ASSAM IS DONE counting, and apparently no one is happy. No political entity, that is. On August 31, the state government released the final list of the National Register of Citizens, which left out about 19.6 lakh people. As many as 3.29 crore had applied for the NRC. The second draft of the list, released in July 2018, had excluded more than 40 lakh people because they could not prove their Indian citizenship. In June this year, another one lakh were excluded from the list. More than 41 lakh were on the verge of statelessness.
This number, however, was halved on August 31, which pleased a lot many citizens, but not the political parties and students’ groups. Each party thought the list would give it ammo against its rivals, but that did not happen.
The Congress is angry because lakhs in the Muslim community, which had overwhelmingly voted in its favour in the previous Lok Sabha elections, could lose their voting rights. The Election Commission of India has asked for the electoral rolls to be updated; the Assam assembly elections are due in 2021.
The Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government, which ruled for 15 years, had been cautious about the NRC exercise. And ever since the BJP came to power in Assam in 2016, the Congress and Gogoi had been careful not to alienate any community, be it the Hindus or Muslims.
The BJP, on the other hand, made a huge deal about the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and the NRC in the border districts, including the mostly Bengali Barak valley, which helped it win the Hindu-dominated constituencies in the 2016 state elections and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. But now, with a large number of Hindus (around nine lakh according to unofficial estimates) out of the final list, the BJP has to wait till the Narendra Modi government passes the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to bail out the excluded Hindus. The bill, if passed, would make refugees (Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi or Christian) from neighbouring countries eligible for Indian citizenship. And if the bill is not passed, say observers, the BJP would have to face the anger of the excluded Hindus.
“It (NRC) is a completely erroneous exercise,” said BJP state president Ranjit Das. “The state government was not allowed to have any say in the entire process. The Supreme Court even asked the chief minister not to interfere in the process. We are extremely unhappy with it.”
The state government has openly rejected the NRC list, with senior cabinet minister Himanta Biswa Sarma saying, “We appeal to the Supreme Court to review at least 20 per cent of the NRC numbers. This is not the NRC the people of Assam can believe in.”
Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is yet to comment on the list. He is a former leader of the All Assam Students’ Union, which had in 2005 decided—along with the Central and state governments—to update the 1951 NRC as part of a tripartite agreement. Sonowal had also petitioned the Supreme Court in 2005 against the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, which the court struck down as unconstitutional. This gave impetus to the demand for updating the NRC. “The chief minister was kept in the dark in the NRC process by the court,” his office said. “So, he reserves his statement on it. Let us wait for the Supreme Court’s observation on it.” The Assam government has decided to move the Supreme Court for a re-verification of the NRC.
“The state government is committed to a clean and correct NRC,” state Agriculture Minister Atul Bora told THE WEEK. “Our government cannot be held responsible for the mess. The court asked us not to interfere. However, we will seek re-verification as many genuine Indians are out of the list and foreigners [are in].”
Ahead of the publication of the final list, Sonowal had a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah. After it, he said that the Assam government would provide legal help to all those excluded from the list. Shah had also discussed the possible reactions to the list from the international community, especially as it would come weeks after the abrogation of Article 370.
“The Indian government did not want fresh international pressure on Assam,” said a senior state government official.
THE WEEK had recently carried a story in which UN Human Rights Commission officials had blasted the Modi government for not giving any clarifications to their questions on the NRC.
On September 1, external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said that the government would not make anyone stateless and that those excluded from the list would not be deprived of their basic rights. The announcement indicated that the Centre was being cautious about the fallout of the list.
The most furious reaction to the new list, perhaps, was from the AASU and the Asom Gana Parishad. The AASU’s violent movement in the 1970s and 1980s had led to the Assam Accord, which in turn led to the NRC being updated.
“The current NRC is the fallout of the failure of all national political parties of Assam,” a fuming Samujjal Bhattacharya, chief adviser to the AASU, told THE WEEK. “Both the Central and state governments (led by the BJP) have deliberately done this. They have done a great disservice to the people of Assam by [publishing] such a pathetic NRC.”
Agriculture Minister Bora, who is also AGP president, said that former Union home minister Indrajit Gupta had once told Parliament that there were more than 50 lakh foreigners living in Assam. “After him, home ministers like L.K. Advani and even army commanders agreed with the numbers Gupta gave,” he said. “Our question is—where have all of them (foreigners) gone?”
