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| National Register of Citizens |
Supreme Court of India recently slammed the centre on delay of completion of NRC exercise. At the same time whole North-East is at head to head with the BJP government on the Citizenship amendment Bill, 2016. Both NRC and Citizenship amendment Bill are linked with each other. Let's understand both these topics in great detail.
What is NRC?
NRC is a register of Indian citizens living in Assam. NRC is only for the state of Assam. Those whose names are not on the NRC, they are marked as illegal immigrants.
The first NRC was published in the year of 1951. Those whose were there on NRC, they got their names on electoral names. After that there had been several efforts by the consequent governments of Assam and Centre to update the NRC but it never turned fruitful.
Why does only Assam have NRC?
It is because of illegal migration. Assam has historically been subjected to illegal migration. During the British period, there were influx of non-Assamese in the form of tea garden workers. There were influx of large number of people during Partition from East Pakistan as well. It didn't stop here and migration of non-Assamese continued till liberation of Bangladesh as well. Parliament of India passed immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950 to identify the illegal immigrants. NRC came into existence in 1951 on the basis of this act.
Why is illegal immigration serious in Assam?
1. Partition of India: Partition of India was a disastrous act. The boundary established between India and Pakistan was artificial as there was not much cultural, lingual, and religious differences historically. Due to its fertile land, migration has happened to Assam from Bangladesh.
2. Porous and Fluid Border with Bangladesh: India shares a fluid and porous border with Bangladesh. So it is difficult on security forces part to check illegal immigration.
3. Atrocities of Pakistan: Previously, Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan known as East Pakistan. There were wide spread oppression by the Pakistani military on Bengali speaking people of Bangladesh. Many came to India during that time.
4. Religious Prosecution: Religious minorities mainly Hindus have been targeted by Islamic fundamentalists of Bangladesh. So many Hindus and other minorities have come to Assam to get escaped from religious prosecution.
Large Influx of non-Assamese to Assam have completely changed the demography of Assam. Indigenous people of Assam have been turned into minority in there own land. They feel threatened about loosing their Cultural and Linguistic identity. They feel illegal immigration has caused much stress on the resources of Assam. These accusations are serious as well.
Percentage of Assamese speaking people has gone down from 58% in 1971 to 48% in 1991 while Bengali speaking people has gone up from 22% in 1971 to 30% in 1991.
Percentage of increase in voters number was 51% in (1951-1971) and 89% in (1971-1991) which is unprecedented compared to rest of India.
There has been several instances of ethnic and linguistic clashes between Indigenous Assamese people and Bengali speaking migrants. Theses clashes have taken lives of thousands of people from both sides.
These tensions reached its speak during 70s and 80s. Widespread agitation was launched led by AASU (All Assam Students' Union). It was also known as Assam Movement. It lasted for 6 years from 1979 to 1985. The agitation was finally called off by AASU when the then Rajiv Government at centre signed the Assam Accord with AASU and state government of Assam.
Assam Accord promised to identify illegal immigrants and deport them back to Bangladesh. The cut-off date was fixed on midnight of 24 March 1971 i.e. who ever has entered Assam illegally after the cut-off date will be identified as illegal immigrant. The cut-off date was set on 24 March 1971 because Bangladesh liberation war started from the next day.
Another important aspect of Assam Accord was to establish cultural centres or central universities in Assam and to protect the cultural and linguistic identity of indigenous Assamese people.
But successive governments at state and centre didn't implement the Assam Accord for vote-bank politics.
UPA government in 2005 issued notification of updating the NRC. But it was thrown into cold storage soon.
Finally Supreme Court ordered to update the NRC in 2013 on a PIL filed by an NGO Assam Public Works. But looking at the snail pace of the process of updation, SC ordered for completion of NRC in a time bound frame.
When the first draft of NRC was published on 31 July 2018, more than 40 lakh people were left out of the 3.29 crores applicants. These 40 lakh people were provided with another chance to prove their legacy. Wrongful exclusion and wrongful inclusion are bound to occur as the entire process of updating NRC is bureaucratic in nature. The inclusion and exclusion of names are clearly at the discretion of officers of NRC. It is important to note that final draft of NRC will be published after completion of process of claims and objections.
Fortunately there were no tensions or clashes in Assam after the publication of 1st draft of NRC.
Why is NRC a wasteful exercise?
Nearly 1200 crores money, 52,000 government employees, 9,000 contract employees, 6,000 outsource employees have been used for completing the 1st draft of NRC and the final draft of NRC is yet to come. Clearly it can be seen that NRC is a costly affair and still it is not error free.
Bangladesh government have repeatedly denied presence of its citizens in India illegally. So India can't deport these illegal immigrants to Bangladesh at anyway. India's relation with Bangladesh under the leadership of Sheik Hasina is the strongest among all its neighbours. So the NRC process can trigger a diplomatic crisis with Bangladesh which India will never want to happen.
LS has already passed the Citizenship amendment Bill, 2016 though it is still pending in RS. The BJP government at centre sees this bill as a political tool to woo its north Indian voters.
This bill wants to give citizenship status to people who have come from countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh belonging to six communities such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Parsi and Christianity.
This bill wants to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 and reduces the required residence time from 11 years to 6 years for Citizenship under naturalisation process.
Citizenship is granted on two grounds namely Jus Soli and Jus Sanguinis across the world. Jus Soli is the method in which citizenship is accorded on the basis of birth in the country's territory. Whereas Jus Sanguinis is the method in which citizenship is conferred on the right of blood. India follows Jus Sanguinis i.e. if anybody has both parents or one parent from India can get the Indian citizenship.
Whole North-East comprising of 7 states have come together to pitch their voice against Citizenship amendment Bill. This bill destroys the very purpose of identifying non-indians in Assam. The bill seeks to legalise the illegal immigration which has crippled north-east for years.
People of north-east fears that it is another attempt by the central government to alter the demography of north-east and to reduce the Indigenous people to minority.
Many have accused BJP of playing religious game by deliberately excluding Muslim community from giving citizenship status through this Bill. But BJP has countered this accusations by saying that people from these six communities will be given citizenship because they have faced religious prosecution in the neighbouring countries. But BJP's hypocrisy can be found easily looking at its stand on Ahmedis and Shias of Pakistan and Rohingyas of Myanmar who are facing religious prosecution in their respective countries.
This bill is unconstitutional as well as Article 14 of the Indian constitution provides for equality before law irrespective of religion, caste, ethnicity, gender etc.
Post NRC situation:
As explained above, they can't be deported back to Bangladesh. What will happen to those who will be left out of the final draft of NRC?
Does the state have enough resources to put such a large amount of people in detention camps?
What if those left out of NRC start migrating to other states of India? Is the government at centre and states are prepared for such a situation?
Assam has already missed the opportunity to deport the illegal immigrants due to petty politics by various political parties. So there is no point in discussing the deportation of illegal immigrants now.
While discussing the issue of illegal immigration, we should not forget other side of the story. Those illegal immigrants are humans as well. They haven't left their country to escape prosecution. We can't just deport them back while fully aware of risks to their life in their respective countries.
Though India is not a signatory of international refugee convention, we should not forget that Indian constitution talks about respecting international laws and giving its effort for international peace and security.
Our constitution provides for Right to life with dignity which is applicable to foreign citizens as well.
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