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THE now regular attempts by India’s Border Security Force (BSF) to push in Bangla-speaking Muslims into Bangladesh display an unwarranted hostility that will do little to improve diplomatic relations between the two countries. The cruel manner in which people, including women and children, have been forced into Bangladesh, with many being stranded on no man’s land and exposed to the elements, is a clear violation of international law and fundamental human rights. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has brought attention to these forced expulsions and stated that India is obligated under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination to ensure the protection of everyone’s rights and prevent deprivation of citizenship on the basis of race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.
It is disheartening that the controversial revision of voter lists just ahead of the West Bengal elections dropped over nine million names, the majority of them Muslim Bangalees. In 2019, a flawed and discriminatory verification process in Assam made 1.9 million people stateless, and thousands of Bangla-speaking residents of the state have been kept in detention centres, many expelled to Bangladesh unlawfully.
