scorecardresearch
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Support Our Journalism
HomeOpinionStates can checkmate Modi govt on NRC in 3 easy steps: delink,...

States can checkmate Modi govt on NRC in 3 easy steps: delink, defer, diffuse

States need not refuse NPR updating. They can insist on certain precautions to ensure Census’ sanctity and their own legal obligations are not violated.

Follow Us :
Text Size:

As India debates Corona and Congress crises, we might lose sight of a constitutional crisis in the making. With Telangana and Delhi joining the battle-line this week, the stage is set for one of the most critical constitutional contests in the history of the country. The site of contestation, the issue of conducting the National Population Register or NPR, might look small. But the stakes are very high. At stake is nothing less than federalism, secularism, and democracy. 

Already, 11 states and two UTs have expressed reservations about the NPR in its present form. Never before have nearly half the states of the Union opposed a nation-wide initiative of the Union government. It is no longer a simple BJP vs anti-BJP alignment, with BiharAndhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu governments joining the sceptics.  The Narendra Modi government is clearly on the back-foot, as was evident during Home Minister Amit Shah’s response on the NPR in the Rajya Sabha. Yet, the outcome of the battle is far from clear. As of now, the Modi government has a clear strategy. But the state governments opposing the move do not seem to have a single strategy, or perhaps any strategy at all.


Why NPR matters

This contest is critical since the NPR is the first step towards creating the new architecture of citizenship central to the BJP’s political game plan in Assam and West Bengal first, and then in the rest of India 

Let us not forget the larger “chronology”: First, NPR will collect information about all ‘ordinary residents’ in IndiaThen, the process of updating the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) will begin by identifying the names of “doubtful” citizens on the NPR. Notwithstanding Amit Shah’s verbal assurance on the floor of Rajya Sabha, Rules 4(3) and 4(4) of Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards Rules, 2003, allow for identification of doubtful citizens and their verification. No wonder the anti-CAA movement has rejected this verbal assurance and demanded an amendment in these rules. So, laws and rules are in place for the NRC; all it needs is a notification by the central government.  

Once the verification of NRC is completed, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) would kick into play. Non-Muslims who may have been left out of the NRIC will get a chance to re-enter the citizens’ list by claiming that they came from Bangladesh, Pakistan or Afghanistan. No such luck for Muslims. The BJP is hoping that the process should be well on its way by the time Assam and West Bengal go to polls in 2021. In any case, by 2024, the BJP hopes to wrap up the NRC. And with that, the Lok Sabha election. Hence, preventing the rollout of NPR would be the first, critical, step towards halting this divisive political agenda.


Also read: Modi govt to go ahead with NPR using new questions, says they were present in 2010 too


Dodge versus defiance  

This political battle will be fought first on the legal-constitutional ground. The Modi regime has already made the first move by stapling NPR with the decennial Census. The strategy is clear. Since a state government cannot say no to the Census, it would also be forced to carry out the NPR. Until then, the Modi government will keep quiet about the NRC. Once the NPR is completed, it will notify that the updated NPR is the household survey required for creating the NRIC. A state government that refuses to carry out NPR will be charged with disrupting the Census and threatened with dismissal under Article 356 of the Constitution.  

So far, the state governments have come up with two responses: dodge or defiance. Both of these are unlikely to work. Governments like Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi have not objected to the NPR but have dodged the issue by asking for its 2010 version rather than the current one. They have objected to the six additional questions inserted in the new NPR: date and place of birth of mother and father, and the number of Aadhaar (voluntary), driving license, PAN, and passport number. The Bihar government’s endorsement of the 2010 formula, with support from the BJP, indicates that the Modi government may be looking at this as the “compromise”.  

The trouble with dodging, and the reason why the BJP may accept it, is that it does not block the path for the NRIC. The government can still update the NPR using the proforma used in 2010 and then use the data for identification of “doubtful” citizens. If the state governments want to save their citizens from a discriminatory and divisive exercise, they will have to add another condition to the “2010 formula”: the central government must assure, through amendments in the 2003 Rules, that the NPR data shall not be used for NRC in any form, including identification of doubtful citizens or verification. Given its political design, the Modi government is unlikely to agree to this.  

The second path, that of open defiance, has been taken so far by Kerala and West Bengal, which have ordered their employees not to proceed with the NPR. This position has constitutional merit. The government would be acting to save the purity of the Census data from contamination and loss of confidentiality if it is mixed with the NPR. It would be upholding the Supreme Court judgment in the Puttaswamy case that bars any linking of Aadhaadatabase with any other database like the NPR.  

A state government could argue that it is duty-bound not to enforce Rules framed in 2003 that govern the NPR, since these rules were framed even before the Citizenship Act was amended in 2004. Surely, a state government’s refusal to carry out the NPR on these grounds cannot be countenanced as a failure to carry out governance in accordance with the Constitution and be used as the basis to dismiss the government under Article 356.  

The problem, however, is: who would listen to these arguments, in case the central government uses this pretext to dismiss state governments? The Supreme Court’s (in)action after the dilution of Article 370 does not inspire confidence.


Also read: Abandon NPR, delink it from Census — 190 economists and social scientists urge Modi govt


Delink, defer, diffuse

There is a third way that the state governments can take. Instead of ineffective de-dodging through the “2010 formula” or the risky defiance, the state governments could follow the delink-defer-diffuse route. A state government need not refuse to carry out the NPR update, but it can insist on the following precautions to ensure that the sanctity of the Census and its own legal obligations are not violated.  

