On December 5, the Supreme Court of India struck down the Foreigners (Tribunals for Assam) Order, 2006, which protected illegal Bangladeshi migrants in the name of protecting minorities from harassment. The Asom Gana Parishad, whose general secretary, Sarbananda Sonowal, was one of the five persons to challenge the validity of the Order, described it as a slap on the face of the Congress. The BJP hailed the Supreme Court as the institution that knows right from wrong.

But there is more to this vexed issue. The UPA government had brought in the Foreigners (Tribunals for Assam) Order in February this year, after the Congress and its allies suffered a loss of face when the apex court scrapped the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act on July 12 last year. The Order itself was violative of the basic tenets of justice, as it provided for two sets of rules or laws to tackle the same issue.

The original IMDT Act, brought into force in 1983, was the genesis of the flawed arguments that the Congress and other parties routinely resort to as they attempt to protect the illegal migrant from Bangladesh and give him precedence over the rights of the indigenous Assamese — nay Indian. The Congress has always demonstrated an enthusiasm to ‘protect’ minorities from harassment while showing little or no concern for the indigenous people of Assam who are being reduced to a minority by the migrants from Bangladesh and their predecessors, the people who came in illegally from East Pakistan.

... contd.