The unabated influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh...’’, General Sinha told the President, ‘‘threatens to reduce the Assamese to a minority in t… - Srinivas Kumar Sinha

The Muslim population of Assam has shown a rise of 77.42 per cent in 1991 from what it was in 1971. The Hindu population has risen by nearly 41.89 per cent in this period. The Muslim population (as a percentage of total population) in Assam has risen from 24.68 per cent in 1951 to 28.42 per cent in 1991. As per the 1991 Census, four districts (Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta and Hailakandi) have become Muslim-majority districts. Two more districts (Naogaon and Karimganj) should have become so by 1998 and one more district (Morgaon) is fast approaching this position.

The long-cherished design of Greater East Pakistan/Bangladesh, making inroads into the strategic land-link of Assam with the rest of the country,’’ he warned, ‘‘can lead to severing the entire land mass of the North-East...from the rest of the country. This will have disastrous strategic and economic consequences.

The growth of the Muslim population has been emphasised in the previous paragraph to indicate the extent of illegal migration from Bangladesh to Assam because...the illegal migrants coming into India after 1971 have been almost exclusively Muslims...Large-scale illegal migration from East Pakistan/Bangladesh over several decades has been altering the demographic complexion of this State,’’ Sinha recorded. ‘‘It poses a grave threat both to the identity of the Assamese people and to our national security. Successive governments at the Centre and in the state have not adequately met this challenge...I feel it is my bounden duty to the nation and the state I have sworn to serve to place before you this report on the dangers arising from the continuing silent demographic invasion....