Those who talk about India's demography must also specify its current area: Akhilesh Yadav

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday said those who talk about India's demography should also specify its current area.

Speaking to reporters at Janeshwar Mishra Park in Lucknow after hoisting the national flag to celebrate India's 79th Independence Day, Yadav said, "The BJP must tell us what was the area of Bharat in 2014 and how much is it today. We come from such a state where if anyone cuts a merh (low earthen bunds constructed to demarcate fields) we would kill him. There are many such stories in villages. Now think how much of Bharat's land has been snatched."

"Those who talk about Bharat's demography, the BJP, should specify to us what is the country's current area," he said, in an apparent reference to Chinese occupation of Indian territory.

Yadav's statement came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort, warned people of a “pre-meditated conspiracy” to change the country’s demography through illegal infiltration, and announced a high-powered “demography mission” to tackle the problem.

"Today, I want to alert the country about a concern, a challenge. Under a well thought out conspiracy, the demography of the country is being changed. Seeds of a new crisis are being sown. These ghuspaithiya (intruders) are snatching the livelihood of the youths of my country. These ghuspaithiya are targeting the sisters and daughters of my country. These ghuspaithiya are misleading innocent tribals and grabbing their land. This country will not tolerate this," Modi declared.

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The PM added: "From the ramparts of Red Fort today, I want to say that we have decided to start a high-powered demography mission. This mission will definitely do its work in a well thought out manner in a set time frame to deal with the grave crisis that is looming over India. We are moving ahead in that direction."

Modi’s use of the term ghuspaithiya — literally 'intruders' or 'illegal infiltrators' — has been a recurring feature in his political rhetoric, particularly around election cycles. The phrase has been strategically deployed to evoke fears of demographic change, land encroachment, and threats to cultural identity.

While he rarely names a specific group directly, his speeches often link ghuspaithiya to themes of border security, national integrity, and protection of livelihoods. The term as he uses it was particularly prominent during his election campaigns in Assam and West Bengal, states with long histories of migration from neighbouring Bangladesh, and it has since been repurposed for broader national messaging.

Although the PM avoids explicit naming, political observers and critics note that the ghuspaithiya reference is widely understood to target undocumented Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, and at times, Rohingya refugees. Opponents argue that such rhetoric is designed to polarise electorates along religious lines, since he never offers actual data about these infiltrators.

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As Yadav pointedly implied, it’s difficult to fret about imagined demographic shifts while ignoring real cartographic ones. For instance, Despite Modi’s 2020 “clean chit” to Beijing — claiming no one had intruded into Indian territory — multiple reports, satellite imagery, and even official records confirm that India has lost control of nearly 2,000 sq km in eastern Ladakh since 2014. This is in addition to the 38,000 sq km in Aksai Chin under Chinese occupation since 1962.

In March 2024, Ladakh-based climate activist Sonam Wangchuk announced an 10,000-strong march — later aborted under administrative pressure — to the Line of Actual Control to “show whether the land has been lost or not”, after locals complained of shrinking grazing grounds and blocked access to traditional pastures.

The political establishment, however, treats such admissions with suspicion. Just days ago, during a hearing on a defamation case, a Supreme Court judge controversially chastised Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi for saying China occupies Indian territory, asking, “How do you know that 2,000 sq. km of Indian territory was occupied by the Chinese? If you are a true Indian, you would not say this.”

So here we are: on the one hand, fiery rhetoric about ghuspaithiya stealing jobs, women’s safety, and tribal land; on the other, actual foreign occupation of thousands of square kilometres of Indian soil brushed off as either sensitive or unmentionable. Yadav’s merh analogy might sting — because while a farmer would fiercely defend a few feet of his bund, the national leadership seems oddly less vocal about ceding mountains and valleys.