How does illegal cross border migration pose challenges to India’s security? Discuss the steps taken by the government in this direction and their effectiveness. (2026, 20 Marks)
Under the Citizenship Act, 1955, an illegal migrant is a foreigner who entered without valid documents or overstayed. The main flow crosses the 4,096 km Bangladesh border; a second, driven by civil war and kinship, crosses the Myanmar frontier. Myron Weiner (“Security, Stability, and International Migration”, 1992–93) showed that states read migrants as threats for political, cultural and economic reasons, not only military ones. The issue is both a real problem and a heavily securitised one, which explains why the instruments under-deliver.
How migration challenges security
- Infiltration under cover: an unscreened flow lets hostile operatives blend in; a fraudulently obtained document looks genuine. North-East insurgents used camps across the eastern border until Dhaka’s crackdown from 2009.
- Transnational crime, the best-evidenced strand: trafficking of women and children, cattle smuggling (the main trigger of border violence), counterfeit currency, and Golden Triangle methamphetamine through Moreh and Champhai.
- Spill-over of Myanmar’s war: looted weapons and fighters have moved into Manipur, whose ethnic conflict since May 2023 led to President’s Rule from February 2025 to February 2026.
- Societal security: for Ole Wæver the referent object is collective identity. Tripura’s tribal share fell from about half in 1941 to under a third (31.8%) in 2011, which is why Assam’s fear cannot be waved away.
- Political pressure: land alienation, contested rolls and polarisation.
Steps taken
| Instrument | Record |
|---|---|
| Assam Accord (1985), Section 6A | Cut-off of 25 March 1971 upheld 4:1 on 17 October 2024; the Court blamed weak detection, not the law |
| NRC, Assam (2019) | 19,06,657 of 3.3 crore applicants excluded; never notified |
| Foreigners Tribunals, detention | Over a lakh declared foreigners, many ex parte; Matia transit camp |
| Fencing and smart surveillance | 3,239.92 km (79%) of the Bangladesh border fenced by December 2025 |
| FMR scrapped (February 2024), Myanmar fence (about ₹31,000 crore) | Border-pass system; barely 9 km of new fence by December 2025 |
| Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 | In force 1 September 2025; up to five years for undocumented entry; reporting duties on hotels, hospitals and universities |
| Push-backs (from May 2025) | 2,303 people pushed in by January 2026 on Dhaka’s count, including 126 Indian nationals |
How effective?
- Partial gains: interdiction has improved, but the decisive gain, ending insurgent sanctuaries after 2009, came from diplomacy with Dhaka, not walls.
- The missing capability: every instrument assumes a deportation power India lacks. Bangladesh accepts returns only after verification of nationality, and Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya, so detention has no end point.
- Diplomatic cost: push-ins continued after the BJP took office in West Bengal in May 2026. Dhaka raised them at the BGB–BSF talks in June 2026, and Human Rights Watch reported that Indian citizens had been expelled, souring the reset with Tarique Rahman’s government.
- No credible count: ministers cite 10 to 20 million without method; the 2001 census found about three million Bangladesh-born residents.
- Costs of securitisation: Sanjib Baruah shows how the documentary regime burdens poor citizens, especially women without land or school records. Partha Chatterjee’s “political society” explains how documents are obtained through patronage.
- Federal friction: Mizoram and Nagaland oppose the Myanmar fence on kinship grounds.
- What is absent: a refugee statute, a status-determination procedure and the regulated work-permit route that Sanjoy Hazarika has long urged.
Conclusion
The threat is real but narrower than the rhetoric: crime, document fraud and sanctuary matter more than numbers. India’s response works where it rests on cooperation and fails where it relies on expulsions no neighbour will accept. A way forward lies in a credible count, smart fencing of the remaining gaps, a readmission protocol with Dhaka and documented labour mobility.