ABSTRACT
The chapter focuses on the issue of migration and conflicts with focus on Northeast India. In this decade itself there have been conflicts in the Bodo area of Assam around the migration of Muslims from Bangladesh. Some allege that they are illegal and are a threat to national security. On the other side is the effort of the present government to grant citizenship to Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh on the plea that religious persecution forces them to leave their country of origin. That is opposed by people in Assam, particularly student bodies who see in this effort a threat to land and identity. They go by the experience of Tripura where the tribal communities who were 58 per cent in 1951 are barely 30 per cent of the population. They have lost around 40 per cent of their land to their immigrants and feel dominated by a foreign culture. Their conflict is similar to that of the Bodo, Karbi and Dimasa in Assam and to the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh who too find in the immigrants a threat to their land and identity. This issue will be analyzed here.
