NOW that the final National Register of Citizens in Assam has come out, the lives of more than 1.9 million people excluded from it stand to be affected. They will be looking at an uncertain future. The questions being asked: who the excluded are now and what will be their relationship with India?
In a country where 37 percent of the population is landless and in a country where historically no National ID cards have existed until quite recently, how is anyone supposed to prove that he or she is actually an Indian ? To prove beyond any reasonable doubt that one is actually an Indian you have to have your name, or your fathers or grandfathers, in land survey records, or failing that, driving licenses or passports.
If a person can’t own land, how would it be possible for that person to get passports or driving licenses–the only other means to prove that you are an Indian, over 48 years ago, so that their descendants are confirmed to be genuine Indians? The only way to prove it is for witnesses to say that the person in question has lived in that area since March 24 1971–also another exercise in sheer futility, since only 13.6 percent of the population are over age 55, if we assume that people would have a basic understanding of who lived in their locality when they were at least seven years old.
Meanwhile the politics further compounds the situation. The BJP has developed cold feet as it nationally wants to include Hindus as citizens but the CM of Assam, himself a BJP nominee say that all who are non citizens must be excluded–even if they are Hindu. The BJP wants a NRC in every state but it then risks the fact of Hindus being counted amongst the excluded. In the meantime what about those who are left out? If they are Hindu its fine as the BJP has stated it won’t throw them out, but if they are Muslim where do they go?
Whatever the policy of Indian government, we must say human behaviour must be shown to these people. Fates of a large population can’t be made uncertain just on an overnight.
