NRC: This Way or That
Written on October 12th, 2019 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}On 31st August,2019 the updated NRC was released and it sought to identify all illegal immigrants in Assam today. This action has left almost 19 lakh citizens of Assam almost stateless, described as illegal immigrants.
The NRC is the register which contains the names (or their descendants) of Indian Citizens. The first NRC was published in 1951 with an aim of identifying illegal immigrants. A person is included in the updated NRC if they can prove that they or their ancestors were present in the NRC of 1951 or their names or their ancestors’ names are present in the electoral roll before the midnight of 24th march 1971.
With large political drama going over the issue, we present to you a view of both sides of the issue.
To be or not to be, that’s the question.
On 31st August 2019, the Ministry of External Affairs updated the National Register of Citizen (NRC) leaving almost 19 million people out as illegal immigrants to the nation. This was exactly what this huge exercise was aimed at; filtering out the legal citizens from the ones living on as a burden off the country.
The need for an NRC after about 70 years since the first one arose due to the huge number of illegal immigrants entering the country from the neighboring nations, mostly Bangladesh. The absence of a physical barrier with East Pakistan and the chaos generated during the 1971 Indo-Pak War sent thousands of Bangladeshi citizens across the border into India.
So, What Was This Large Exercise Supposed To Establish?
The most important advantage of NRC is how it will help in enhancing our national security. A considerable majority of these immigrants are being used by extremist agencies like like United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and Harkat-ul-Jihadi-e-Islami for anti-national activities. It is a known fact that these extremist groups had camped in Bangladesh and have executed attacks on the state several times in the past fifty years. Furthermore, on the basis of the number of immigrants in certain areas, security breaches in the border can also be identified and rectified, thus strengthening our border security.
The reason why NRC has turned into a heated political debate and the hate being generated against the Central Government is because over the years, political parties have promised to legitimize the immigration status for these illegal residents during elections for swinging votes and creating new vote-banks. After the implementation of the updated NRC the voting rights (if any) of the left-out immigrants will be revoked, putting an end to such political propagandas.
The huge surge of immigrants in Assam has had a tremendous impact on its political, social, economic and security arenas and has further complicated the lives of the original residents. With growing population, the state government is unable to provide for the basic means and necessities of genuine Indian citizens rightfully entitled to them. These migrants further impact the lives of locals by staking claim to the limited jobs and businesses available in these remote reaches of the nation denying them employment opportunities. They are now even enrolling for benefits under government welfare programs such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).
Taking a cultural and academic angle, the identification of the illegal immigrants will help us in figuring out Assam’s true demography which has undergone drastic changes over the years owing to the inclusion of foreign culture.
The root for illegal immigration to any nation is in search of better financial opportunities. It is imperative that our nation sends a strong message against such activity considering the fact we are surrounded by many financially weaker nations. This is a step that has been ignored for a long time at the cost of the nation’s resources. The Central Government fuelled with a fresh mandate has taken a step that many in the past have hesitated to implement.
While Talking Of Outsiders
While talking of outsiders in Assam, we must keep the long and complex history of migration into the state of highest opportunity in Eastern India, in mind. The past gains greater significance since most of the rhetoric surrounding the NRC dispute stems from the ideas of belonging and nativity, which often seem to begin the tale after Independence.
The migration into Assam dates back to the later 1890s, when the first tea plantations were established in the lower parts of the state. The Assamese population, living in the higher Himalayan reaches and growing a single crop every year, had no interest in working on these plantations. Consequently, the British brought in Muslim labourers from the nearby states of Bihar and Bengal. They would work on the tea bushes and in turn settle down and proliferate in the cool climate of the state – a relief from the heat of their native lands. Thus, there was a surge in the Muslim populace in Assam; so much so that when Bengal was partitioned along communal lines, Eastern Muslim Bengal was merged in with Assam. The Assamese rallied against this consummation of territories, and emerged victorious, leading to the bifurcation of the state in 1911. However, the inflow of migrant labour continued till independence.
In addition to the above facts, there is no arguing that the border along Eastern sides is exceptionally porous, owing to the difficult terrain – meandering rivers mangrove forests, hills and mountains, swamps and riverine islands – along the territorial ends.
The issue of NRC is rooted in the idea that Assam belongs to Assamese. This notion, as mentioned before, has been there for a long while, and saw an upsurge in the 1980s, with the massive rioting and destruction caused by All Assam Student’s Union (ironic abbreviation: AASU), which led to the court-case that guaranteed the implementation of National Register of Citizens.
No government, until recently however, was ready to take up the task of implementing NRC. The reasons were fairly obvious – the conflict of Assamese domicile mingled with communal nature of migration in the area.
In the latest NRC update, 19 lakh people have been left out of the register. This includes both Hindus and Muslims, and even cuts across lines of poverty, social status etc. In fact, even a sitting MLA’s name is missing from the final list. While inclusion is subject to judicial appellate, those who are left out of the list might end up STATE-LESS.
The Question To Ask Now Is Where Would These People Go?
Bangladesh has clearly refused to take take them in. As Sheikh Mujibur Rahman wrote in 1980s
"Because Eastern Pakistan must have sufficient land for its expansion and because Assam has abundant forests and mineral resources, coal, petroleum etc., Eastern Pakistan must include Assam to be financially and economically strong".
In fact, their population density is around 900, almost twice as high as India. Clearly, if they are being systematically excluded from Indian count, no one will let them stay in India. The truth is, they might be faced with the threat of persecution if they continue to stay back.
At present, the only alternative that the government has, are the detention camps being built along the Eastern border. They are currently poised to hold less than 30,000 individuals, and that too in the state from which they are being evicted. It is an insufficient arrangement to say the least.
The fight for entry into NRC is the struggle to establish Indian-ness. It is nothing more than the new government’s attempt to ask their age-old questions in new ways: “Are you Indian enough?”, “Are you worthy of being Indian?”, “Were your ancestors Indian?” etc. They do not realize that driving over 2 million people towards statelessness is a humanitarian crime, which would tarnish the image of the Indian democracy at the world stage. Most of these people – whether from Bangladesh or from Bengal - have embraced Assam as their home, and clearly have nowhere to go.
With no arrangements in place, the entire process of updating NRC seems like the government’s act of catching up with the latest international fad of deporting illegal immigrants. But India is better than that, and we actually have an opportunity to lead on the world immigration crises by example.
We should devise better ways to scrutinize and understand the ideas of nationality and belonging, and keep the humanitarian concerns in consideration while asking for “foreigners” to evict their hard-earned lives. All this requires us to extend legal aid to those excluded from the list, and loosen the strict criteria for establishing heredity links. At the same time, the entire substance of NRC needs to be re-challenged in the court along humanitarian lines, so that similar situation does not arise in other states in the future.
This article was written by Manan Patel, Tanya Prasad and Vastav Ratra, edited by Tarun Agrawal.