Immigrants Expulsion Act 1950 Explained: Assam’s First Deportation Orders

Immigrants Expulsion Act 1950 Latest News

• Assam has invoked the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950 for the first time since the state cabinet approved its use earlier this year. 
• The Sonitpur district administration has ordered five people—four women and one man—who were declared foreigners by a tribunal in 2024, to leave India within 24 hours.
• However, the individuals are currently untraceable, with police stating they have been “absconding,” and locals claiming they left the area over a decade ago.

About Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950

• The Immigrants Expulsion from Assam Act (IEAA) was enacted on March 1, 1950, in response to the Assam government’s demand for a legal mechanism to control large-scale migration from East Pakistan after Partition. 
• Migration had already become a major political and demographic concern in the state.

Why the Centre Drafted the Law

• Since citizenship is a Union subject, the Central government drafted the Act and delegated specific powers to Assam.
• Originally, it was even named the Undesirable Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, highlighting its intent.
• Recognising post-Partition instability, the Act excluded refugees, stating that people displaced due to “civil disturbances” in Pakistan would not be subject to expulsion under the law.

Powers Granted Under the Act

• The Act empowered the Centre to order anyone:
  • who was ordinarily a resident outside India,
  • who entered Assam before or after 1950, and
  • whose presence was deemed “detrimental” to India’s general public or to any Scheduled Tribe in Assam,
• to remove themselves from Assam or India within a specified time and through a designated route.
• The law authorised any officer of the Union government or Assam government to implement these expulsion orders.

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Application of the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950

• The Act was applied only briefly. Its enforcement faced practical and political challenges almost immediately after it came into effect.

Communal Tension and Mass Exodus

• Historians note that while the Act was being finalised, communal violence in Lower Assam led to 40,000 to 1 lakh Muslims fleeing to East Pakistan.
• This made identification of “immigrants” difficult because many affected individuals were actually Assam’s original residents, especially Bengali Muslims.
• A triggering incident involved an old Assamese Muslim resident being ordered to leave within three days, which angered the then PM Nehru.
• He objected to the implementation of such orders during a sensitive time.

Nehru–Liaquat Pact Influence

• The timing coincided with the Nehru–Liaquat Pact (April 1950), aimed at safeguarding minorities in both India and Pakistan.
• Pakistan’s PM Liaquat Ali Khan raised concerns about Assam’s expulsion orders.

Centre Orders Suspension of the Act

• On April 10, 1950, two days after the pact, Nehru wrote to the then Assam CM Gopinath Bordoloi instructing him to stop all action under the IEAA.
• Nehru stressed that minority safety and restoring peace were the top priorities — continuing expulsions would worsen tensions.
• Historical accounts suggest that only a few hundred people were actually impacted by the Act before its enforcement was halted.

Source: IE | TH | N18