"Dear Prime Minister, helping Bangladesh is the only solution to solving the migration crisis." Ankur Mahanta, a development consultant from Assam, tells Brut why the Northeast can't afford more migrants.
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00:00Dear Prime Minister, I'm Ankur Mahanta and I'm currently pursuing my dream of setting up a
00:05social enterprise in Assam in the northeast of India. I'm a proud Assamese and I'm a very
00:10concerned Indian citizen right now and I have a few questions for you. There are many problems
00:15that my region faces and instead of pretending to have any of the answers, let's begin by asking the
00:21right questions. Now as a proud Gujarati yourself, I'm sure you understand that a strong cultural
00:28and linguistic identity is important for the development of its people. Now politics aside,
00:35do you know why there are scores of thousands of people out in the streets protesting in Assam,
00:40Meghalaya and Tripura? Because somehow they feel their identity, their cultural identity is under
00:47threat and this is mostly due to the unabated and unchecked migration into the region.
00:54Now growing up as a kid, for us traveling through the Kazanagar National Park was a
00:59beautiful experience. It is a beautiful park and we have noticed that over the past two or three
01:07decades, surely but slowly, encroachment into the park has gone to such a degree that there are
01:16living shanties now in the grasslands of the park. Now a sight that I cannot forget is when
01:23Kazanagar is hit by flooding. These embankments built so that animals can take refuge are being
01:31used by human beings alongside. Now it is a saddening sight because these migrants or refugees,
01:37whatever name you give it, they fled their homelands just to survive in the harshest of
01:44conditions and where is the dignity of life in that? These are climate change refugees, an issue
01:55that no one seems to know or either know or care about in India and in the northeast of India and
02:01this is only going to get worse. Now a startling report and these estimates come from the World
02:09Bank and the National Geographic say that in the next two or three decades there will be at least
02:1613 million displaced Bangladeshis who will have nowhere to go. Now that is nearly half the
02:25population of Assam, half and where are these people going to go because they are, I mean are
02:33they not persecuted minorities, the victims of a largely man-made disaster. Now here I'd like to
02:40point out that only by helping Bangladesh can we help ourselves and the India that I have known
02:47and I'm proud of has always taken up developing country concerns and raised it at international
02:53levels at be it climate change, development issues, human rights, maybe not human rights but
03:03international trade for instance. Now this is now the time again to take that lead and help
03:11Bangladesh because it will be the worst hit of the large developing countries with increasing flooding
03:16and loss of land. Now I want to impress upon you and our legislators to take this very very
03:23seriously because this needs to be raised at international levels at an international forum
03:29so that developed and other willing developing countries can accommodate the large waves of
03:36climate change refugees from Bangladesh in the next few decades and this is an issue of human survival
03:44and of the dignity of life. The northeast of India simply cannot afford to take any more migrants.
03:52We are unable to provide the basic living conditions that refugees and migrants clearly
03:56deserve and at a time when this issue has become so volatile and dissent has grown so strong
04:06how can northeast embark on its development path? Now you have reiterated time and again
04:11that the development of northeast is a priority for India but what does this development mean
04:20if the citizens constantly feel marginalized? Do you honestly want us to believe that the passage
04:27of the citizenship amendment act is the right way towards this development agenda given the
04:35problems that we are going to face in the next few decades? I do not think so Prime Minister.