Bhattacharya asked the same question. “We are nowhere near that number,” he said. “Even if we set aside the numbers game, the lack of professional work on the part of NRC authorities, engaged by both Central and state governments, makes this the worst government exercise ever. This is not at all a complete NRC. I was an underground soldier of the movement. The accord was to ensure peace. Driving out foreigners was one of the conditions. But today, we have [returned] to where we were.”
Bhattacharya also alleged that the border unit of the Assam Police did not refer cases to the foreigners tribunals in the past one year. “The Supreme Court asked them to start suo motu investigation of foreigners,” he said. “But the state government did not do that. Secondly, the government reduced the number of [pieces of] evidence required to prove citizenship from 15 to 10. This is to benefit whom? Lastly, the state government did not file any objection when valid cases were turned down because of lack of evidence.”
He said the AASU would not sit idle till a complete NRC was drawn up. “We will tell the apex court with proof how the entire process was botched up,” said Bhattacharya. “We will tell it that the NRC authorities and state government, including the border police, made the investigation a farce. We will demand a total review of the NRC and we have full faith in the Supreme Court.”
But, what if the Supreme Court dismissed their concerns? “We would have no option but to take the path of agitation again,” said an AASU leader.
According to experts, the ruling BJP-AGP alliance, along with the AASU, had expected a lot more Muslims to be excluded from the list, which would have helped them politically. “But when they found that the earlier number was halved, they sounded angry,” said Akram Hussein, state convener of Citizens for Justice and Peace, an organisation fighting the cases of many “foreigners”. “In fact, our information suggests that Hindus could outnumber the Muslims among the excluded people. The politics of the AASU and the ruling party has suffered a big jolt.”
Hussein said that he and his associates across India are working on providing legal aid to thousands of people. “All over India, we are organising funds and [approaching] legal brains to fight these cases,” he said. “We will get most of them out.” When asked about the government’s legal aid, he said, “Muslims will not get it.”
Though 19 lakh have been excluded from the list as of now, the number could go down further if the government passes the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. “If the government wants peace in Assam it would have to accept and respect the Assam Accord. They have to stall the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill,” said Bhattacharya. “Kaziranga is under the control of Bangladeshis. Forty nine tribal blocks have been invaded by foreigners. They cannot bulldoze us with their numbers. We will fight. We will not let Assam go the Jammu and Kashmir or Tripura way.”
Experts say the state government has been under intense pressure from both the AASU and the Centre. “On the one hand, the AASU acted as a pressure cooker for the government,” said Nazrul Islam, an advocate in Assam dealing with many “foreigners’” cases. “On the other hand, there was an unofficial diktat from the Centre to not harass Hindus.”
Islam added that though the current NRC list has its errors, it was satisfactory. “The errors are so apparent that after all the cases are fought, the actual number will go below 10 lakh,” he said. Of the 19 lakh excluded, about eight lakh are women and children. Many of these women were married off young and do not have any documentation to prove any links to their fathers, whose names are in the legacy data (the information available in the 1951 NRC and the electoral rolls up to March 25, 1971). Their identity is intertwined with their husbands, and linkage to spouses or in-laws does not count. Many children were also left out because their parents were suspected to be foreigners or the documents were not good enough.
Sadat Hussein, a teacher in Chaygaon, got into the list with his two children. His wife, however, did not make it. “My wife is a nursing staff in a government hospital,” he said. “She is a government-job holder. How could she be a foreigner? This is disgusting.”
His wife was part of the list released in July 2018, but not the latest one. She had used her father’s legacy data; he did not make it to the list. Sadat is now arranging money to fight a legal battle.
“Finally, it has been proven how even the government believed in the rumour that Assam has 50 lakh and more foreigners coming from Bangladesh,” said Islam. “The stats are all vague.”
He added that the Assamese, who form 40 per cent of the population in the state, control 90 per cent of government jobs, but own less than 40 per cent of the land. The Bengalis and others own the majority of the land. “They would like to acquire more land by evicting us,” he said.
With the state on the boil, security has been beefed up in 17 districts. Internet speed has been slowed down to keep social media unrest in check. In an emergency meeting, the prime minister’s office also extended the tenure of Assam Police DG Kuladhar Saikia for three months. This was reportedly done as there were intelligence reports that the state could soon face law and order issues.
All eyes are now on the Supreme Court, which is yet to comment on the NRC list. The Assam BJP has demanded that the NRC be updated at the national level, which might give Assam a re-look. Otherwise, they would approach the Supreme Court to get the list re-verified.
This would, however, reaffirm the belief among Muslims in the state—that the whole exercise was undertaken just to target them.