THE Bangladesh-India borders have taken the lives of hundreds of innocent Bangladeshis. A less bloody form of human tragedy that has been enacted at the borders is what is called ‘push in’. This simply means, Indian Border Security Forces (BSF) pushing people from the Indian side into the Bangladesh side. Some Indian sources prefer to call it ‘push back’.Ìý This is to suggest that BSF actually returns Bangladeshis to Bangladesh where they belong as its citizens.
Whether the terminological preference is a case of language to name or justify action can be debated another fine day.
This pushing of people across the borders has intensified recently. For example, during the first half of May, there have been multiple successful push-ins/backs, as reported in the ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· and other newspapers. This involved dozens of people who were identified as ‘Bangladeshi’ by Indian authorities. That these people speak Bangla serves as the visible marker of their ‘illegal’ identity in the Indian territory. The political grammar of nation-states and their borders tells us that they cannot live in India. So, they are hunted, rounded up, and pushed across the borders.
It’s been reported that these people are usually not taken to the court where their ‘crimes’ and ‘identities’ could have been verified. However, the legal process is considered a time-killing and resource-intensive detour. A more efficient approach is just kicking them to the other side of the line. International rules or practices become secondary to political urgency.
A more reliable marker of their Bangladeshi identity is their religion. They are Muslims. Language is taken as an audible expression of their generally invisible religious identity.Ìý This we call language ideology. That is, we make language work as a proxy for non-linguistic identities — Muslim, non-Indian, non-Hindu.
The story of language, border, and belonging is not new. India presents one of its latest retellings through the ‘push-in/back’ drama at the borders.
How did language come to be married to border? I can say a few words as a student of language policy and planning.
Both languages and nation-states are bordered entities. This is how both were created. The lines marking India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan as nation-states are arbitrary. So are the borders of national languages. From a linguistic or communicative perspective, languages may not have inviolable borders. However, as they were needed for the nation-state ideology, they were reengineered as such. Languages were made to fit into the political borders of nation-states. This is why, we have America as English-speaking, Bangladesh as Bangla-speaking, Vietnam as Vietnamese-speaking, and China as Chinese-speaking.
Despite many efforts of political engineering with languages, a perfect language-border match has not been achieved. For example, Bangla has fallen across the borders of Bangladesh and Indian West Bengal. Similarly, although the post-colonial states of India and Pakistan were created based on religion, religious homogeneity is not evidenced in either nation. Muslims are a significant minority group in India; Hindus are so in Bangladesh and Pakistan.Ìý
Muslims have been one of the most disadvantaged and marginalised communities in India. However, they never see themselves ‘un’ or ‘less’ Indian in Hindu-majority India. It was believed that the secular character of the Indian nation would protect all minorities. Even some Bangladeshis consider the secular framework as evidence that the two-nation theory that divided India and Pakistan was wrong.
However, things have not gone well, particularly for Muslims as minorities, in India. The situation of Muslims in Kashmir is second to that of Palestinians in their own land. Muslims in the Indian state of Gujrat were butchered in hundreds when Narendra Modi was its chief minister. Since Modi became India’s Prime Minister, Muslims have been discriminated in citizenship; their identities have been under threats; their educational opportunities have been curtailed. Most recently, India has cleared the way for grabbing properties and institutions belonging to Muslims by passing the controversial Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2025.
Discriminations and atrocities against Muslims sponsored by the state and the ruling party have run parallel to the resurgence of Hindu nationalism in India. India reimagines its future national space as occupied by Hindus only. This future-remaking is based on the glorification of India’s past before the arrival of Muslims. The nationalist project demands erasing Muslim history on one hand and their existence now and in the future on the other.
The project has seen its partial implementation, discursively and materially. The dominant social message has been clear for Muslims: India is for Hindus only; if you want to live here, you have to live as Hindus. The recurrent discursive threat of sending Muslims off to Pakistan is part of this Muslim-cleaning national desire. Pushing Muslims across the Bangladesh borders is part of practical and material strategies. These Muslims have to be speakers of Bangla as objective evidence of their national and religious belonging and unbelonging.
As noted, deploying language for such forensic goals has a long history. I will tell two more stories.
Perhaps the earliest one is in the Old Testament recorded in the Book of Judges. This is known as the story of the shibboleth. The two groups of the Gileadites and Ephraimites were battling with each other. The Gileadites set up a blockade on Jordan river. Everyone crossing the river is asked to pronounce the word ‘shibboleth’ by the sentries. The Ephraimites could not pronounce the word correctly because they did not have the ‘sh’ sound in their language. A non-standard pronunciation of shibboleth was taken as a marker of their enemy identity and the cause of their death in the hands of the sentries.
The second example of using language as a pretext for racial discrimination is from Australia. It involved the use of a dictation test given to prospective migrants during the white-only rule. This instance of language use was not as bloody as the shibboleth story, but it was injustice, nonetheless. To maintain the racial purity of the Australian nation, the authorities allowed only white people to migrate to Australia. Any candidate deemed undesirable for entry was given a dictation test in a language which was unlikely to be spoken by them. For example, a Japanese looking man could have been dictated a text in any European language. His inability to write it disqualified him for entry.
India presents a modern case of using language for its political project. It is part of the national desire for recreating India as a Hindu-only nation. Using religion for national identification and differentiation may attract criticisms. However, deploying language promises to be a safer approach. Not walking through the legal avenue may indicate that these victims have no opportunity to defend themselves. There have been cases of Indian Muslims speaking Bangla being picked up as candidates for push in. This may be part of the grand project of Muslim cleaning.
Linguistic and religious pluralities are characteristics of the Indian social fabric. Dusting Indian identity off Islam and Muslims is probably overly ambitious however desirable that is for the architects of a future Hindu empire. However, the project may have already produced some tangible benefits. For example, it has brought political and election victory for Hindutva idealists. Second, it’s an effective way of humiliating Muslims and taking revenge on them for their earlier invasion of India. Third, ruffling the borders can trouble the sitting government in Bangladesh which is disliked by the Indian government.
However, the project may not be divorced from double-standards which define contemporary Indian politics. India wants to get rid of Muslims who are unwanted — whether Bangladeshi, Indian, or Rohingya. At the same time, it has sheltered hundreds of Bangladeshis since the fall of Hasina’s regime that they had installed and sustained for over 15 years. Most of these Awami leaders including Sheikh Hasina are known to be Muslims. Bangladeshi authorities would be happy to have them back to Bangladesh. However, India is unlikely to return them, either by pushing back or in a more civilised manner.Ìý
Clearly, some Bangladeshis are desirable, while others are undesirable in India. Only Indian authorities can decide the criteria — linguistic, religious, and political — and action for such (un)desirability.
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Obaidul Hamid is an associate professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. He researches language, education, and society in the developing world. He is a co-editor of Current Issues in Language Planning.ÌýÌýÌý