First, a state government is well within its powers to delink the NPR from the Census. The government can issue an order, or amend an existing order, notifying the dates for the conduct of Census House-listing and Housing data collection, without any reference to the NPR. Rajasthan government has already done that.  

Second, it can defer the NPR. After the completion of the Census House-listing exercise, the state government can take the second step by notifying fresh dates for data collection for the NPR, after the entire Census exercise is completed in March 2021.  

Third, when it comes to conducting the NPR, the state government must refuse to lend the services of teachers, as Section 27 of the Right to Education Act bars them from being engaged in any non-teaching duty except Census, elections and disaster relief. The state government would also be required to ensure that releasing non-teaching employees for the NPR does not impede normal functioning of the government or put its employees to unnecessary risk. Finally, in case there is a large-scale, non-violent boycott of the NPR, the state government must choose not to criminalise such a democratic protest.  

This third route does not involve any confrontation between the central and the state government. That should rule out the dismissal of state governments. It should also rule out the political design to use the updated NPR for the purpose of the NRIC. The battle to defend the republic could thus begin with a small, though technical, victory.

The author is the national president of Swaraj India. Views are personal.

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube, Telegram & WhatsApp

Support Our Journalism

India needs fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism, packed with on-ground reporting. ThePrint – with exceptional reporters, columnists and editors – is doing just that.

Sustaining this needs support from wonderful readers like you.

Whether you live in India or overseas, you can take a paid subscription by clicking here.

Support Our Journalism

15 COMMENTS

  1. The parties will confirmed lose the elections then… LOL. Every Hindu in India supports CAA, NRC, NPR. It doesn’t matter of which caste because all Hindus and minorities regardless of their caste have been oppressed and periodically massacred in Pakistan and Bangladesh for the last 70 years. It’s not that the states don’t have a plan. It’s just that the states don’t really want to oppose Modi.

  2. This article teaches how to cheat constitution. Every country has a registrar if its citizens what’s wrong in having it for India. Its high time that it should be done and NCR should be implemented to show the doors to illigal immigrants from neighbouring countries.

  3. Yogendra ji is suggesting Constitutional Cheating by the State Governments, desirous of getting Muslim vote Banks.

    Instead, the states should tell every Muslim that nothing is wrong with CAA,NPR or NRC. Billions of Non Muslims Indians too have no documents of any kind to prove their birth or father’s birth place.

    Can India disown her own citizens,when traditionally,since last 5000 years or so,they have been accepting non citizens from every country of the world?

  4. Dear Yogendra ji;
    Please explain why NRC is wrong. Period.
    Every country in world has some kind of identification, which determines citizenship of individual.
    Why, but why, you are against it.

  5. Yogendra must also suggest the measures to filter the illegal infiltrators. Does he support to occupy Bengal and Assam by the Bangladeshis?

  6. No respect for Democracy. Can’t be elected by legal means hence intends to grab power through illegal conduct. People will not accept middlemen as leaders

  7. You will be proved wrong again and again as India trusts Modi but not the Anti-India brigade. Modi knows how to topple the fight-for-survival campaign of the dinosaurs.

  8. How does this CAA parachute work in practice. Suppose there is a Dalit family from Tamil Nadu, or Adivasis from Kerala, who are unable to produce documentary proof of being Indian citizens. Will they claim that they are refugees from Afghanistan or Pakistan or Bangladesh.

  9. This whole enterprise may have looked like a Masterstroke – as Demonetisation surely did – on the drawing board. Its actual implementation will prove to be a logistical and administrative nightmare, even without the constraint of so many state governments opposing it. And what about the citizens of India. Wider consultations within the ruling party itself would allow greater wisdom to prevail.

  10. (1) Assuming a state government follows “delink, differ and diffuse” strategy of Yogendra, nothing prevents a determined Central Government from appointing a private agency to conduct NPR bypassing the state government. Central Government will review the matter once position is clear – how many states conduct Census+NPR-2020 , Census+NPR-2010+ and Census without NPR. It will then approach SC and ask for direction to delinquent states or permit conduct of NPR on its own. This will achieve “diabolic” political aims of BJP, (if at all there are any)! (2) Assuming BJP government has ulterior motive of using NPR data for NRC, Yogendra has not specified how NRC can be prepared without following Assam type process. Does Yogendra not want India to have NRC or is he saying that all those who are resident in India now and wish to be considered as citizens, should be given citizenship? If so, how does one deal with future illegal migrants? Why does not come clean on this issue?

    Yogendra is clearly going insane on this issue. As Home Minister has clarified that NPR details are voluntary and there is no question of ticking some entry in NPR as doubtful, it would better for Yogendra to think of an alternative, easy process for conducting NRC (compared to Assam type SC directed process) and dealing with illegal immigrants post such NRC. That would be a far constructive approach than indulging in such insanity.

    • Yogendra must also suggest the measures to filter the illegal infiltrators. Does he support to occupy Bengal and Assam by the Bangladeshis?

  11. What is the purpose of government in doing these exercises? To know who is not Indian and to ensure the taxpayer’s money is not spent on people who are basically foreigners. Now Mr Yogendra Yadav is doing to convince the state not to follow the central government instructions with one pretext or another Ironically name of his party is Swaraj India. This is a big joke.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular