The NRC Turmoil in Assam

Let us think about a situation, we have completed our respective courses in this institute, got jobs as well and then we realize that we literally don't have any identity card issued from here! How does it feel? Yes, more or less a same situation is there among the natives of Assam now. About 40 lakhs of people, who might be living there for decades, are at this moment not eligible for getting the Indian citizenship. More specifically, the final draft of Assam's National Register of Citizens was published on 30th July. Out of the 3.29 crore people who had applied to become a part of the NRC, only 2.89 crore were identified as valid citizens. More than 40 lakh citizens have been found to be invalid citizens of India. First of all,

What is NRC? Why its upgradation was necessary?

       The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a list of all bona fide Indian citizens. It was first prepared after the Census of 1951. Since then it has never been updated. In 1978, during a by-election in Assam, it was found that there was a drastic increase in the population. From that time onwards the concept of mass influx from Bangladesh has terrified the Indian Government. But as usual, no such strict action was taken those days. In 2014, the Supreme Court asked the Assam state government to update the 1951 NRC in a time-bound manner. Since then, demands and movements on wiping out illegal migrants have started in some section of population and the Supreme Court has also been monitoring the conditions over there. It has been declared that if a person or family is unable to produce proper papers on ownership of land prior to 1971, they would be termed as illegal intruders or migrants. On 31st December, 2017, a partly draft of the list was published and lastly 30th July, 2018 the final draft just bombard the future of millions of Assamese.

Consequences and the turmoil:

Just the lack of legal a piece of paper about the owned land have turned more than 40 lakhs of established or may be well established Assamese people into illegal migrants overnight. Among them, many of them have come to India much prior to 1971. But it’s a proof of their possession is what which is making no difference in their condition. A wave of protest has flooded Assam government. The Human resource development ministry, opposition political parties, neighbouring states and a massive part of the population, even whose people who got enlisted in the last draft of NRC are against this sudden triming of population from the enrollment list. Security has been stepped up across the state to prevent any law and order situation following the publication of the draft . Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC have been imposed in seven districts -- Barpeta, Darrang, Dima Hasao, Sonitpur, Karimganj, Golaghat and Dhubri.

The millon dollar question is, what will the future of the people who haven't found a place in the last published draft of NRC? Property worth more than crores is on the line. Even if we completely ignore the human resources, economically the whole Assam market would drop down suddenly and it would hardly leave the national market unharmed. Apart from all of these, without a religious issue with an political influence no national crisis can be called complete; alterall it's India.  A majority of the recently so called stateless people are likely to be Muslim, and a communal narrative is already being prepared that 7 million Muslims will be stripped of citizenship to explicit attempts to convert Assam's battle against illegal immigrants into a religious conflict across the country. Now it looks a sort of complete disaster, isn't it!

Now the fact is, there is still a little bit of hope peeping out of the cloud of uncertainty and negetivity. The Supreme Court has provided a last final chance for the people out of the draft. They can still produce their respective proofs or can approach to the higher authority with proper arguments of their enlightenment   and a final list would be published in January, 2019. On one hand, SC has assured those people that no political, social, educational or economical rights would be harmed. On the other hand, Election Commission has assured their voting rights. Whatever the government promises, an dark environment of confusion is still prevailing in Assam, as well as other parts of India. Surely, with time we shall overcome this entangled situation efficiently, as we still believe, humanity is not extinct yet.

                  Soumyadyuti Dey Choudhury, 3^rd sem, 2017 batch