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This issue has been a major concern in Assam ever since the days of the Assam agitation of 1979-85. The BJP, for which the matter has been a core ideological plank for decades, gradually became a major force in Assam and Assamese identity became aligned with the party, largely because of shared concern regarding illegal immigration by Bengali-speaking Muslims from the neighbouring country.

With the BJP government in Bengal now following a similar template, a specific kind of Hindutva is seen to be taking root in the eastern and north-eastern states, except Odisha. If the rise of Hindutva in north and central India was related to a great extent to restoring temples purportedly converted into mosques during medieval times, the BJP’s rise in the east is closely associated with illegal immigration.

On May 23, the Adhikari government ordered the establishment of holding centres in all districts across Bengal. “In this connection, it is requested to take initiative/appropriate action for setting up of holding centres in the district for apprehended foreigners as well as for the released foreign prisoners awaiting deportation/repatriation in accordance with the MHA guideline under reference,” read the order.

During its first Cabinet meeting, the Bengal government had decided to allocate land to the Border Security Force (BSF) for the fencing of the border with Bangladesh.

However, the CM made it clear that non-Muslims would not suffer. “Those covered under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) are safe here. However, those who are not protected by the CAA and are illegal infiltrators will be arrested by the police and handed over to the BSF for deportation. Our policy is to detect, delete, and deport,” Adhikari said. Additionally, all district police forces, especially in border areas, have been placed on high alert and instructed to identify illegal immigrants.

Towards the end of March, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said “infiltration” through Assam had “almost come to an end” after the BJP came to power there, adding that West Bengal has now emerged as the “last remaining route through which infiltrators enter India and disperse across states”. Winning Bengal was important, he emphasised, because the border had become a national security matter.

The issue could not acquire centrality because of the huge clout that Kolkata-based intellectuals enjoyed in setting the political discourse in Bengal, Sen added. The idea of a Bengali sub-nationalism, wherein the entire region where Bangla is spoken (West Bengal as well as Bangladesh) is imagined as a single entity held together by cultural and linguistic links, has had some traction among Kolkata’s intellectuals over the decades, according to Sen.

However, that changed over the last few years. The allegations of “extortion” against TMC workers across the state, as well as the perception that Mamata Banerjee was sharpening identities, including Muslim identity, gradually turned things in favour of the BJP. Sen said Kolkata remained the last bastion to be breached and the fact that Samik Bhattacharya as state BJP president was able to communicate with the city’s elite in their own idiom, while Adhikari came across as an aggressive counter to the TMC, ensured that the BJP breached Kolkata, too, this time.

It is clear that the Adhikari government is deploying the Assam template in the state and that large parts of eastern India are evolving a new Hindutva model, where detecting illegal Muslim immigrants is the prime concern of the government. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will also be talked about aggressively to reassure illegal Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh that they can become Indian citizens and insulate themselves from the government’s crackdown on “infiltrators”. The CAA permits non-Muslims who escaped persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan or Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014, to apply for Indian citizenship, but keeps Muslims out of its ambit.