Emphasising that “illegals” were snatching the rights of tribals, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the setting up of a high-powered demography mission to deal with the challenge of infiltration. The Prime Minister’s remarks come amid opposition criticism of the government’s crackdown on Bangladeshis and Rohingya. In Delivering his 12th consecutive Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, PM Modi asserted that India would not allow infiltrators to grab land of tribals and the livelihood of the youth.
What Is PM Modi’s High-Powered Demography Mission
Why In News
- Emphasising that “illegals” were snatching the rights of tribals, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the setting up of a high-powered demography mission to deal with the challenge of infiltration. The Prime Minister’s remarks come amid opposition criticism of the government’s crackdown on Bangladeshis and Rohingya.
- In Delivering his 12th consecutive Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, PM Modi asserted that India would not allow infiltrators to grab land of tribals and the livelihood of the youth. Calling the issue a major concern and a challenge for his government, PM Modi said, “Under a well-thought-out conspiracy, the country’s demography is being changed, seeds of a new crisis are being sown… So, we have decided to start a high-powered demography mission.”
Crackdown On Bangladeshis
- Since May, several states have started a renewed crackdown against illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingya migrants. Previously, the government told Parliament that India had 20 million Bangladeshi illegal immigrants.
- In fact, infiltration was the central campaign theme of the BJP during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The crackdown has drawn vehement criticism from the opposition, especially the Trinamool Congress, which has alleged that Bengali-speaking migrants were also being targeted.
What Is Demography Mission?
- Modi stressed that infiltrators were a danger to the country’s security. “Infiltrators are snatching away the livelihood of the youth of my country. Infiltrators are targeting the sisters and daughters of my country. These infiltrators mislead innocent tribals and capture their land. This will not be tolerated,” he further said.
- While PM Modi did not divulge the details of the demography mission, he said the “illegals” would be dealt with in a planned and determined manner, within a fixed timeframe.
- Underscoring the perils of allowing such infiltration to go unchecked, PM Modi said it poses a danger to the unity, integrity, and progress of the nation, and sows seeds of social tension.
- “When demographic change takes place – especially in border regions – it creates a threat to national security. No country can hand itself over to infiltrators. No country in the world does this, so how can we allow it for India?” he said, in an apparent jibe at his detractors and the opposition.
Current Situation
- Amidst the Central government’s ongoing Operation Pushback, meant to detect, detain and deport illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators, PM Modi’s announcement of a high-powered demographic mission comes as an apt policy response to the demographic change crisis.
- Demographic change is real and is taking place at a faster pace than is known. This change, however, is not only driven by illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar but also by local factors, including differential population growth rates among different religious communities.
- In Assam, the porous India-Bangladesh border has allowed illegal immigration of Bangladeshi Muslim nationals into India over the years. These Bengali-speaking Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators obtain counterfeit documents like Aadhaar cards, ration cards, etc. After entering India, they take up menial jobs, become criminals, encroach tribal lands, harass local Indians in many cases, reproduce like there’s no tommorow and have altered the demographic balance in many districts.
- The BJP government in Assam has been aggressively detecting, detaining and eventually deporting the identified Bangladeshi Muslim illegals. In 2019, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in Assam excluded around 1.9 million people from the register.
- The 2011 census revealed that Muslims constitute about 34% of Assam’s population, up from 30.9% in 2001, with districts like Dhubri, Barpeta, and Goalpara becoming Muslim-majority.
- The influx of illegal Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants faces strong opposition from indigenous Assamese communities. Similarly, in West Bengal, illegal infiltration of Bangladeshi immigrants is a big menace. In districts like North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, and Malda, among others, the Muslim population has surged exponentially.
- The Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal is notorious for its leniency towards illegal Muslim immigrants for political gains. Other bordering states like Tripura, Jharkhand, and Jammu and Kashmir have also witnessed the influx of illegal immigrants.
- In a research paper published in Economics and Political Weekly, Economist and member of the Ecnomic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, Professor Shamika Ravi, Economists Mudit Kapoor, Sunil Rajpal and SV Subramanian, revealed that the Hindu population in a Hindu majority India is declining while the Muslim population, which political parlance is called a ‘minority’ but in reality, is second-largest religious majority, is increasing exponentially. The researchers relied on the census data on religion from 2001 to 2011 to describe the changes in religious composition across 640 districts.
- The study titled “Change in Religious Composition across Districts in India from 2001 to 2011” stated that at the national level, the Hindu population came down slightly, from 80.46% in 2001 to 79.8% in 2011. But the Muslim population rose from 13.43% to 14.23%. Even Christians saw a marginal rise in their share.
- The researchers found that the share of the Hindu population declined in 468 out of 640 districts of India. That is over 70% of the total districts. In 227 districts, the dip was even larger than the national average fall of 0.7%. The Muslim population increased in 513 districts, and the Christian population increased in 439 districts.
- “Overall, the population growth in India from 2001 to 2011 was 17.7%. The dominant religion was Hindu in both censuses. The fastest population growth was among Muslims at 24.6%, and the lowest was among Jains at 5.4%. The share of the Hindu population declined from 80.46% in 2001 to 79.8% in 2011, a decline of approximately 0.7%. The percentage of the Muslim population increased from 13.43% in 2001 to 14.23% in 2011, an increase of 0.8%.
- Notably, the share of people who do not wish to state their religion has increased more than three times from 0.07% to 0.24% from 2001 to 2011,” the paper reads. In West Bengal, beyond the menace of illegal immigration, the Muslim population has increased.
- In districts like Murshidabad, Malda, Uttar Dinajpur, and North and South 24 Parganas, the Muslim population grew at a higher rate than the Hindu population. Due to this, the Hindu share in these districts declined by over 1% in some districts, much higher than the national average.
