It is high time for the state to decide on what needs to be done, regarding the impending consequences of hosting several thousand suspected Bangladeshi immigrants especially in foothill areas such as Dimapur otherwise, if left unchecked, it will be totally unmanageable. Estimates of suspected illegal immigrants vary but that is not the point. The unabated illegal immigration has enormous demographic and social implications, capable of creating tensions and conflict between the immigrants and the natives and more so among the indigenous inhabitants, particularly in NorthEast India. While union home ministry in 2000 estimated that there were 75,000 illegal immigrants in the state, the next year, the state government estimated the number to be in the region of approximately 1,00,000 illegal immigrants. On the other hand, then chief minister Dr.S.C.Jamir estimated the number to between three to four lakhs. The suspected illegal immigrants have found that some parts of the north east such as Nagaland, are in dire need of semi-skilled and unskilled cheap labour. In Nagaland Dimapur is also the capital of the illegal immigrants, who have entrenched themselves in every strata of society be it as cheap labour, trade in meat, fish and poultry besides garments, imported goods and various trades. Till the late 80s the labour market in the state was largely dominated by migrant labourers from Bihar and UP. However since the 90s illegal immigrant labour suspected to be of Bangladeshi origin managed to elbow out the \u2018deshwalis\u2019 through undercutting daily wage. The spectre of illegal immigrants swamping the north east is not as simple since most if not all, of them posses valid documents issued by authorities in Assam. In several villages in foothill areas, these immigrants far outnumber the local indigenous people. In many instances, a significant number of immigrants have married local women. In fact, many villages in the foothill areas of Dimapur, reflect the imminent threat on the demography of the state in the next decades. The issue of unabated influx of illegal immigrants continues to be a serious issue in Assam where immigrants entered Assam after obtaining fraudulent documents, such as ration card, voter identity card and driving licence, from places like Karimganj, Nagaon, Golaghat and Sibsagar in Assam. Later many of them enter the foothills of Assam-Nagaland border as well as areas around Dimapur. With valid official documents to substantiate their Indian citizenship, it became difficult for the state police to detect and deport except for a minuscule few. However, the unabated influx was also a result of the economic development taking place where more cheap labour were needed. This had a far reaching consequence to the demography. Under intense pressure from various tribe organisations and students, the state government on December 9,2019 issued a notification that extended the Inner Line Permit(ILP) regulation to the entire Dimapur district some 40 years after a notification issued on November 21,1979, which made then Dimapur sub-division a tribal belt. The problem is that the state has two cut off dates- one with December 1,1963 and the 2019 notification with November 21,1979. The recommendations of the Register of Indigenous Inhabitant of Nagaland (RIIN) constituted on July 28,2019 which submitted its recommendations towards the end of 2019 has been shelved. The longer the state government delays action, the worse will the situation turn out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is high time for the state to decide on what needs to be done, regarding the impending consequences of hosting several thousand suspected Bangladeshi immigrants especially in foothill areas such as Dimapur otherwise, if left unchecked, it will be totally unmanageable. Estimates of suspected illegal immigrants vary but that is not the point. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}