention from the broader failures of the state government.
While it cannot be denied that migration from Bangladesh into Assam has continued after 1971, the alarmist claim that the state is being “swamped” by an unrelenting influx of ‘illegal’ migrants runs contrary to the fact that Assam has shown decreasing trends of population growth in the last few decades as against the all-India growth rate of population. It is the rhetoric of ‘illegal’ migrants flooding the region that seems to have aggravated, largely by paranoia about the perceived growing numbers of Muslims in the area, all of whom are assumed to be ‘illegal’ migrants.
Population studies have also established that a significant and irreversible demographic shift in Assam occurred during the colonial period, owing to a steady stream of migration from East Bengal. This migration, encouraged by the colonial administration between 1901 and 1941, reshaped the region’s demographics. If the assertions of the Election Commission are to be believed, then a logical question arises: where are the descendants of the lakhs of East Bengali Muslim peasants who settled in Assam before Partition?
Therefore, Sarma’s assertions are in line with the RSS’s broader campaign of ethnic and religious profiling. Census data shows a different reality: a comparison of foreign migrants arriving in India during the decades 1991–2001 and 2001–2011 shows that the number of Bangladeshi migrants declined from 2.79 lakh to 1.72 lakh – a drop of nearly 50 per cent. But in the age of fake news and viral WhatsApp forwards, who cares about objective data?
This phenomenon is not confined to Assam. Across large parts of the country –particularly in states governed by the BJP – the campaign to equate Bengali-speaking Muslims with illegal Bangladeshi migrants is widespread. People are being harassed and often subjected to violence, without any rigorous verification of documents. In West Bengal, Muslims number approximately 2.47 crore, or 27.01 per cent of the state’s total population of 9.13 crore. Given the worsening economic situation, it is only natural that many among them migrate beyond state boundaries in search of work, forming a significant share of the inter-state migration.
Without a single point document to establish citizenship and all other proofs like Aadhaar or ration cards and EPIC ignored, the vulnerability of these workers needs no further explanation. Their precarious condition was laid bare during the COVID-19 lockdown. The haunting images of migrant workers trekking hundreds of kilometres – of a mother dragging her wheeled suitcase with her child on top, or the mangled remains of migrants killed by a running train – haunt our collective memory.
One need not delve deeply into history to see that migrant labour has always been an integral feature of global capitalism. Capitalism has relied on labour drawn from colonies, semi-colonies, and economically vulnerable regions. The second half of the 19th century witnessed the rise of plantations (tea, coffee, sugar, rubber), large-scale construction of railways and telegraph lines, and the beginning of modern mining. It was also an age of unprecedented labour mobility. Consequently, states developed systems to regulate and manage migration, recognising its political and economic significance.
In the 21st century, with finance-driven globalisation, conflict-induced displacement, and transnational labour flows, migration has taken on new urgency. Yet, alongside this trend, the rise of ultra-right ideologies has turned migration into a convenient tool to manufacture identity-based polarisations.
Despite a December 2024 ILO report emphasizing that “International migrants are playing a crucial role in the global economy, making up 4.7 per cent of the global labour force in 2022, with most employed in high-income countries and key sectors such as services, notably care provision”, we are witnessing a growing political push to ignore these economic realities. Instead, exclusionary policies designed to incite fear and hatred are gaining traction. Donald Trump’s policies epitomise this aggressive drive towards “exclusion and othering.” The criminalisation of migration and migrant labour must be categorically rejected.
India today cannot be seen in isolation from these global developments. With the RSS-Hindutva ideology being at the centre of a powerful corporate-communal nexus, attacks against Bengali-speaking working people are bound to happen. The present regime is inimical to ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity, and strikes at the very heart of the idea of India, an idea forged through our shared anti-imperialist freedom struggle.
No single people can carry forward the resistance to this erosion of rights and humanity. We must act together, as We the People.
(August 23, 2025)
