The final National Register of Citizens for Assam will be published Saturday. CM Sarbananda Sonowal has asked people not to panic and security deployment has increased across the state. Nearly 41 lakh applicants of the total 3.29 crore were excluded from the draft NRC published in July last year. BJP leaders have criticized the prospect of exclusion of many Hindus from the list, and Sonowal government has said it could bring a law to correct ‘anomalies’.
ThePrint asks: Will Assam NRC list bring closure to fear-mongering over illegal Muslim immigrants?
NRC has been a purely secular exercise monitored by Supreme Court. No community was targeted
Rajat Sethi
Political advisor to the Manipur Chief Minister
I think the framing of the question is deeply problematic. The NRC issue is not targeted at a particular community. This is completely flawed and very misleading.
The illegal migrants who came to India after 1971 will be rendered stateless depending upon the Narendra Modi government’s policy. Anyone who legally arrived in the country before 1971 will be an Indian citizen. There have been many spirited and emotional debates on what the cut-off date should be.
More importantly, the indigenous people of Assam — the tribes who fought and sacrificed for their land — will be free from illegal migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, an issue that has emotionally impacted them for decades.
The NRC has been a purely secular exercise monitored by the Supreme Court. No community has been targeted. Many Bengali Hindus did not find their names in the draft NRC. This is proof that it has been a secular exercise. So, any sly painting of the NRC in communal terms is not just unfortunate, but a deep disservice to the sons and daughters of the northeast. Their emotions have so far been ignored by successive governments since the Assam Accord was signed in 1985.
Some mainstream political parties, especially the Congress, ‘imported’ illegal migrants to win elections. The NRC will be a closure for the indigenous political parties that have fought for the rights of their people, just as it would be for the people of northeast who have seen maximum internal displacement.
Fear psychosis will remain after final NRC is out and parties will continue to use it for polls
Syed Burhanur Rahman
Lawyer based out of Kamrup, Assam
It is important to note that the NRC exercise was carried out under the supervision of the Supreme Court. The NRC contains names of all bona fide Indian citizens. But some news reports have estimated that the final list will exclude more than 20 lakh people, although I expect the number to be somewhere close to 25 lakh.
One must note that this estimation of ‘outsiders’ will be an inflated number because the final list will also exclude D-voters(doubtful), already declared foreigners, and people whose cases are pending before the foreigners’ tribunals. Their children will be excluded too. These people will have to wait for the outcome of their cases, following which they will have the recourse to file appeal in the Assam High Court. So, the final list that will be published Saturday is not the end of the story.
But while the Modi government is trying to handle this exercise in a mature manner, it is important to understand the mindset of the people of the state. Following the publication of the second draft, which excluded nearly 41 lakh people, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has referred to migrants as ghuspaithiyas — the Hindi word for ‘intruder’. Even after the final NRC is out,fear psychosis will remain and political parties will continue to use it to reap electoral benefits. Many parties have already spoken about providing free legal aid to people who will be excluded in the final list.
The issue is not fear-mongering, but protecting the identity of Assam’s ethnic communities
Upamanyu Hazarika
Senior Advocate
The question has been framed incorrectly. The issue is not fear-mongering, but protecting the identity of the ethnic communities in Assam. Northeast comprises several ethnicities. Of the 525 ethnic communities in India, 247 are in the northeast and 115 alone in Assam.
Three independent studies say that between 2040 and 2051, all these indigenous ethnic communities will become a minority under the weight of the influx of Bangladeshis in Assam. Official estimates suggest that Bangladeshi migrants who arrived after 25 March 1971 account for 25 per cent of Assam’s population.
The draft NRC has excluded 40 lakh migrants against the official estimate of 80 lakh, and this figure is likely to be trimmed in the final list. In other words, a large number of foreigners will be included in the list.
Calculative subversion of the NRC process by migrants (instances galore) has enabled them to get their names included in the NRC. Those who have been declared foreigners by foreigners’ tribunals have been included in the NRC and this figure is in the range of 1.2 lakh. This only demonstrates that the NRC process is riddled with flaws.
Also read: For these politician brothers from Bengal, NRC is the latest bone of contention
What should have been a day for Assamese to look forward to has now become one they are dreading
Gaurav Gogoi
MP from Kaliabor, Congress Party
The current exercise to update the NRC has faced severe blows to its credibility because of the carelessness of the BJP government. The process for identifying ‘illegal foreigners’ in Assam turned into a humanitarian issue for so many people.
This is mainly because the BJP was too interested in politicising the NRC list for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and did not pay any attention towards verifying the procedures involved in the process of making the list.
As a result, many Indians who should be included in the final list will now face uncertainty at foreigners’ tribunals. Regretfully, many of them are from poor and illiterate backgrounds and will have to spend their family wealth travelling long distances, paying legal fees and will be at the mercy of legal procedures.
The Congress government in 2005 initiated the exercise to update the NRC to get an accurate estimate of illegal foreigners in Assam. If the BJP was serious about fulfilling the objectives of the NRC, it should have trained government officials for this exercise, overseen the implementation of procedures, and issued necessary instructions wherever required.
