This is racial profiling

MC's Rajya Sabha member Sushmita Dev gets agitated at the mention of prosecution of Bengali-speaking migrant workers and the introduction of Special Intensive Review (SIR) by the Centre ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls.

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MC's Rajya Sabha member Sushmita Dev gets agitated at the mention of prosecution of Bengali-speaking migrant workers and the introduction of Special Intensive Review (SIR) by the Centre ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls. She claims the Centre has plans to implement SIR in various states with West Bengal being the next target, followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu. And like her party, she said she too will fight tooth and nail to oppose it.

In an interaction with Ashok Chatterjee of The Statesman, Dev talks about the sudden spurt of prosecution of Bengali migrants in BJP-ruled states and how the Trinamool Congress is preparing to wage the battle for Bengali rights.

Q. What do you think is leading to atrocities on migrants from Bengal? Do you believe Bengali-speaking people are being targeted?

A. After losing a number of seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the caste census coming up, the BJP is trying to consolidate its vote bank by setting up a narrative which is anti-foreigner – or Bangladeshis – who have illegally come to India. The undertone is of course anti-minority. My question is why a party that has been in power for 10 years and has been in control of the borders could not check the infiltration.

Today, if you go to a ‘basti’ (settlement), where migrant workers stay, most of them are from West Bengal. The government is not accepting their land documents, Aadhaar, and ration cards. These are the documents most of these marginalized people have. If you do not accept these documents, how do you expect them to prove they are Indian citizens? And the criteria for choosing a colony is language. The government identifies the pockets based on the language being spoken there, which is Bengali.