Shedding light on the process and impact of the recent publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam, those affected by the NRC as well as lawyers, activists, academics participated in a “people’s tribunal” organised by civil society groups here on Saturday.
Kicking off the two-day event, human rights activist Harsh Mander and lawyer Prashant Bhushan started the discussion on “people’s tribunal on the contested citizenship in Assam”.
On August 31, the government published the supplementary list of inclusions and exclusions (the NRC) that excluded 19 lakh applicants. While government officials have said that those excluded would be given the opportunity to get back on the list by establishing their citizenship, civil society groups have raised concerns about the process.
“Whatever maybe one’s view on the merits of the NRC and its implementation, we must never cease to remain mindful of the fact that it has spawned an enormous humanitarian crisis,” Mr. Mander said.
Anti-immigrant mood
Speaking on the alleged harassment faced by many Bengalis and Assamese Muslims, scholar and activist Abdul Kalam Azad said an “anti-immigrant narrative” had been perpetuated against those with Bengali origins. “We have been harassed and called ‘Bangladeshis, D-voters and non-citizens’,” he said.
Among those affected by the NRC, Masooma Begum, an activist from Assam, said she had been working to spread awareness about the process in Assam, but found herself excluded from the list, while her parents and siblings were on it.
A law student from Guwahati, Prasenjit Dey, said while he and the rest of his family had made it to the list, his father had not, despite having submitted the same land deed from 1964 as proof.
“My grandfather had migrated from East Pakistan. He had a land deed from 1964 and had been voting since 1965. My father too had been voting when all of a sudden he was declared a doubtful voter in 2011. In 2017, when I graduated from college, I decided to start studying law and fight my father’s case in the Foreigner’s Tribunal,” he said.
He said the tribunal had declared his father, Jiwan Chandra Dey, a foreigner because the land deed was hand-written, though he had also submitted the voters’ list as another proof.
“We asked for time to get the land deed certified, but they did not agree. Ironically, we had the same deed certified and used it for our NRC applications. All of us, apart from my father, in the family have made it onto the NRC with the same document,” he said.
He added that while his family was preparing to appeal his father’s case in court, there were others in his village who had been “left in mental agony over the NRC”.
Earlier in the event, lawyer Vrinda Grover said an “error-free and efficient NRC” was a myth and that there was the danger of people being “left state-less”. “It wasn’t just the government that drove the NRC, it was also the Supreme Court of India,” she said, referring to the SC-monitored NRC process.
Among the jury for the tribunal, Justices Madan Lokur (retired) and Justice A.P. Shah (retd) were also present at the event.
