Harsh Mander: ‘Pushback’ at gunpoint – the Hindutva-BJP project of manufacturing statelessness

If you are a working-class Muslim in India today and speak Bengali, you are likely to be living in mortal fear of the state stripping you of your citizenship overnight, throwing you into a detention centre or pushing you across the international border to neighbouring Bangladesh.

And this, when India is home to around 200 million Muslims; and when Bengali is the most widely spoken language in India after Hindi.

Anwar Ali, a Bengali migrant worker in Mumbai laments that “ if you speak Bengali, wear a lungi, or cook fish and meat, you’re harassed… Now, speaking Bengali makes you look like a criminal”. His contractor has even advised him over the phone: “Speaking Bengali is dangerous. Learn Hindi, stop wearing lungis.” Lungis are chequered pieces of cloth that Muslim Bengali men often wear below their waists. Ali can change his attire. However, he asks piercingly, “How can I change my mother tongue?”

In May 2025, Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry wrote to the Indian government demanding that it follows established repatriation mechanisms. It describes “push-ins” – what we describe in India as “pushbacks” – to be “unacceptable”. It affirmed that Bangladesh would “only accept individuals confirmed as Bangladeshi citizens and repatriated through proper channels.”

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