Several workers in coffee estates in Hassan and Chikkamagaluru districts are on tenterhooks over their future. Many of them are from Assam and have not made it to the list of citizens in the final draft of the National Register for Citizens (NRC) that was released on Monday. There are several cases where one or two members of a family are missing from the list. The anxious ones now plan to return to their homeland to register themselves with available documents.
Harun Ali, 32, has been working in the coffee estates for the last nine years. Though his name and those of his three children are on the list, his wife Vahida Begum’s is missing. Ali, a native of Darrang in Assam, told The Hindu , “I had submitted records along with the documents of my father Akbar Ali. My documents have been accepted. Similarly, my wife submitted her father’s documents along with her application. Her father’s name has been included in the list, but not her’s,” he said. So now, his wife will submit the claim form and seek inclusion in the list. As per the NRC norms, the applicants were asked to submit records to prove they were residents of the State before March 24, 1971.
Zulfa Khatoon, who works in the Hasirgudda estate of the IBC company near Arehalli in Belur, told The Hindu that the names of her two children were left out. “I am in touch with my family. As soon as the government starts accepting the claim forms, I will go back to submit the forms,” she said.
In the estates around Arehalli in Belur, Monday as the market day and a holiday. The workers spend their holiday contacting relatives over phone about the status of their applications. A few youths check the status online. “The move to recognise genuine citizens of the State is good and will benefit all of us. Once we get enrolled, nobody will doubt our nationality. We wanted this, but we are worried about the missing names,” said Harun Ali.
The Assamese began to move to coffee estates in Karnataka in the second half of the last decade. First, they came to estates in Kodagu and gradually spread to Hassan and Chikkamagaluru. “A majority of us do not have land in our place. We work in fields owned by rich people, but only for a few months in a year. Moreover, women do not get job opportunities. We came here as we get work throughout the year and women are also employed,” said Fareeda, from Darrang district.
