The stand and disposition of the Bharatiya Janata Party governments at the Centre and in Assam towards the ongoing process of updating the National Register of Citizens are not just dangerously motivated, but are now vitiating the entire process, defeating the very purpose for which it was created. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal’s latest remark indicating the BJP could take the legislative route if it is not satisfied with the final record reeks of a mindset that the party will have its way one way or the other.
In its original essence, the purpose of the NRC was to identify illegal immigrants from Bangladesh who came on or after 25 March 1971. But given the bribe-ridden porous infrastructure of government records, this lofty goal was bound to be a mere political exercise, not administrative.
And what a political exercise it turned out to be for the BJP, which not only won Assam for the first time in 2016 assembly election but also bagged nine of the 14 parliamentary seats in Lok Sabha polls this year.
This might seem like a disruptive thought, but the NRC list should be left alone. Updating and releasing a fresh one at this point when decades-old ethnic roots should barely matter, and when political vultures are hovering over to feed on the state’s now established fault lines, is a grave mistake. This can have frightening consequences.
Also read: Why demand for NRC re-verification by Modi and Assam govts only adds to confusion
A communal exercise
For the BJP leaders, the NRC was always a perfect tool to whip up a communal frenzy, made clear through terms like ‘ghuspaithiye’ and ‘termites’ used for Bangladeshi Muslims by none other than BJP president Amit Shah. Hindus, on the other hand, were always ‘refugees’.
Even as late as 2017, several BJP leaders were saying the NRC process is more important than the outcome. In fact, they knew the outcome would not be neat. But the politics around the process is where power lay for them. And power not just in Assam but in other parts of India too. In true Trumpian style, the migrants have been named as the public enemy number one. But like the chant of ‘send her back’ by fans of Donald Trump, the NRC for the BJP will remain just that – a chant to polarise politics.
And so, what began as an ethnic Assamese movement devolved into a narrow keep-Hindus-in-keep-Muslims-out sectarianism over time.
Now, the NRC no longer seems to be about correcting what Assam saw as an ethnic imbalance, and about addressing concerns of the indigenous Assamese who for long have thought they have been wronged. It has become a vehicle for the ruling BJP to unabashedly push its perturbing and polarising political ambitions, even at the cost of ruining the delicate social fabric of the state.
Also read: ‘Fake’ complaints against genuine Indian citizens registered in NRC raises concern
Open secret
The BJP governments at the Centre and in the state want a reverification of the draft NRC – their joint plea from last year was recently rejected by the Supreme Court. CM Sonowal’s indication of even taking the legislative route once the final list is out on August 31 speaks volumes about the party’s intentions.
What the BJP has done with its insistence on reverification is that it has clearly betrayed its fears – that several Bengali Hindus and indigenous tribes could be left out instead of mostly minorities which the party had hoped. The Assam government, in a sly move, released district-wise data of the draft NRC in the assembly last year. It showed border and Muslim-dominated areas with fewer exclusions than expected. This has allowed the BJP to claim the exercise has been ‘flawed’; and also push ground for the Citizenship Amendment Bill to give support to Hindus who may end up being on the wrong side of the NRC process.
The party has left little doubt that its unequivocal objective is to target the minorities, nationality or documentation be damned.
Also read: The Citizenship Bill complements NRC in pushing BJP’s Hindutva agenda: here’s how
BJP’s successful exploitation
The BJP’s association with the NRC has also been an open display of its brand of majoritarian, Hindutva politics – and how it used the existing polarities to its advantage.
The Assamese people have for long harboured a resentment – of ‘Bangladeshis’ settling in the state and dipping into their already limited resources. But this anger was not religiously driven – the opposition was for all ‘outsiders’, be it Hindus or Muslims. At its peak, this ire was directed equally at migrants from other states – and Biharis and Marwaris were violently driven out.
What the BJP has done is convert this entire exercise into a political and communal move, removing the social and ethnic element out of the scene. By questioning this long-drawn process, and claiming some inclusions are wrong, it is essentially putting every Muslim in the dock.
It is telling everyone that even if a ‘miya’ has found his name in the list, he could still be an ‘outsider’. It is drilling fear into the minds of every Muslim – including ethnic – that just finding your name in the list shouldn’t make you complacent, because the government could bring in a legislation to make ‘corrections’. And of course, it is telling all Hindus who don’t find their names that they need not worry – only Muslims are the ‘infiltrators’; for the Hindus, the Citizenship Amendment Bill has been kept ready.
Also read: Mob beats up Muslim man in Assam for selling beef, questions if he’s on NRC list
A redundant exercise
The entire NRC exercise at this point seems redundant and anachronistic. It was in 1985 that the Assam Accord was signed, and it was agreed that the exercise would be carried out. This was 34 years ago.
Much has changed since then. Even those who may have entered illegally from Bangladesh in the 1970s and early 1980s have seen their generations live and grow up here. The third generation of these, for instance, has only known Assam as its home, and India as its country.
The idea to uproot them now, only because the state failed to implement what it should have decades ago, is both cruel and foolish – something that if handled even slightly indelicately can set the state on fire.
And adding fuel to this already menacing fire is the BJP’s perilous effort to use NRC not for the people of Assam, but for itself. To make it yet another convenient tool for its brand of communal politics. While the party and its governments were acting differently earlier, with the latter adopting a subtle approach, both are now equally brazen.
