National Register of Citizens

On August 31, the updated National Register of Citizens was released in Assam after Supreme Court deadline. Of the 3,30,00,000 applicants, 3,11,00,000 figures are in the final citizen's list while about 19 Lakhs residents excluded. This led to protest about uncertain future of such a large number of people in the state. The Government however has assured all by saying no person whose name is not there in the list will be detained till he or she exhausts all legal remedies. The excluded people have 120 days to appeal against their exclusion to the Foreigners Tribunal. To speed up the process 200 new Tribunals have been made functional in addition to the 100 already existing. If people are not satisfied by the judgement of  tribunals then they can move to High Court and Supreme Court for redressal. The NRC exercise is the biggest in India carried out under the supervision of the Supreme Court to weed out illegal immigrants as well as their descendent settled illegally in India.

What is NRC issue ?

People left out of National Register of Citizens or NRC for Assam are not stateless. They will  continue to enjoy all the rights as before they exhaust all remedies available under law. This is what Ministry of External Affairs has said a day after over 19 Lakhs people were excluded from the list. This means that exclusion from the NRC has no implication on the rights of Individual resident in Assam, and they will not be deprived of any rights or entitlements which they have enjoyed before. The final list of NRC that was published on Saturday excluded more than 19 Lakhs of 3.3 Crore applicants. A total of 3.11 Crore  made to the final list. Under NRC the cut off date for determination of one's citizenship was fixed as March 25, 1971. The State Government has assured that any person who is not satisfied with the outcome can appeal before the Foreigners Tribunal within 120 days. The Assam Government will establish 200 Foreigners Tribunal in the state to deal with such appeals. If anyone is not satisfied with the verdict of the Tribunal, he or she can appeal to High Court or Supreme Court. Those left out from the NRC will not be detained under any circumstances untill the Foreigners Tribunal declares them as Foreigner.

Why NRC was required ?

In the north-east, Assam has seen as strong anti outsiders sentiments for more than 50 years now. The British encouraged migration of thousands of people from Bihar to work on teal plantation. Further thousands of Bengali were settled on vast uncultivated tracks of the State. The second important event that lead to the problem was the partition and the birth of Pakistan in 1947. Partition triggered a large scale influx of refugees from erstwhile East Bangladesh into Assam, West Bengal, and Tripura. In 1971, after the Pakistani cracked down in east Bengal over millions of refugees sought shelter in Assam.  Most of them went back after creation of Bangladesh but nearly 1 Lakh people stayed back. After 1971, Assam saw a fresh, continuous and large scale influx of land hungry Bangladeshi migrants. By now habitable land was becoming scare in Assam. Assamese tribals started loss of their culture. However, this demographic transformation generated a feeling of linguistic, cultural and political insecurity. It overwhelmed Assamese and imparted a strong emotional content to their movement against illegal migrants in the 1980s. Assuming a dominant role in Assam's politics by the end of 1979, All Assam Students Union and the Asom Gana Sangram Parishad (Assam's popular struggle association), a coalition of regional, Political and Cultural unity started a massive illegal migration movement. Leaders of the movement claimed the number of illegal immigrants was as high as 31% to 34% of the state's total population. The state's large scale population boycotted the 1983 assembly elections as well. The polls were held against the backdrop of state wise students led agitations against illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. In fact during the general elections in 1984, elections in 14 parliamentary constituencies of the state were not held due to ongoing fighting. Strikes and Satyagarah continued to be observed untill the then Central Government eventually called the leaders for final negotiations in Mid 1984. The 18 months negotiations between the leaders of the Assam movement and the Rajiv Gandhi Government led to the shining of the Assam Accord on 15 August 1985. The voter list was fully corrected on the basis of this agreement. The State Legislature that had been constituted on the basis of 1983 elections was pre maturely dissolved. In the assembly elections in December 1985, the newly formed Asom Gan Prishad came to power securing a simple majority. Prafulla Kumar Mahanta who was the party president took oath as the new Chief Minister of Assam. Although the Accord brought an end to the agitation, some key clauses were yet to be implemented which has kept some issues burning. But in the meantime there was also insurgency movement in the State for separate statehood such as that for Bodoland. For several years the matter was put to cold storage and the movement once again started in 2005. Finally, in October 2013 the Supreme Court ordered the up gradation of National Register of Citizens of Assam should be completed by January 31, 2016 but the NRC authority could not comply with the date since then the Supreme Court has been keeping an eye on the process directly. The National Register of Citizen was first prepared in Assam in 1951 after the first census was conducted. The main objective behind this endeavour was to check the illegal inflow of people. NRC is being updated following the 2013 Supreme Court order to identify the bona fide citizens and to weed out illegal immigrants. This mammoth exercise began in 2015 involving 52,000 officials scrutinized over 6 crore documents. The complete draft was released on July 30 last year in which over 40 Lakhs people were excluded from the list. An addition of 1 Lakh people were left out in June this year taking the total number of those excluded to over 41 Lakhs. However, it got paired down to little over 19 Lakhs in the final register released this Saturday on August 31. 

History of NRC ?

The first census of the Independent India was conducted in 1951. Based on it, the National Register of citizens was prepared which recorded the particular of those who belonged to Assam. This was compiled of data for each village mentioning details of the houses or holdings in serial order and indicating against each house holdings such as the number and name of person staying there at that time. These register were kept in the offices of Deputy Commissioners and sub divisional officers but in the 1960  they were handed over to the police department. The 1951 NRC was compiled exclusively for Assam and on the basis of fears expressed by Assamese nationalist leaders who feared a post partition conspiracy by Pakistan to effect demographic changes in Assam. The State however witnessed the steady influx of migrants in Assam even during British Rule between 1826 and 1947. During the mid 19th century the British brought migrants workers to Assam from the neighbouring areas which are presently West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh to work in tea plantation. However, after 1951 NRC was never updated. Although with the increasing influx of migrants from Bangladesh and neighbouring countries, the Government felt the need to update NRC. The NRC is being updated as per the provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship(Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003. The eligibility for inclusion in updated NRC 1951 and Electoral Rolls up to the midnight of March 24, 1971. In the absence of these documents one can also submit other documents like land and tenancy records, citizenship certificates, permanent residential certificates and passports. In case of applicant after 1971, documents pertaining to one's ancestor namely father, mother and so on can also be submitted.