Around thirty years ago, when the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), led by its then president Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, launched an agitation demanding detection and deportation of Bangladeshi infiltrators, the then government as well as the people in the rest of the country thought it was a non-issue being raised by a students’ body.

Three decades later, more and more facts have come to the fore proving that the influx of Bangladeshi infiltrators is worryingly high, and also that these people, who pose a threat to the sovereignty and integrity of the nation, are increasing their political clout in the country.

The latest such document at hand is a judgment passed by Justice B K Sharma of the Gauhati High Court last week, which said that Bangladeshi infiltrators have a “major role” in electing representatives both to the Legislative Assembly and Parliament and, consequently, in the decision-making process towards building the nation. “They have become the kingmakers,” Justice Sharma had remarked. Reacting to the judgment, AASU said on Wednesday that a porous Indo-Bangla border had converted Assam into a corridor for Islamic terrorists to enter mainland India.

The flow of people from the erstwhile East Bengal (of the pre-Independence era) to Assam began in the early 20th century. However, it was the Bangladesh War for Liberation that sparked off a massive exodus of people from the then East Pakistan, with the Indian government failing to ensure that they returned to their newborn country.

It was during the revision of the electoral rolls in the Mangaldoi Lok Sabha constituency in 1979 (which was preparing for a by-election) that the authorities detected a large number of people of Bangladeshi /East Pakistani origin having enrolled themselves as voters there.

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