Aadhaar scrutiny mostly affected Bangladeshi Dalits in Bengal, says BJP leader

The recent deactivation of a few thousand Aadhaar cards across at least six districts of West Bengal has affected mostly Hindu Dalits from Bangladesh who entered India with passports after 2014 but did not leave after their visas expired, a legislator from the state’s opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) told HT on Monday.
Without specifying any year, a Rajya Sabha member of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) also said that these Bangladeshi nationals have been living in Bengal for a long time.
This is the first time that leaders from the state’s rival parties have spoken on the identity of the Aadhaar card holders since mid-February when the deactivations started.
TMC chairperson and chief minister Mamata Banerjee has alleged that the BJP wants to enforce the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Bengal and the deactivations are a precursor to that goal.
Passed by Parliament in 2019, CAA offers citizenship to non-Muslims who entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh before 2015 to escape religious persecution. TMC insists that CAA is unconstitutional as it links citizenship to faith in a secular country.
Asim Sarkar, an erstwhile refugee from Bangladesh who won Nadia district’s Haringhata assembly seat for BJP in 2021, said the deactivations have proved how crucial it is for people to support BJP in the coming polls so that CAA is enforced.
“Around a thousand of the affected people wrote to me. I studied their Aadhaar cards and other documents. Most of them entered India with Bangladeshi passports after 2014,” Sarkar said.
Seen by HT, one of the letters sent by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), said: “The undersigned is directed to inform that Aadhaar number xxxx xxxx 2019 issued to you has been deactivated under the provisions of Regulation 28A of Aadhaar (Enrolment and Update) Regulations 2016 for the reason that the requirements for your stay in India are not fulfilled.”
The timing of the UIDAI’s scrutiny is significant because Union home minister Amit Shah declared on February 10 that laws will be framed to implement CAA before the Lok Sabha elections. The Centre and BJP have however maintained silence on NRC.
Sarkar said the vast majority of the recipients of these letters are members of the Dalit and Namasudra communities.
Asha Biswas, a college student from Jamalpur in West Burdwan district said: “I am 19. My parents came from Bangladesh when I was a child. I can’t remember the year.”
The UIDAI authorities said in a statement on February 19 that intimations are being issued to Aadhaar number holders from time to time to keep the Aadhaar database updated but no number has been cancelled. Reactivation of the cards started around February 20.
“The reactivation is an act of mercy by the Centre. Nobody can stay here despite procuring Aadhaar, PAN and ration cards. I found that many of these people entered India with passports multiple times before 2014 as well. Some even admitted their children in local schools and colleges but they are not Indian citizens in the eyes of law,” said Sarkar.
“Our immigration department as well as the Bangladesh government have data on these people. It came to my notice that letters were sent even to some people who entered India illegally before 2014 but got Aadhaar cards only recently,” Sarkar added.
That Aadhaar cannot be treated as a citizenship document was told by the Bengal government during a hearing at the Calcutta high court in 2016 when the Act was passed. Upholding the state’s argument against a petitioner who claimed the right, justice Joymalya Bagchi held that in accordance with Section 9 of the Aadhaar Act, the card by itself shall not confer any right of proof of citizenship.
The ongoing tussle has shifted the focus on the Namasudra community which started migrating to India after the Partition in 1947 and the 1971 Bangladesh War. There are around 10 million people from the community in Bengal, according to the state’s records. During the 2011 census, Bengal’s population stood at 91.3 million.
A part of the Namasudra population comprises the Matua community which supported BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. BJP wrested 18 of Bengal’s 42 seats, creating a record, and has now targeted 35.
The Matuas follow their supreme body, the All India Matua Mahasangha based at Thakurnagar in the Bongaon Lok Sabha constituency of North 24 Parganas district.
The Mahasangha played host to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah at Thakurnagar in 2019. Contesting on a BJP ticket, the sect’s young face, Shantanu Thakur, defeated his aunt and the then sitting MP, TMC’s Mamata Bala Thakur, at the Bongaon seat.
Shantanu Thakur, the president of the Mahasangha and Union minster of state for shipping, has described the Aadhaar deactivations as technical error and promised to help his folks.
Mamata Bala Thakur recently won one of the five uncontested Rajya Seats from Bengal, a development many saw as TMC’s election strategy to counter BJP’s popularity among the Matuas.
Mamata Bala Thakur said: “It does not matter who supports or opposes TMC or BJP. The refugees from Bangladesh have become victims of the BJP’s conspiracy. Many of them arrived decades ago. They were targeted only after linking of Aadhaar cards to all essential services was made mandatory. Where will these people go now?”
“The Centre is reactivating the Aadhaar cards under pressure but after the elections Bengal will witness millions living without citizenship rights. We saw it in Assam after NRC was enforced,” Thakur added.
Among the seats with pockets of Dalit-Namasudra population that BJP won in 2019 are Bongaon, Hooghly, Cooch Behar, Malda North, Ranaghat, Burdwan-Durgapur, Jalpaiguri and Raiganj. Similar seats that TMC won are Basirhat, Joynagar, Barasat, Mathurapur, Serampore, Arambagh, Tamluk, Contai, Burdwan East and Krishnanagar where Mahua Moitra is likely to contest again after being expelled from the Lok Sabha in the aftermath of the bribe-for-questions controversy.
TMC Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen said, “The deactivation of the cards, sudden media reports that the Centre may enforce CAA any time, and the BJP preparing for the Prime Minister’s visit to Bengal in the first week of March are all part of a well-planned drama. The BJP got the Citizenship Bill passed in Parliament in 2019 and sat on it for five years. It could not frame the rules even after the President gave his assent. Shah’s statements on CAA differed when he addressed people in Bengal, Assam and Gujarat. And now they are coming to Bengal to create trouble.”
“The BJP practices divisive politics. TMC’s stand is very clear. Those who cast their votes and elect a government are all citizens. They don’t need to prove their citizenship status all over again,” Sen added.