What Does A Bangladeshi “Infiltrator” Dream Of? The Psychological Effects of Crimmigration in India

Guest post by Maggie Paul. Maggie is a PhD candidate in Politics and International Relations at the University of Adelaide, Australia.

The crimmigrant regime in India – steeped in colonial racist notions of migration management and understanding of the “enemy alien” – has been talked about on these blogs before. The discourse of “infiltration” – economic migrants becoming characterised as “illegal” and then as “infiltrators” or national enemies – has steadily securitised migration by placing it as an issue of “national security”. The colonial era legislations that continue to govern immigration and keep the so called “infiltrators” mired in the criminal justice system have major ramifications for the conceptualization of citizenship in the country. While my PhD work elaborates how the colonial, and nationalist, construction of the “infiltrator” figure from Bangladesh affects contemporary citizenship in India, rendering it contingent, in this blog I wish to highlight one (migrant) woman’s encounter with the vagaries of crimmigrant executive machinery, her feelings and her notions of belonging. Narratives from self-identifying migrants from Bangladesh are hard to come by in the context of India, since the issue has become highly politicized, sensitive, and punitive.

I met Saeeda* at an informal housing colony, usually referred to as a slum, in Mumbai – during the fieldwork for my PhD research in the city in 2022. She is originally from Bangladesh. Why should I lie?, she says with confidence. She had been living in Mumbai since she got married at the age of 15-16. Now she is about 45 years old. This means that she had been in the city for around 30 years, entering circa 1992; which puts her in a fuzzy category. It was only in 2003 that the legal classification of “illegal immigrant” was introduced into citizenship legislation in the country – making such immigrants liable to be detained and deported, as well as closing a pathway to citizenship for them through any means. When she entered the country in the early 1990s, migration from Bangladesh after 1971 had been illegalized only in the border state of Assam. But if she were apprehended by the Special Branch – I (SB- I) of Mumbai Police, referred to as the ‘I-branch’, that apprehends purported foreigners in the city under the colonial era legislation of Foreigners Act, she would have had to “prove” her nationality and be liable to prompt criminalization and persecution, including imprisonment and deportation. Especially because she came without any formal documents and never registered for citizenship; “I was brought to my new home by my sister, who also married here. We crossed the border. We came by a shared vehicle to the border, crossed on foot and then later came by train to Bombay”. Her late husband, who was a rickshaw driver, is from India. Since marriage to an Indian citizen does not confer citizenship in the country, for all purposes she would be treated as an “illegal” alien, equated with being an “infiltrator”. She has 8 kids, the last two of whom would also technically not be considered Indian citizens, because jus soli citizenship by birth rights were formally taken away for children of “illegal immigrants” in 2003.  

Saeeda seemed blissfully unaware of all this though; “for the past at least 25 years I have been doing domestic work in these residential buildings around. Everyone knows me in this area”. In her characteristic cheerful demeanor, she explained her straightforward confidence about her identity. For her, Indianness was a matter of destiny; “it’s all a matter of destiny. It was in my destiny and my sister’s to be married in India, to become Indian”. She emphasizes a patriarchal notion of nationality when she explains that “after marriage the woman becomes what her man’s home requires her to be. I have never been troubled here in the city because my husband is Indian and therefore, I am an Indian”. She buttresses her Indianness further through social networks in the city: “All my neighbours know everything about me. They are all my friends. They know we are simple people. Why would they trouble us. Once or twice, someone said I am Bangladeshi, and my husband fought with them. Sometimes when my husband was angry, he would call me Bangladeshi (laughs)!”.

Among other things we start talking about a recent incident in her life that keeps her awake most nights. She had decided to visit her critically ill mother in Bangladesh; “some time before COVID lockdown”, she says. She was crossing the border for the first time after marriage; “my parents haven’t even seen some of my kids. I went back for the first time in my life and got caught in this (laughs)”. The contingency of the crimmigration system in India is highlighted by the fact that her sister travels to their village in Bangladesh quite often and had never been caught until then; “she has no proof, even then she has never been caught up until now. She has a border pass, which is enough. She is also very confident and knows how to deal with border officials. But this time she forgot her pass in Bangladesh”. They managed to spend time in her Bangladeshi village with their mother and even crossed the border again, but were arrested on coming to the Indian side, by the police at Howrah – a city in the border state of West Bengal. This seems to be around the time when the country was simmering after the introduction of new discriminatory amendments in the citizenship legislation, with the sensitive issue of “infiltration” at its core; “They caught so many…who's Indian, who’s Bangladeshi…they didn’t seem to care! Everyone inside the lockup… sign here...get inside! Scores and scores of people! All the people were so agitated…so anxious…have the policemen gone mad?”    

In the absence of a separate detention centre, they were lodged in Dum Dum jail – overcrowded and prone to riots like other big prisons in the country.  They spent three months there before her husband could bribe the police and the court officials to let them out – both her (possessing all Indian ID documents) and her sister (with no such documents) – with a big sum of money of course. Her youngest daughter, 15 years old, was separated and kept in a “hostel”, a practice that has continued for years. Saeeda’s experience of prison in indelible in her mind. It is a recurring “nightmare” that continues to keep her up at night; “I feel like I am in that jail again. I break out in sweat. I live in a small one room house here, but I have never experienced something like that ever in my life. So many people sleeping side by side together. No space to even turn. No air to breathe. I felt breathless”. When she talks about prison, the fear is palpable:        

I was so scared. So scared. There were so many strange people. Like dacoits… it seemed like they will do something dangerous... they spoke so rough. I decided I will stay silent throughout my stay. I cannot even express how much sadness there was inside me. I became so weak. I wouldn’t eat properly. I had too much tension. All the time I was wondering how my kids would be. I was crying every day. I cried myself dry. Three months... seemed like three years to me. I felt like I have been inside for years and years”.

She decided she would never go to her village ever again, even if someone were to die; “no baba! There is a deep fear in my heart now. I will never go back!” At the end she is left wondering why she was put through this. The crimmigrant logic of criminalizing anyone who crosses the border escapes her; “what crime did I commit? They caught us without any reason. We just crossed the border. That is what they consider our mistake. There is nothing else. I have nothing in Bangladesh. Even if you ask the name of my own place in Bangladesh, I won’t be able to say anything (laughs). I have no documents, no possessions. Everything I have is here. Why would they put me in jail for coming back home?”

The logic of crimmigration in the subcontinent contravenes the lived reality of the people; a reality of complex and comingled relationships as well as relational belongings. The psychological cost of getting entangled in this incomprehensible system – especially for people who don’t fully understand it – needs to be taken more seriously. 

*Name changed for confidentiality.

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