Apart from extending support to the Manohar Joshi government in Maharashtra on the issue of deporting illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government is considering the scrapping of the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals), Act, 1983, which is widely considered a hurdle in the process of identifying and deporting foreign nationals in Assam.
The act is Assam-specific, and has been sought to be scrapped or amended ever since leaders of the anti-foreigners agitation captured political power in 1985. The issue raised a storm recently when former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda promised the All Assam Students Union to carry out a repeal in order to make the act more effective.
However, Gowda had to backtrack in the face of strong opposition from the Congress, which was supporting the United Front government, and also the ruling Asom Gana Parishad's new found indifference to the issue. The P K Mahanta government is in power due to the support of the very section of population which its leaders had targetted during the agitation.
In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha during the recent session of parliament, Union home minister L K Advani said: "The scrapping of the IMDT Act, 1983, is under consideration of the government". It was one of the major promises made by the BJP in Assam during the Lok Sabha elections; a promise that helped the party win new support among the caste Hindu Assamese, which was clearly reflected in the election results.
Though the BJP did not win a seat in the Brahmaputra valley, its candidates finished either second or third in most constituencies, something considered improbable in a state and region where the BJP had little base/appeal. But things have changed, with the influential section of Assamese society that helped lead and sustain the agitation for six years being deeply disappointed with the AGP and even the Ulfa. This section has now turned to the BJP.
Assam government figures show that a negligible number of foreign nationals have been identified under the IMDT Act since it was enacted. Critics of the act often refer to a statement made by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1990 that the act was basically enacted to prevent harassment to minorities, and not to identify foreign nationals.
Any move to scrap the act, however, is bound to face opposition first from within the ruling coalition, particularly from the Trinamool Congress and the Samata Party. Mamata Bannerjee, who was in the Congress during the tenure of the UF government, had strongly opposed Gowda's promise to repeal the act.
Currently there are 16 tribunals functioning in Assam under the IMDT Act. The basic flaw cited by critics of the act is that the onus of furnishing the proof of a person's citizenship rests with the complainant, and not the person whose citizenship is in doubt. Gowda had proposed to repeal the act, shifting the burden of furnishing proof from the complainant to the accused.
The act is applicable only in the state of Assam, while in the rest of the country, the Foreigners' Act of 1946 is in force. Scrapping the IMDT act is likely to lead to the Foreigners' Act coming in force in Assam also, an eventuality that would make the process of detection of foreign nationals easier.
To prevent infiltration along the Indo-Bangladesh border, nearly 780 km of fencing of the sanctioned 896 km has been completed, as stipulated in the 1985 Assam accord. The Centre has also given sanction for the creation of 1280 additional posts of special registration officers under the Prevention of Infiltration Scheme.
