Comments on BD immigrants: Indian media blast Amit Shah

M Humayun Kabir: The Indian media yesterday slammed ruling Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah’s reference to illegal immigrants from Bangladesh as “termites” and “vermin” saying it “coarsens discourse and deepens divides” and risks “ruining relations” with that country.
The Indian media also questioned Shah’s reportedly dishing out the figure of 100 crore “illegal Bangladeshi immigrants” in India saying there is no proof of this, reports The Daily Star.
“Unfortunate nations have heard such rhetoric before, from regimes which present a minority as the foe within, which must be eliminated. Politically, the challenge is to neutralise the most powerful taboo, against the taking of human life, by constructing the minority as less than human. Conveniently, vermin do not have human rights,” the Indian Express said in its editorial.
In this context, the daily recalled National Socialism propaganda in Nazi-ruled Germany which branded Jews as sub-humans who were eating at the vitals of the nation”, “posters in occupied Poland depicting them as “typhus-bearing lice” and more recently, the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, which took eight lakh lives, and “inflammatory” speech by Leon Mugesera of the ruling MRND party, in which he urged the elimination of “scum” and “cockroaches”.
“Such dangerous precedents should urge the president of the ruling party to temper his speech,” the editorial commented adding “calling them (illegal immigrants) names at this point is scarcely good politics.”
The Times of India, in its editorial, said Shah’s comments about illegal immigrants from Bangladesh went against the positive developmental campaign of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Shah, who has characterized migrants as infiltrators who are ‘termites,’ has struck a contrary note by invoking a politics of fear and paranoia,” it said.
It opined that the BJP chief’s “negative tactic elicits comparison with Trump’s characterization of Mexicans as ‘rapists’ in the US.”
“Shah’s tirade against illegal infiltrators risks being exposed as a gimmick and ruining relations with Bangladesh,” it added.
“In fact, Shah’s termite comment has already attracted Dhaka’s ire with the latter describing it as an unfortunate remark. Bangladesh is perhaps the only country in the neighbourhood today that has excellent relations with India. Credit for this goes to the Awami League dispensation in Dhaka,” the newspaper said.
“But if BJP continues with its anti-Bangladeshi tirade it will harm the Awami League at the upcoming polls in Bangladesh and put the future of India-Bangladesh ties in doubt,” the editorial added.