What should have been a day for the people of Assam to look forward to has now become a day that they are dreading. And these include people from across communities, be it Hindus, Muslims, Gorkhas or Bhojpuris. This is because all of them face the risk of being excluded in the final list.
Because of illegal immigrants, human rights of indigenous people of Assam have been violated
Samujjal Bhattacharya
Chief advisor, All Assam Students Union (AASU)
The Assam Accord was signed in 1985 between representatives of the India government and the leaders of the Assam Movement, but the predicament and struggle of the people of Assam haven’t ended since then. The people are desperate for a solution. In these 34 years, no government has been able to implement the Assam Accord, and all political parties have failed miserably in providing a definitive solution to the illegal migrant issue.
The Accord has the provisions for detecting and deporting illegal immigrants, but nothing has been done about this. However, the final NRC is a step forward in this direction and will help in detecting foreigners. It is important to understand that India is for Indians, and Assam and the northeast are part of India.
I have full faith in the Supreme Court because it has constantly monitored the entire process. We are all looking forward to Saturday when the final NRC will be out. It is also important to note that some political parties and communal forces are protecting illegal Muslim Bangladeshis and Hindu Bangladeshis for vote-bank politics. And in the garb of upholding human rights, some forces within and outside the country are trying to protect these migrants for their own interests.
India will not accept any more Bangladeshis within its territory, be it Hindus or Muslims. It is because of these illegal immigrants that the human rights of the indigenous people of Assam — who are the sons of the soil — are being violated. We cannot live like second-class citizens.
NRC is good for Assam but through it, BJP has only exposed its attitude towards Muslims
Aminul Islam
General Secretary & Chief Spokesperson, All India United Democratic Front
The NRC is a long-standing issue demanded by various student and literary organisations as well as political parties. It all started when the 1985 Assam Accord set 24 March 1971 as the cut-off date to identify illegal immigrants and when the Citizenship Act of 1955 was amended to include section 6A with provisions determining citizenship of people living in Assam.
The exercise to update the NRC happened under the supervision of the Supreme Court, which took suo moto cognisance of it. But the BJP is creating issues alleging that the list is not genuine, and asked for re-verification. But the Supreme Court has said that the verification has already been done several times, and rejected its petition for reverification.
It is early to say what will happen when the final NRC is published. We will be able to at least detect foreigners. Moreover, people excluded from the final list will have legal options at their disposal to prove they are Indians.
The NRC is a good initiative for Assam. But how can the BJP say there are 40 lakh Bangladeshis in Assam? Why did the BJP’s Assam unit say that the final NRC might exclude names of some “genuine” citizens?
The BJP’s issue is not with all Bengali-speaking populace but only Muslims, who are targeted as Bangladeshis.
Also read: Assam gears up for final NRC list — what the exercise is all about & the way forward
By Taran Deol and Revathi Krishnan
”The BJP’s issue is not with all Bengali-speaking populace but only Muslims, who are targeted as Bangladeshis.” These Bangladeshis are all over the place. never before we have seen so many illegal Bangladeshis in the streets of Calcutta with long beards and wearing lungis. Labelling them as Bengali Muslims are a big lie.
Ms Sonali Ranade has tweeted that the figure of 1.9 million includes 11 lac Hindu Bengalis and 6 lac Muslims, plus 2 lac others, which includes people from Bihar and Nepal. So the central, divisive, polarising plank of the NRC – sought to be extended to Bengal and the rest of the country – has proved to be made of straw.
One thing for sure is to know who will stay or who will be deported. I am 100% sure that no one will be deported, just because the they are in citizen list. At most, they are not eligible to vote. Which itself achieves the objective. What was the big question in West Bengal: Many immigrants from minority community infiltrated in and they are given all the the cards including Aadhaar Card to enjoy Indian govt benefits and the politicians started appeasing them for vote bank. Once clear who is citizen and who is not, at least it is clear that some foreigner doesn’t decide electing law makers to suit them. I may sound like nationalist, but every country protect themselves by this approach. Nothing wrong if anyone comes on visa, works here, contribute and also gain citizenship.
There are media reports from Assam local newspapers, that the tribunals have been very strict on Muslims and lenient on Hindus,. The talk going around is –
“look for reasons to EXCLUDE if the individual is a Muslim
– look for reasons to INCLUDE if the individual is a Hindu”.
The people responsible for administration and creation of the register have only 1% Muslim representation and many of those employed in this task it is alleged belong to the RSS.
This is another confirmation that this BJP government uses all methods to reduce Muslims into second class citizens.
It will be interesting to see my fellow Hindu citizens comments on this posting. I am deeply hurt by this. My ancestors have all been indigenous Assamese, some Assamese Muslim friends find themselves excluded.
No one is going back to Bangladesh. The two governments are ad idem on this. All that remains to be seen is how much humanity and empathy will be on display as this situation is dealt with.