Being in power in the state and at the Centre while the NRC is being updated and will be implemented – a coincidence since it is the Supreme Court that determined the timing – the BJP seems to have struck gold in terms of finding a weapon, and the party is ensuring it makes the most of it.
The author clearly is playing to the liberal/secular gallery.
The entire updation process is being monitored and supervised by the Supreme Court. The fact that the govts, both at the Centre and in the state of Assam, are of the BJP is nothing but a coincidence. Nobody could have predicted that 3 deacdes ago when the Assam Accord was signed by Mr. Rajiv Gandhi.
The author clearly wishes this exercise to be a “secular” one. And as our experience of the previous 74 years have shown, anything and everything which is anti-Hindu is considered as “secular” by the liberal cabal. Hence, an attempt is being made to influence the NRC updation process so that Hindu Bengalis can be targeted while sparing Muslim Bengalis. All the while singing paeans to Indian secularism.
Apart from a Humanitarian angle ,writer has not said anything to establish/prove why it is a grave mistake.
It is a very grave mistake because 29+18=47 years ago there were no facilities or even awareness among people in remotest parts of Assam to obtain and safely store records as proofs.
“Updating NRC in Assam is a grave mistake. BJP govt and SC would do well to leave it alone.”
Such a senior journalist has taken so long to say such a basic, humane thing! But, as a Hindi proverb says, “dehr aaye, durust aaye”. An equivalent English phrase is, “better late than never”.
The solution in Assam lies in passing the Citizenship (Amendment) bill, letting Hindus into Assam and correcting the demographic imbalance of ballooning Muslim population or else Assam may become another Kashmir.
SAVAKAR “ MUSLIMS TO HAVE THE SAME POSITION AS NEGROES”
This was said in a 1944 interview of Savarkar, by the American war correspondent Tom Treanor.
Treanor talked to him when he was perhaps the only Hindu political leader to not be in jail. Previously Savakar had been the only inmate of Kala Pani to beg for mercy and promise good behaviour and collaboration with the British Government.
To learn more on RSS views on Muslims read the book
One Damn Thing After Another: The Adventures of an Innocent Man Trapped.
ITS A PITY THAT MANY MUSLIM DECENDENTS OF FREEDOM FIGHTERS HAVR BEEN WRONGLY EXCLUDED IN THE REGISTER/CITIZENSHIP
EVIL RASCALS AND FOLLOWERS OF SAVAKAR HAVE HIJACKED INDIA FROM BOTH HINDUS AND MUSLIMS.
I and my family are desperate to immigrate, this despite loving our country, my father served in government forty years, I have done thirty years of government service.
My brothers and sisters are in Canada and my two children studying there, will not come back on my advice.,
India has become no place for Muslims.
One day my wife and myself will pack up and leave
GOODBYE BELOVED INDIA, YOU WILL NOT CRY FOR US, BUT WE WILL MISS YOU
If allow to live you in good number’s what will you produce Jinnah, Aurangzeb, Babur and wage Jehad. You talked about Veer Savarkar interview ( I don’t know the truth of this interview) but not saying a word what Quran says about non Muslims, Kafir, shirk .what your book says to kafir kill them ,use thier woman as farm field. Enough is enough .thanks to social media we hindus are now aware of your reality and soon will get rid of you. You don’t want to live as humans but always like to be jehadi. Talking about migration not a single country is willing to take you. Not even Muslim countries. Soon you get kik on you ass from western world which will more forceful and painful than Indian kick. And you rightly deserve this because you are not human just muslmaam for those all others are like worth to be wiped from Earth.
Is above poster ashish Singh, the RSS sympathiser, advocating genocide for Muslims, to quote him.
“you are not human just muslmaam for those all others are like worth to be wiped from Earth”.
This is all too common now in India and a Rwanda like situation is developing.
This is very serious, the poison of communalism which led to partition has appeared like the deadly plague seventy years later, with the Modi Savakar worshipping government in power
Thoughtful column, part of a continuing series, which sensitised me to this tragedy. 2. Bangladesh was once thought to be a basket case. It has proved its detractors wrong, made a success of its development, despite limited natural resources and population pressure. People are no longer streaming into India. So this is an issue of the past. Large scale deportations cannot, will not happen. Sending four million “ illegal immigrants “ to detention centres, apart from the consternation it will cause on the ground will wreck India’s global image, when Germany and other European countries have taken in so many Muslim immigrants. 3. If India in some ways is not doing even as well as Bangladesh, mixing up religion into every facet of governance and public life may be a part of the reason. Bahut mushqil ho jayega.
Today jihad against India, tomorrow New Zealand, Australia, China, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Srilanka, Nigeria, Chad, Africa n very soon Europe, Russia, USA. Their jehad doesnt stop till 100% Islamisation of the globe.
Forget radical clerics even retired Pakistani ambassadors, diplomats are calling for “jihad”.
The “Islamist Menace” (in the form of literary potential energy and physical application) speaks quite clearly and unequivocally for itself – it’s called The Qur’an. ‘Genetically’, it has to be viewed as one of
those proverbial leopards who’s spots cannot really be changed, no matter how much you might attempt to bleach it and whitewash it.