It was hoped that the publication of final list of National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be a step towards the solution of the issue of illegal immigrants in Assam. But at the end of the five-year long, Supreme Court monitored process, nobody is happy and the issue is nowhere close to solution. Disturbingly, it is taking communal colour.
National Register of Citizens (NRC) is the record of Indian citizens maintained by the government of India. It was first published in Assam in 1951 to determine Illegal immigrants from then East Pakistan. The updated list was published on August 31 this year in response to long-standing demand from the people of Assam. People were asked to apply for inclusion in the updated list with documents which prove that they were living in Assam as of March 24, 1971. In case a person is born after 1971, he/she has to prove that his/her ancestors were living in Assam as of March 24, 1971. For this, the person has to prove that his/her ancestors’ name had appeared in the 1951 NRC or electoral rolls of 1961 and 1971. On March 25, 1971 Bangladesh liberation war began. So anyone who came on or after that day without travel documents, and settled down in Assam will not be included in NRC and will be considered foreigner. Out of 3.29 crore people who applied for inclusion in the list, 19,06,657 could not make it to the updated list published on August 31 this year.
However, that does not mean that these over 19 lakh people are declared foreigners. They have legal options. They can approach foreigners tribunal, Gauhati High Court and Supreme Court to challenge their exclusion. The process of updating NRC was not as simple as it appears. Many of the excluded people are poor and illiterate. It was not easy for them to produce documents. In some cases, it so happened that some members of the family are included, and others from the same family are excluded. Plus, there are bureaucratic mistakes such as persons getting included or excluded due to spelling errors and other technical mistakes. Those who were demanding the updation are complaining that 19 lakh is too small a number. There are many more foreigners living in Assam. They allege flaws in the process.
The issue of “outsiders” settling down in Assam has remained burning one in the state. During colonial period British brought labours from adjoining areas of present day Bengal, Bihar and Odisha to work in tea plantations in Assam. Large number of people fled to the border state to escape violence from the then East Pakistan after partition. It is claimed that even after the creation of Bangladesh, people kept coming to Assam from there for better prospects and various other reasons. The ethnic Assamese felt threatened by the influx of outsiders. They feared complete change of culture and demography of the state if the immigration continues. They also feared that outsiders will exploit their resources. This fear led to six-year long violence against “foreigners” from 1979 to 1985. This violence led to the signing of Assam accord in 1985 between All Assam Students Union, Assam Gansangram Parishad, and government of India. Among others, the government had promised in the accord that it will update the NRC in Assam. However, subsequent governments from 1985 avoided the updation because they didn’t want to deal with the issue of illegal immigrants. Suppose a number of people are declared illegal immigrants. Now what to do with them?
The question still remains unanswered. For now, the government says that no action will be taken against anybody, and those not included in the list have legal options. What the government is not telling is that what it will do with those people who fail to make it to the register even after using all legal options. It is for sure that they will not be deported to Bangladesh as India’s external affairs minister S Jaishankar told his Bangladeshi counterpart that NRC is an internal matter of India. Will the government, then, put them in detention centres? If yes, then for how long? And what will be their status in India after they come out from there? NRC updation reeks of communal politics as the NDA government in the centre is planning to bring Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB). If passed by parliament, it will allow granting of citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The condition is that they must be living in India for six years. In many quarters, updation of NRC and CAB are seen as a conspiracy to filter out Muslims and render them stateless. That is not the demand of people of Assam. They have problem with all outsiders irrespective of their religion. Detaining and deporting people immediately after they cross the border, and doing it after so many years are not the same things. Passports, visas, travel documents, legal provisions are introduced to make human lives easy. In the episode of NRC, we are using the same to make them vulnerable.
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