‘This is racial profiling’

TMC’s Rajya Sabha member Sushmita Dev gets agitated at the mention of prosecution of Bengali-speaking migrant workers and the introduction of Special Intensive Review (SIR) by the Centre ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls. She claims the Centre has plans to implement SIR in various states with West Bengal being the next target, followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu. And like her party, she said she too will fight tooth and nail to oppose it. In an interaction with Ashok Chatterjee of The Statesman, Dev talks about the sudden spurt of prosecution of Bengali migrants in BJP-ruled states and how the Trinamul Congress is preparing to wage the battle for Bengali rights.

Q. What do you think is leading to atrocities on migrants from Bengal? Do you believe Bengali-speaking people are being targeted?

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A. After losing a number of seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the caste census coming up, the BJP is trying to consolidate its vote bank by setting up a narrative which is anti-foreigner ~ or Bangladeshis ~ who have illegally come to India. The undertone is of course anti-minority. My question is why a party that has been in power for 10 years and has been in control of the borders could not check the infiltration. Today if you go to a ‘basti’ (settlement), where migrant workers stay, most of them are from West Bengal. The government is not accepting their land documents, Aadhaar, and ration cards. These are the documents most of these marginalized people have. If you do not accept these documents, how do you expect them to prove they are Indian citizens? And the criteria for choosing a colony is language. The government identifies the pockets based on the language being spoken there, which is Bengali. Take the case of Jai Hind colony in Delhi. By cutting power, water, and basic facilities, you are not identifying illegal immigrants and pushing them out, but punishing people en masse just because of the language they speak. Another very important point is that they set the date for CAA (Citizenship (Amendment) Act) as December 2014. This is the year the BJP, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, came to power. By putting this date, they are trying to convey that since Modi had been in power, there has been no infiltration.

Q. Why are these dates important?

A. Take the case of Assam Accord, which is March 1971. It coincides with the creation of Bangladesh and the influx of refugees at that time. Every date in an Act of Parliament must have a criteria. Can anybody explain why the date for CAA is December 2014? No. It is because the BJP came to power that year. So, if that is the case then they had 10 years to look for illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators and deport them. But they did nothing. They are doing this ‘now’ because they need to consolidate their vote bank after their votes have gone down.

Q. Would you call it racial or linguistic profiling?

A. They are going to colonies where Bengali people are settled and looking for Bangladeshis there. This is nothing but racial profiling. The message you are giving to the nation is that anyone who speaks Bengali is Bangladeshi. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) notices sent by the Assam government are mostly to the people of Bengal, many of them are Hindus. Of course, the maximum number of these people are Muslims. This is what Bengalis in Assam have been facing for decades. It is being replicated all over the country. If you speak in Bengali, you are looked at with suspension. The Election Commission started marking ‘D’ (doubtful) in Assam for people who are Bengali-speaking.

Q. You are also opposing the implementation of SIR in Bihar.

A . The EC recently issued a notification of conducting SIR in all the states of India. For Assam, BLO (booth level officers) trainers were brought to Delhi, trained, and sent back to train others. This has been going on for over a month. Reviewing the electoral role is well within the preview of EC. But if you look at the enumeration form, it says ‘if you are born before 1987, you have to show your birth certificate; born between 1987-2004, show yours as well as one other parent’s document; and if born after 2004, you have to show your as well as both parents’ documents’. If you look at the 11 documents at the end of the form, it mentions passport and pension documents as requirements. How many Indians have a passport or have been in government jobs? Another document is a school certificate, which most of the marginalised do not possess. During NRC in Assam, they said if your parents or grandparents’ name was in the voter list pre-1971, they would accept it. Despite that, 19 lakh people were excluded.

Q. How successful has been the NRC implementation in Assam?

A. The Supreme Court-monitored NRC in Assam started in 2013. The final outcome came on 30 August 2019. It took six years. But till today, the NRC has not been notified by the Registrar General of India in Assam. If they could not implement it in one state after taking six years, how are they planning to do it in Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the next few months?

Q. In Bihar, reportedly 65 lakh people have been excluded (from the electoral rolls). Your comments.

A. Who are these ‘illegal immigrants’? They are the citizens of India. They have gone to other states to work and they will come back. They have their voting rights in Bihar. These people have been excluded because the enumerators are going door-to-door and not finding them. On July 22, they said 11,000 voters were untraceable in Bihar. Just the next day, this figure went up to 1 lakh plus. In light of all these facts, my view is that they have already prepared the new voters list, and they are working their way backwards. This is my assumption. In Assam, the exclusion could be 30-40 lakh names. During NRC, the initial deletion was 40 lakh and then it came down to 19 lakh. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has admitted that he failed in Assam as there were 1.25 crore Bangladeshis in Assam. In a state which has a population of approximately 3.4 crore, the figure of 1.25 crore includes Bengali-speaking population, Hindus and Muslims included. It is crystal clear that in the garb of identifying infiltrators, the government is indulging in blatant racial profiling of people who speak a certain language which happens to be common with Bangladesh.

Q. What about West Bengal?

A. West Bengal’s Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari is on record saying 1.2 crore people would be kicked out from the state.

Q. You have argued that the poll body has no right to ask for citizenship, and that this right rests only with the Ministry of Home Affairs.

A. If you look at the enumeration forms, the years mentioned are from Section 3 of the 1955 Citizenship Act. So, the EC is actually touching upon the Citizenship Act. That is why (West Bengal Chief Minister) Mamata Banerjee is saying that they are bringing in the NRC through the back door. It is within the jurisdiction of the MHA and they have two ways of doing it — updating the National Population Register (NPR) and National Register of Citizenship. The EC through its enumeration form cannot bring in the Citizenship Act. The Centre has failed in the NRC implementation. Assam is a laboratory of NRC. After spending more than Rs 1,500 crore, you have failed in NRC. Now, you have brought it through the back door. Today the EC can remove me from the voters’ list only if I am declared a foreigner by the foreigner’s tribunal of the home ministry.

Q. How do you look at the leadership of Mamata Banerjee?

A. Mamata Di’s strength is her grassroots connect. To me she is one of the biggest mass leaders in this country. Even after being in power, she is constantly fighting against injustices. She is fighting for funds from the Centre, and against SIR and injustices to the Bengali migrants in other states. She is relentless. When everyone was blaming her for the rape-murder at RG Kar hospital, she took to the streets. Why? Because she was against rape and atrocities against women. That is her strength. She is not a board-room CM. She can be seen with the people, amongst the people.