BookRix

The publication demonstrates flaws in National Register of Citizens of Assam, India which is being implemented by the Supreme Court of India directives which is the topmost court of the nation. We are not in any way against the NRC Process in India which is a legal and binding to all people of the state. Officially, the NRC process will address the issue of illegal migrants, specifically from Bangladesh. The National Register of Citizens was first published in 1951 to record citizens, their houses, and holdings. Updating the NRC to root out foreigners was a demand during the Assam Agitation (1979-1985). The current situation in Assam stems from the failure by the state and society to grasp the long-term implications of unchecked illegal migration. A few preventive steps adopted on a long-term basis could have ensured a check on the movement of people from across the border. There would be no need for NRC, the migrants’ flight would take a different course and the shrill voices opposing the identification of foreign nationals in Assam would not have been heard at all. The blame for this must be shared by the people of Assam for not being vigilant enough and the successive governments both at the state and Centre that displayed a total disregard to the danger continuously knocking on the door for the past several decades.

However this much needed reform can have devasting consequences. In the same way many people who are genuine citizens of in the state are not lucky enough to have kept the documents of ancestors which are decades old. Many peoples are illiterate, poor who are hardly earning enough to just survive in this world. Like many Indians elsewhere, some of these people are too poor to possess any identification – all they hold onto is crumpled currency that will buy their families another meal.

We don’t want a single foreigner’s name to be included in the final NRC. But no genuine Indian citizen should be excluded from the list. All genuine Indians must be included in the NRC.

The claims of those left out in the NRC must be heard carefully & humanely.