Detention deficit

Centres to house illegal migrants is a bad idea

The home ministry’s order to state governments to set up at least one detention centre in a city or district where an immigration check post is located, as reported by The Economic Times, raises afresh discomfiting questions about the government’s broader social agenda centred on citizenship. The order in the form of a “Model Detention Manual” comes ahead of the August 31 deadline for the controversial exercise in Assam to finalise its citizens’ register and raises the spectre of a nationwide national citizens’ register, which the first Modi government had proposed. Home ministry officials say the idea behind the order is to keep alleged illegal aliens readily at hand while their cases are being heard and make it easier for the state to deport them if necessary. But the move has dangers that attend any selective detention policy. Rampant human rights violations at such centres in Assam should raise red signals for state administrations. It places in the hands of the state security apparatus unwarranted powers over the citizenry.

For sure, the government must not tolerate illegal immigration, but as the Assam exercise has demonstrated, incontrovertible proof of citizenship is a problematic exercise. Under the Citizenship Act, somebody is either born in India (or his/her father was) or has become a citizen through a (somewhat long-drawn) application process, having lived in the country for a specified number of years. Millions of Indians born before the mid-eighties do not have birth certificates. They may have other documents – such as a passport or an Aadhaar card or voter ID. None of these can be considered incontrovertible proof of citizenship (the established practice of Bangladeshi immigrants being furnished with voter ID and Aadhaar cards shows why).

That leaves considerable discretion in the hands of the state police to harass people, and the detention centres will amplify that menace. The order also raises misgivings about fanning the embers of communalism. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill of 2016 had sought to offer a path to Indian citizenship for people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh so long as they are not Muslim. Though the Bill lapsed, it remains high on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s priorities. It is also unlikely that the recommendations for humane conditions specified in the order will be followed in letter or spirit. Indian prison manuals specify similar conditions, which are quite at odds with the medieval squalor that characterises the jails.   

Initiatives like this fuel divisiveness. As in the US or Europe, they offer unscrupulous politicians opportunities to raise false bogeys. In fact, this order stirs up suspicions that are belied by the government’s own data. Numbers collated from the 2011 census show that the immigration rate has fallen from 0.6 per cent to 0.4 per cent. This rate may be even lower in the next census as Bangladeshis either return to their own fast-growing nation or look to West Asia for better job opportunities. At a time when better- off Indians, too, are looking to leave India in larger numbers than ever before, the government would do well to speedily rescind this order.