The Draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam as released on July 30, 2018, has become a hugely controversial document. It does not recognise 4, 07,707 people as genuine citizens of Assam out of 2.89 crores who had applied for. The end result of the exercise is under a cloud as many members of eminent families, including political stalwarts like former President of India, former Deputy Speaker of State Assembly, former Chief Minister of Assam, senior civil police and army officers, field officer of the Tribunal which prepared the draft, are missing. The exercise was done under an SC order, its roots are in a similar practice conducted on 1951, just before first General Elections in Independent India.
The tragedy has its origin in the partition of the country after Congress became a party of two-nation theory on the basis of religion. This effectively divided Indian Muslims into three parts. Unfortunately, India, under the influence of Hindu revivalist leadership, started behaving as a Hindu State in spite of adopting a secular Constitution. The partition was marred by forced migration in both directions. During the influx from the part of Bengal, that became East Pakistan, several divided Muslims families, preferred to return to live in “Secular India”. They also migrated with their neighbour Hindus. But this trend alarmed the Union Government. Under the direction of UHM, the first Register of Citizens was prepared in the state on the basis of census 1951, which admittedly contained many deficiencies. That contained name, family members, address, occupation, property holdings, etc. Nobody was deported or marked as a foreigner on the basis of NRC 1951. However, it was challenged in the Guwahati High Court, which in 1970 ruled that it was not admissible as evidence of citizenship.
Another wave of migrants came during the blood-soaked movement for Bangladesh in 1971. Though the rightists hailed Indira Gandhi for her support to Bangladesh, the presence of some poor Muslims among the migrants became a hot political issue for them. From 1979 to 1985 the state witnessed wave after wave of lawlessness, bloodbath, and upheavals. That included the scar of the Nellie massacre on February 18, 1983 in which 2191 people were killed (unofficial figure 10,000). The victims were descendants of Muslims who had settled down in Assam under the direct patronage of Government of British India in the first decade of the 20th century. The killing was done to stop assembly elections in 1983.
Assam Gana Parishad (AGP) and All Assam Students Union (AASU) spare-headed the moment in the name of illegal immigrants creating political instability, frequent general strikes, civil disobedience campaigns that collapsed the government. The agitators gave a boycott appeal of assembly election in 1983. Such was the impact that only 2% of voters turned out. In this background, the Government of Indira Gandhi pushed in Parliament “The Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) (IMDT) Act 1983”. One of the stated aims was said to provide protection against undue harassment to the “minorities” affected by the Assam agitation. This Act was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2005 on the plea of Sarbananda Sonowal, the present CM of the State.
After the murder of Indira Gandhi in October 1984, Rajiv Gandhi’s politically novice government entered in negotiations with the people responsible for violent agitations against all non-Assamese including Hindus from other states which forced them to leave the State. On August 15, 1985, the Rajiv Gandhi broke the news of “Peace Accord” from the Red Fort.
His Government agreed to “identify foreigners”. Those who had settled down in Assam between 1951-1961 were to be given full citizen rights; the entrants between 1961 and 1971 were to be denied voting rights for ten years but would enjoy all other rights of citizenship. Those who entered the state after March 24, 1971 (the date of armed struggle started in West Pakistan to create Bangladesh) were to be marked as “illegal migrants” and to be deported. Subsequently, the state assembly was dissolved and fresh elections held in December 1985. AGP and AASU made the next government. But violence against Muslims continued even after that. In Bodoland, thousands of Muslims were uprooted and over 70 killed. It may be mentioned that central area of Assam had been a Muslim dominated region even in 1905 when Bengal was partitioned and reunited. The Muslims of Assam opposed the creation of Pakistan and hence remained in India.
This criterion for citizenship was challenged in SC. A five-Judge bench was hearing the case, but the bench was dissolved and no fresh bench has yet been constituted. The work of identification and deportation of illegal immigrants also remained in limbo under the state government. However, the issue continued to provide political fodder during the 1990s and early 2000s. Finally, in 2005, the UPA government announced that the NRC would be updated. The then UHM Shivaraj Patil entered into an understanding with AGP and AASU. The work started slowly. In 2012 a PIL was filed in the Supreme Court, seeking a direction for speedy deportation of illegal migrants. The UPA Government informed the court that as a matter of policy “the Government is committed to deporting illegal Bangladeshi migrants, but only lawfully. It asserted that the demand for deleting the names of alleged 41 lakh doubtful voters from the list of 2006 on the basis of religious and linguistic profiling would prima facie be illegal, arbitrary and violate the secular and democratic credentials of India.”
