Addressing the nation from the ramparts of Red Fort on India’s 79th Independence Day on 15 August 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted a series of issues of national importance and his concern over illegal infiltration and demography changes in different parts of India drew the attention from the indigenous population of Assam. They found it intriguing that Modi, who cautioned the illegal migrants from Bangladesh ten years back from a poll-campaign meeting in Assam, made a strong statement that a well-planned conspiracy was hatched to change the country’s demography through illegal infiltration. Better late than never, they felt amused that Modi in his 103-minute speech asserted that no nation can tolerate intruders and a high-powered demographic mission was on the card to deal with the massive crisis.
“The infiltrators are snatching the bread & butter of our youth. They are targeting our daughters & sisters. They are befooling innocent tribal people and capturing their lands. It will no longer be tolerated,” stated Modi, adding that the demographic change, especially in the border States, has created a menace for national security, unity, integrity and development. A leading light of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Modi somehow echoed the concern primarily from Assam, where his party man Himanta Biswa Sharma continued pushing back illegal Bangladeshi nationals through the international border and running a series of eviction drives targeting illegal settlers (read undocumented Bangladesh origin Muslims), which is otherwise an unprecedented mission for a State chief minister.
Recently, even the Supreme Court refused to stay the process of detention and deportation of Bangladeshi Muslim migrant workers in different parts of the country. The apex court observed that the illegal immigration cannot go unchecked as it may have serious consequences to the nation. Mentionable is that the SC was approached challenging the Union home ministry’s recent directive asking the States to verify the credentials of all suspected illegal migrants (read Bangladeshis and Rohingyas) in their territories, so that they could be deported to their home-country.
One can remember, the people of Assam launched an agitation against the illegal migrants taking shelter in the State and urged the centre to take an appropriate action against the infiltrators, who were silently changing Assam’s demography, but the then Congress governments in New Delhi led by Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi did not adequately respond to their demands. Even the memorandum of settlement (floated as historic Assam Accord), signed to culminate the six-year long agitation in 1985, compelled the signatories from All Assam Students’ Union and Sadou Asom Gana Sangram Parishad to accept a different cut-off date (from the national one) and indirectly accept all migrants (read East Pakistani nationals), who entered Assam before 25 March 1971 as Indians. PM Rajiv Gandhi was present on the occasion, but he did not sign and thus avoided putting the agreement for necessary debates in the Parliament.
A number of governments came to power in New Delhi, but no such pragmatic initiatives were taken to identify the migrants from Bangladesh (not to speak of deportation to their home country). However, all the governments were very sensitive, proactive and aggressive against Islamabad and illegal Pakistani nationals. For the first time, the centre became a hardliner towards the Bangladeshi infiltrators, only after the Pahalgam terror attack where the terrorists targeted the victims asking their religion (read Sanatani Hindu), which created an enormous outrage among the majority Hindu population and it finally compelled the government to emerge as a crusader against all illegal migrants (including those from Bangladesh).
It was also easier for New Delhi to adopt the approach as Sheikh Hasina (a routinely stated as pro-India and pro-Hindu) was already ousted by a mass uprising in Bangladesh during July-August 2024 that compelled the sitting Prime Minister (who was elected for the fourth consecutive time in 7 January 2024 Jatiya Sansad polls) to flee and take a temporary shelter in India. Various south Asian political analysts argue that in presence of Hasina as the premier in Dhaka, the decision against illegal Bangladeshi nationals would have been soft enough (as it continued to happen since Hasina’s return to power in 2009). Moreover, the latest initiative of Dr Muhammad Yunus-led interim administration to bring Dhaka closer to Islamabad and some of his anti-Indian outbursts instigated New Delhi to take a strong stand against the Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators.
Thus it can be termed as a victory to the Assamese people, who rallied against the illegal migrants decades back (but failed to convince the central government to take appropriate actions). Shockingly, a large number of politicians, constitutional experts, analyst-intellectuals and journalist-writers based in the mainland, believed that Asomiya residents were fighting against Bengali speaking people in the region. They did not try to understand, it was not an agitation against the Bengalis, but illegal Bangladeshi nationals, who were silently taking the resources of native people and changing the demography in an alarming way. Need not to remind that it was the sole responsibility of New Delhi to detect and deport the illegal nationals from any foreign countries, but the then politicians in power ignored the serious issue, even after an agitation that snatched away the lives of over 850 Asomiyas and broke down of an academic year in 1979-80 for all students (including this writer). Finally after decades, New Delhi has realised the gravity of Bangladeshi menace and started working to resolve the burning problem pertaining to the eastern Indian States like Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and West Bengal.
When Modi’s I-Day speech resonating decades-back Assam Agitation
