BJP Questions Indian Citizenship of over 4 Million Assam Residents
Dubai | Sunday, 21 April 2019
Villagers waiting in line for the NRC process at the NRC office in Gopalnagar School, Hojai
Picture credits: Kabir Ahmed
His name was not on the draft list of the Indian citizens of the state of Assam. Even though he is an Indian passport holder and everyone in his family - from his grandfather to his siblings - has their name on the list, his name has been simply left out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Kabir Ahmed, 30, a resident of Hojai Town was shocked to find that the hard evidence he had presented to the government was not sufficient for them to believe that he is truly an Indian citizen.
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The NRC is a register that was prepared after the 1951 census of India and contains the names of all genuine Indian citizens in the state of Assam. In 2013, under the monitoring of the Supreme Court, the first ever update process of the NRC commenced.
All Assam residents were required to provide proof of either the presence of their or their ancestor’s or family member’s name in the NRC of 1951, or in the voters list (electoral roll) or any other permissible document up to the 24th of March, 1971. Anyone who is considered to have entered India after the midnight of this date will be regarded as a foreigner by the government.
“I and my sister, Rehana, were both abroad when the updating process of the NRC was announced and we had been called in for the verification of our passports,” says Kabir. While his brother, Hussain, verified in their stead, Rehana’s name appeared on the NRC list, but Kabir's name did not.
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Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won elections in 2014, they decided to complete the process of NRC. Any person whose name did not appear in the NRC was to be considered a foreigner and would be sent to detention camps and risk deportation.
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On 30 July 2018, the draft list of the NRC was released in which out of the 32.9 million applicants, 29 million found their names on the list while around 4 million people didn’t.
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“Now my status is unknown – the final list hasn’t released yet.” Kabir says that if his name does not come in the final list then he will have to go to court and “challenge the government that he is an Indian citizen”.
For the ongoing elections, all claims and objections have paused and will commence after the new government has been elected. After considering tribunals for all cases, the final list will be published in July 2019.
NRC verification process at Gopalnagar School, Hojai
Picture credits: Kabir Ahmed
The demand for updating the NRC originally came in 1979 with the 'Assam Agitation' - a movement against the alleged illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The main driving force behind the movement were the Assamese-speaking All Assam Students Union (AASU) which opposed the presence of the Bengali-speaking citizens of Assam.
In 1985, a Memorandum of Settlement named the ‘Assam Accord’ signed by the government of India and the Assam agitators succeeded in putting an end to the movement. Its leaders then formed a political party called the Assam Gana Parishad (AGP). The state of Assam saw two political sides emerging: the AGP and the United Minority Front (UMF) which established to represent and provide justice to the minorities.
Haji Abdul Rauf Chaudhury, the founder of UMF and ex-minister of AGP says, “Since India's independence up until today, there has been a big problem of foreigners in Assam. The honourable Chief Minister of Assam has declared that if anybody conspires against the NRC enrollment, he will not spare them."
Haji Abdul Rauf Chaudhury says that despite this being the case, he believes that "the government itself is the conspirator" and he claims to have with him "the data and documents to prove it".
“If the government is not sincere and honest about any scheme or program, then what can the public do? The public is always the victim and sufferer.
“But being a human being, I would like to say that on a humanitarian ground I request the government to not deport the foreigners.”
The individuals whose parents’ or grandparents’ names appeared in the voter list before or on 24th March 1971 are considered Indians; this is called ‘legacy data’. Legacy data was developed by Prateek Hajela who was appointed by the Indian Supreme Court as the mandated Assam State Coordinator for the NRC.
Names on the voter list are included based on people’s birth certificates; if their parent’s names are on the list, theirs is as well.
Kabir’s mother has 4 brothers and 4 sisters. Another family shared the same name as his maternal grandfather and was included in the NRC data as his family. When this mismatch was discovered, the officers called all persons involved to the NRC office for verification of family members.
“My mother and her siblings testified that they were related and that the other persons were not from their family,” says Kabir. This happened to them twice. The NRC officer made a mistake, he entered their names, but then there was a mismatch once more and so the family was called to verify again.
“A man is made a foreigner because of just an error in his name. How can this be acceptable?” questions president of Assam Jamiat Ullema-e-Hind, Maulana Mushtaque Anfar. He believes that this “is the question of a man’s life” and has made a demand for DNA testing for verification which is currently ongoing in the Supreme Court.
A number of people residing for decades in rural and impoverished areas in Assam do not have any documents or identification. These are Assamese-speaking people who were included in the NRC list but are now under the objections case because they do not possess any proof of their origins causing the NRC officials to claim that they are Bangladeshi.
Kabir says that the maximum number of people in Assam (especially the senior citizens) are illiterate. This is the first time that they will be hearing other people tell them that "you are not from Assam, you are from Bangladesh".
Earlier in Assam, girls didn’t go to school and were married at a very young age. Because of this, many of them do not possess birth certificates nor do they have any documents to prove who their fathers or husbands are.
“My Aunt doesn’t have any documents to prove that she is her father’s daughter and her husband’s wife. She knows the date and the year she got married and she only has the Panchayat certificate to prove it,” says Kabir.
The Panchayat certificate is a document issued by the Panchayat (council) of the village containing details such as birth, marriage and name of the residing district. When the NRC process started, the Indian High Court refused to accept the Panchayat certificate as a valid document because of which the names of 48,00,000 women would directly have been removed from the NRC list.
Maulana Mushtaque Anfar along with the president of the All India Jamiat Ullema-e-Hind Maulana Arshad Madani, and the All Assam Minority Students Union (AAMSU) appointed six lawyers: Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Sanjay Hegde, Vivek Tankh and Indira Jaising and appealed in the Supreme Court regarding the Panchayati certificate issue.
There were more than 15 hearings after which the Supreme Court gave the verdict in their favour which lead to the Panchayat certificate being accepted as a valid document for proof. In 2016, the BJP proposed the Citizenship Amendment Bill which accepted and provided citizenship to any immigrant from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who is Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Sikh, Parsi or Jain but not Muslim. While the Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha, it was rejected in the Rajya Sabha.
“This is not going to happen in Assam. We Assamese believe that Assam is the place of Shankar Dev and Azan Fakir. Shankar Dev was a Hindu and Azan Fakir was a Muslim,” says Kabir.
The Bill angered the Assam Gana Parishad (AGP) who said that the Assam Accord was made for a reason and we “can’t keep either Hindus or Muslims.” This caused AGP to break ties with ally BJP and caused it to divide into two: one sided with the Bill while the other side - which included the president of the AGP, Atul Bora - was against it.
“Even if you want to declare them as foreigners, where will you keep them? Bangladesh will not accept them and has already said that no Bangladeshi has come over to the side of India according to their data and information.
"So at the end of the day, more detention camps will be made or a separate land will be given to them or their case will continue for the next 5 to 10 years - no one can say. It’s a big fight,” says Maulana Mushtaque.
Families are called for verification to NRC offices that are 400-500 km away. Many people have died due to the heat during the long journeys while some mothers have had to give birth enroute. Hindus and Muslims alike have committed suicide when they were labeled as Bangladeshi.
Members of the BJP and the NRC in-charge of various districts were contacted for comment but gave no reply.
The Supreme Court declared that all the persons who have their names in the voter list and not in the NRC, regardless, are eligible to vote in the election until the matter is decided.
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“Regardless of Hindu or Muslim, there should be no injustice. Everyone should get their right,” says Maulana Mushtaque.