Don’t show your back at border, home advisor tells BGB

[Joe Shearer]

Its the total aggregate estimate existing over full time.

i.e people that were born in the area called Bangladesh today, that are estimated to reside in India (legally with citizenship or work visa etc and illegally without either).

Some large chunk of it is economic based (i.e illegals) and inevitable to large degree given the context of the population sizes and wealth concentration effect to labour pull (past hard borders) like I mention also combined with other factors like Indians largely being non Bengali (but having a Bengali population for BD migrants to subsume under etc) but vice versa not being the case for BD (could most Indians pass off as Bengali etc? nope...language gives game away right away etc)

I can dig out the UN paper later if ppl want to read it.....but no "4 million" is not a recent flux kind of thing at all, but the total estimate from larger flow/time integral estimate....and large period when BD was in much more economic stressed state too compared to today. In fact iirc, the UN paper(s) had the estimated stock at decadal intervals, say 1980, 1990, 2000 etc....and I think more or less it is stable from 2010 to 2020 as both economies averages come closer due to BD making gains and making strong wealth concentration in say Dhaka and CTG to some extent compared to before....and also ofc wage draws in middle east and so on.

A partial answer to this is that, unlike the west, where there was a cataclysmic event where everything happened in a matter of weeks, in the east, in Bengal, very large numbers moved over a period of decades, not weeks. As a result, people like the founder of Bandhan Bank, who learnt the basics of micro-finance from Mohammed Yunus while still living in Bangladesh, migrated very, very recently, set up a very efficient micro-finance operation, and then launched, in parallel, a scheduled bank, that is doing very well, came long after even 1971. People are still moving across; one of Mamata Bannerjee's sources of support used to be the cult known as Matua, that started in Bangladesh and found itself new moorings in West Bengal.

There is also the caste thing.

The Brahmins, Vaidyas and Kayasthas moved first. They had the money, they had the insight and they muddled through. The rest - the Namasudras and similar - moved in these pulses, reluctant to leave their old homes, but forced out under pressure. This, too, is a generalisation; the founder of Bandhan, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, is a kayastha, and shifted only around the turn of the century.

 

[Afif]

A partial answer to this is that, unlike the west, where there was a cataclysmic event where everything happened in a matter of weeks, in the east, in Bengal, very large numbers moved over a period of decades, not weeks. As a result, people like the founder of Bandhan Bank, who learnt the basics of micro-finance from Mohammed Yunus while still living in Bangladesh, migrated very, very recently, set up a very efficient micro-finance operation, and then launched, in parallel, a scheduled bank, that is doing very well, came long after even 1971. People are still moving across; one of Mamata Bannerjee's sources of support used to be the cult known as Matua, that started in Bangladesh and found itself new moorings in West Bengal.

There is also the caste thing.

The Brahmins, Vaidyas and Kayasthas moved first. They had the money, they had the insight and they muddled through. The rest - the Namasudras and similar - moved in these pulses, reluctant to leave their old homes, but forced out under pressure. This, too, is a generalisation; the founder of Bandhan, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, is a kayastha, and shifted only around the turn of the century.

Is there any estimate on how many of the refugees stayed after 1971?

 

[Joe Shearer]

Is there any estimate on how many of the refugees stayed after 1971?

Less than one per cent.

It was thought miraculous.

The refugees (about 10 million, compare that to the figure, admittedly of longer durations, of Afghans who came into Pakistan during THEIR troubles, about 2 million tops) were mixed in composition, but the strong proportion of Hindus was clear. On liberation, they had such confidence in the future of Bangladesh that they all returned. The refugee camps were bleak, empty collections of tents and makeshift shelters within days of liberation.

 

[UKBengali]

Vast majority of the BD’shis that moved to India just before and after 1971 are Hindus.
This was due to both religious and economic reasons as till the 2010s BD was poorer than India.
Interestingly, more Hindus since the 2010s have come back to BD from India than the other way round.
Muslim BD emigration to India has always been insignificant and paranoid Indians have been picking up W Bengalis and labelling them as BD’shis. lol.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Muslim BD emigration to India has always been insignificant and paranoid Indians have been picking up W Bengalis and labelling them as BD’shis. lol.

You are overlooking the really serious issues, and those are not in the sniping, jeering and spiteful talk in some western parts of India, but in the problems of Assam, and Assamese and Bodo hostility to Muslims, both ethnically identical Muslims, and those of Bengali descent.

You might like to check their views with members from Assam.

 

[Circadian Rhythm]

You are overlooking the really serious issues, and those are not in the sniping, jeering and spiteful talk in some western parts of India, but in the problems of Assam, and Assamese and Bodo hostility to Muslims, both ethnically identical Muslims, and those of Bengali descent.

You might like to check their views with members from Assam.

If Assam has abandoned Congress , it is because of Some
Genuine Reason

 

[UKBengali]

You are overlooking the really serious issues, and those are not in the sniping, jeering and spiteful talk in some western parts of India, but in the problems of Assam, and Assamese and Bodo hostility to Muslims, both ethnically identical Muslims, and those of Bengali descent.

You might like to check their views with members from Assam.

Not saying that some BD Muslims may not have migrated to India in decades past and Assam is sparsely populated with a lot of free land. Of course some BD Muslims would have found that place attractive if they had nothing in BD.

What is the crux of the issue is that India itself is quite a fragile country due to needing to keeping such disparate groups within the Union, and rather than the Indian government squashing what is in actuality an insignificant problem now, it has been encouraging it in order to play vote-bank politics. Remember Modi told “illegal BD’shis” just before the 2019 elections to “pack your bags” and then did nothing after the election.

There is next to zero illegal migration either way between BD-India since at least the 2010s and so any issues were in the past and not here and now. It is too complicated to try to repatriate a few that may have made lives on the wrong side of the border and India as a country needs to let this go and stop being such a miser country.

 

[hembo]

You are overlooking the really serious issues, and those are not in the sniping, jeering and spiteful talk in some western parts of India, but in the problems of Assam, and Assamese and Bodo hostility to Muslims, both ethnically identical Muslims, and those of Bengali descent.

You might like to check their views with members from Assam.

There had never been any hostilities to ethnically identical Muslims in Assam.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Not saying that some BD Muslims may not have migrated to India in decades past and Assam is sparsely populated with a lot of free land. Of course some BD Muslims would have found that place attractive if they had nothing in BD.

What is the crux of the issue is that India itself is quite a fragile country due to needing to keeping such disparate groups within the Union, and rather than the Indian government squashing what is in actuality an insignificant problem now, it has been encouraging it in order to play vote-bank politics. Remember Modi told “illegal BD’shis” just before the 2019 elections to “pack your bags” and then did nothing after the election.

There is next to zero illegal migration either way between BD-India since at least the 2010s and so any issues were in the past and not here and now. It is too complicated to try to repatriate a few that may have made lives on the wrong side of the border and India as a country needs to let this go and stop being such a miser country.

I agree 100%, except to point out that the communal poison started far before the present regime, with Vajpayee even while he was in an impotent opposition.

 

[Joe Shearer]

There had never been any hostilities to ethnically identical Muslims in Assam.

I retract that part.

@hembo

 

[Circadian Rhythm]

I agree 100%, except to point out that the communal poison started far before the present regime, with Vajpayee even while he was in an impotent opposition.

I believe you are aware of the protests in West Bengal in the last week or so

Have you seen what Bengali Hindus are talking on Twitter