On November 21, speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Indian home minister and Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah made official his party’s declaration about bringing in an all-India National Register of Citizens (NRC). He assured members of parliament that a pan-India NRC is only a logbook exercise to get everyone under the citizen’s list, and not a crusade against any particular religion.
Rejecting the NRC, which was published on August 31, the Assam government welcomed the centre’s stand after Union Home Minister Amit Shah told the Parliament that the NRC will be implemented nationwide. However, it goes without saying that like in Assam, across India too, the test will be hardest for four categories of people – the poor, the unlettered, women and, to a large extent, those affected by Partition. The Assam NRC was an exercise in futility-not accepted by those who were left out by the central government or by the Assam’s state government. The documents required for proving citizenship are quite difficult to get for one who is poor-hence those poor or illiterate or landless will have the greatest trouble to prove themselves properly Indians.
But what will happen to those left out? The Indian government has stated that it is an internal matter. Assam Finance Minister and BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma said earlier in the year that India would have to persuade Bangladesh to take back the people excluded from the NRC after the foreigners’ tribunals pass their final verdict. The list of citizens published on August 31 left out more than 19 lakh people.
Our government wants our people still to believe that for its help in the liberation war India is most well-meaning friend. Our people also took India as their real friend for realisation of the cause of the liberation war. Now they have over the years developed doubts whether they want us to live as free citizens. They did not meaningfully help us in Rohingya refugee problem because India has its own interest to save.
Now India is showing its determination to send Muslims from Assam claiming that they were not citizens and therefore they must go. But where they will go? They are under threat of imprisonment in India. In order to escape immediate arrest they will have nowhere to go but enter Bangladesh.
So in a clever way these arbitrarily declared non-citizens are being forced to enter Bangladesh. Already the news is-some have entered Bangladesh in fear of imprisonment. This is not friendship for us when India compels its own people to enter Bangladesh.
We all want friendship with India but India must also want friendship with us. We are a country of 17 crore people and mass protest against India will not be a weak response, even if we want friendship with India to continue.
Indian leadership is undoubtedly very intelligent and conscious of India’s military strength but in politics people’s power is worth considering.
We expect and sincerely hope India will understand that it cannot create an internal situation and force a section of its people to enter Bangladesh as refugees.
Like Rohingyas of Myanmar, India cannot wishfully decide who are to be denied of citizenship for creating crisis in a neighbouring country. An internal problem must be internally solved by India. Denying citizenship is not an internal issue.
