Regardless of what Bangladeshis believe, or try to brazen like
@Philia in legalspeak, we all know what the reality is of Bangladeshi illegals in our country. And the extent.
You were tagged because Bilal and some other Bangladeshis believe that Bangladeshis and Bengalis living in contiguous areas either side of the border are similar enough in speech to not be differentiated from one another by the trained local ear.
Is that a fair assessment, or is it just you because your family hails from that area (now in Bangladesh) originally?
Cheers, Doc
My personal evaluation is in two parts.
There is definitely infiltration, both in the eastern and in the western directions. The two are essentially different, but with a mixture of reasons in the west.
Going east, into Assam, there is a creeping entry of hundreds, perhaps scores, now that there is so much attention there, of land-hungry peasants who come in, work very hard as day-wagers for a few years, and then get their tiny little patches of land, their legal id, and so on. Some of the promotional work that I did for Glocal took me there, and I found myself addressing a 100% Muslim crowd with greetings in three languages, including a Salaam.
Going west, there is still some of this happening in Malda and in Murshidabad - my brother, who was a doctor practising in government service in these parts, saw this as a commonplace daily occurrence. The same sequence: come in, work hard, get a bit of land, get papers, get settled in permanently.
Over and above that, going west, through Bengal into Bihar or Jharkhand, then through UP to Delhi, even to J&K, and through Jharkhand (and Odisha) into Andhra and into Telengana and Karnataka - specifically Bengaluru, for reasons that will be mentioned later - there is a broad stream of labourers, without their womenfolk in the first instance, seeking work. On the outskirts of Delhi, there are settlements that are almost exclusive Bengali. The question is whether these are West Bengalis or Bangladeshis.
My conjecture is that Bangladeshi or West Bengali migrants stick to the states speaking a non-Dravidian language. Picking that up is a challenge that they tend to flinch from, like the rest of north Indians. Bengaluru is an exception because of its widely-known cosmopolitan nature, and the relative ease of passing off as a north Indian there. Hyderabad is factually a melting pot, and anyone can come and stay here, no questions asked.
These migrants could well be West Bengalis. It is very well known that the economic status of India is gradually tilting to the west, a process that started in our appalled view in the 60s of the last century and has only accellerated under the rule of the crazed Didi. The north-east is not in particularly productive shape, and there are huge job shortages there. Considering that the entire food and hospitality industry in Hyderabad is firmly in the clutches of Odiyas and of Nepalese, why should there not be a West Bengali component? I have already given you the example of Bangladeshis in the NALSAR building site; I am not arguing that there are none in India. My argument is that the number is exaggerated, that it is conflated with genuine internal migration, and that we have to find solutions less reminiscent of the Final Solution.
Coming to the similarity of dialect, it differs from case to case. It is true that there is very little difference between Malda and Murshidabad and Rajshahi across the border; or between Nadia and the 24 Parganas (now north and south 24 Parganas) and their counterparts of Pabna and Kushtia. I might confuse contiguous districts on the Bangladesh side, but that should not be allowed to derail the argument; @HomoSapiens can correct this. It is true that there might be migration from these border districts and none would be wiser, and the same would apply to Assam as well. However, my personal experience has been that their accent is so broad that it is easy to catch. Perhaps there is a larger number of Bangladeshis than we imagine, who come from contiguous districts and are indistinguishable from our own folk.
Now figure it out from whatever I've said.
. The most developed country with 100% of employment rate. Population below poverty line is 0%. Indians are more white than white people. No one poop on the street. Happiest and most secured nation in the world. Champion in the HDI. People from all over the world come India for a better future, economic improvement. 200000000000 million poor Bangladeshis are living in India illegally to become rich like Indians.!!