In another development in 2015, the SC directed the state government to update the NRC in a time-bound manner under the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules 2003. The SC took the duty of executive of monitoring the process. The first draft was published in December 2017. The final draft was released on July 30. However, the criteria adopted for inclusion is highly questionable. The main points include Legacy Data, that is, Census of 1951 and Electoral Rolls up to midnight of March 24 ,1971. The persons whose names appear in any of the two and their descendants are eligible to be included in NRC.
The persons who came to Assam on or after January 1, 1966 but before March 25, 1971 and got themselves registered in accordance to the rules made by the Central Government with the Foreigners Registration Regional Officer (FRRO) have not been declared as illegal migrants or foreigners by the authority. D-voters can apply for inclusion in NRC if the Foreigners’ Tribunal declares them as non-foreigners.
Some of the documents admissible for citizenship are: (a) Driving licence (b) Ration card (c) Birth certificate (d) Transfer/School leaving/Matriculation Certificate/ I. Cards (e) Service I. Card/ service record (f) LIC policy (g) Freedom Fighter Identity Cards (h) Arms Licence (i) Property Documents such as Pattas, Registered Deeds, etc. (j) Bank Accounts (k) Railway Identity Cards (l) marriage certificate (m) Gazette notification, etc.
Obviously these documents should have been issued before March 24, 1971. Consider how many poor illiterate persons of labour class living in slums clusters can have any of above? We also know that electoral rolls and Census are also not fool proof to decide citizenship of the person. So the criteria are quite illogical and unjust.
There is another question of the scope of Indian nationality. A citizen of India, born anywhere in the country has the right to migrate and reside in any state. Women born in one state may be married to a person living elsewhere. Then, how the persons born elsewhere but residing in Assam can be marked as “illegal migrants”? Giving credibility to “Assam for Assamese” is a disastrous idea for our motif of “One nation, one nationality.” The nationality cannot be discriminated against on the basis of the state of birth.
Strangely those who are vocal for “Akhand Bharat”, that means denial of “two-nation theory” which formed the basis of partition are more focal to drive out every ‘illegal Bengali’ migrant or his descendant, provided he/she is not Hindu! This is all politics of polarisation.
No coercive action
A day after the controversial draft of NRC was released the Supreme Court directed the government not to take any coercive action against anyone whose name did not figure in the list. It is important that the directive came after Attorney General of India KK Venugopal urged SC to issue such a direction to address apprehensions among those whose citizenship claim was not accepted.
The Supreme Court also said that fair procedure would be adopted to settle all claims and objections raised by the applicants. It asked the government to submit the details of the procedures for examining claims and counterclaims.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Chief Minister of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal have also given such assurances. Mr. Singh assured thrice in three days. He said in Rajya Sabha, “No coercive action will be taken against people whose names are not there in the final draft of NRC, in any situation.” He assured nobody will be sent to “concentration camps” and “none will be deported”.
CEC has also maintained that no name will be dropped from Voters Lists on the basis of NCR.
Against all these assurances ruling party president Amit Shah threated in Rajya Sabha that all illegal migrants will be deported. Other local BJP leaders have also made provocative statements.
There seems to be no immediate legal threat but the issue will be exploited for polarisation of votes in 2019. Left-out people will again have to face the ordeal of filing fresh claims and taking rounds of offices and spending their hard-earned money on clerks, lawyers and even touts. The poor will become poorer. However, the Hindus whose names did not appear in NRC need not be worried as the Government has passed a new law to grant nationality to Hindu migrants generously. But the question whether a new-Rohingya type state-less population of poor Muslims is being created in India is important.
[The writer is a senior journalist and civil rights activist; syyedagha8@gmail.com]