Impossible Promises

The days before Indian elections are the days earmarked for bizarre, impossible promises. This is a routine happening in India because our politicians have been making such impossible pre-election promises for decades and have got away with this habit of prevarication. As such, promises that no one is going to honour have become an inseparable part of our election culture. This time, the BJP seems to have stolen the thunder, because of a promise that is patently impossible to honour. What makes things stickier for the BJP is that the promise is not a verbal one, but rather a part of its election manifesto. This is what, inter alia, the 48-page BJP election manifesto for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections has to say about the business of dealing with illegal infiltration into the country by foreign nationals: "The party will initiate measures within 100 days of coming to power to detect, detain and deport illegal immigrants, particularly from the Northeast. Border management will be reviewed and improved. Punitive measures will be introduced to block illegal immigration." All this is far more easily said than done. During the earlier stints of NDA rule, the BJP did not initiate even the primary task of fencing the border. Today, there is a vast difference between India’s international border with Pakistan and the one with Bangladesh. There are shoot-at-sight orders for the border with Pakistan, but none for the border with Bangladesh. Ten districts of Assam have a Bangladeshi majority. And who will have to implement the initiatives that the BJP has promised in its latest manifesto? The police? The police force of the State is already stuffed with Bangladeshis. The detection and deportation of over four million illegal immigrants is no easy task. Let the BJP concentrate first on preparing a new national register of citizens for Asom, on disfranchising foreign nationals whose names are in the electoral roll of the State and blacklisting all contractors who employ workers from Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi hegemony will then start dissolving. Only then can other significant initiatives be considered. THE SENTINEL