NRC: Where Do We Go From Here?

Sentinel Viewpoint

One thing all must appreciate: the much-awaited final National Register of Citizens (NRC) — which was long overdue thanks to the delaying tactics adopted by successive governments — has been prepared and published. The Supreme Court, the last resort in a country like ours to seek justice when all other efforts fail, must also be given the due credit for this. It was the Supreme Court, which, while scrapping the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act – IMDT – in July 2005, had very clearly said that “…the presence of such a large number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh, which runs into millions, is in fact an ‘aggression’ on the State of Assam..” and had thus asked the Union of India to protect Assam from the such external aggression as enjoined in Article 355 of the Constitution.

It is quite natural for the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) to feel unhappy about the figures of non-included persons in the final NRC. The students’ body, which should be given due credit for relentlessly pursuing the issue of detection and deportation of illegal migrants for the past four decades, is bound to be disappointed. It has quite rightfully stated that the final figures of the non-included persons had reached nowhere near the various figures that the different governments had stated in Parliament – from one crore by Indrajit Gupta in 1996 to 1.2 crore by Sriprakash Jaiswal to 2 crore by Kiren Rijiju in 2016. The point made by the AASU cannot be simply brushed aside. The three home ministers had cited intelligence reports and other official sources while placing those figures, and thus the government has the bounden duty to find out the discrepancies and ascertain whether its agencies had faltered, or whether a large number of illegal migrants had hoodwinked the government and the Supreme Court and made their way into the NRC.

Political parties, however, have different reasons to be unhappy over the final NRC. There are parties which can be held directly responsible for protecting the illegal migrants in the interest of keeping their vote banks intact, there are parties which were formed immediately after the Supreme Court’s scrapping of the IMDT Act, and there are parties that differentiate the illegal migrants on the basis of religion, which is in contradiction to what the Constitution and the laws of the land say.

What, however, has emerged clearly from the publication of the NRC is that there are illegal migrants in Assam, and that they are in large numbers – running into several lakhs – a fact that many, including political parties like the Congress had always tried to deny. The people of Assam remember how in 1992, a former Chief Minister of the State had made a U-turn within two days of making a statement on the floors of the State Assembly about the presence of 30 lakh illegal migrants, the reason being a particular organization holding sway over a particular community had threatened to pull down his government. While many — including the AASU — have complained that there were discrepancies in the NRC updation process which had led to less non-inclusion of names, and have thus described it as incomplete, it is definitely for the Supreme Court to take a call, especially in the backdrop of its own judgment of July 12, 2005.

While analyzing the post-NRC situation, one must also keep in mind the fact that while applications of over 19 lakh people have been rejected and not included in the NRC, a sizeable number of people had not even applied for inclusion in it. This is in addition to a few lakh people who had not applied for re-verification after their names were not included in the draft NRC. It is for the government as well as the Supreme Court to find out who these people were and what could be the reasons behind their keeping away from applying for inclusion. It should not be a difficult task because the government has with it various other documents including the electoral rolls which can be used for detecting them.

It is a fact that though the figure of non-inclusion has not been satisfactory for most people across the State, the very publication of the NRC is in itself a milestone. There were so many organizations which were against the very idea of the NRC, while there were many others who did not want it to be completed and tried their best to sabotage the entire effort. There are still some who, given the opportunity, would want to scrap the NRC even after its final publication. But what must be kept in mind is that the curtains have not been drawn in any manner on the issue of illegal migrants after the NRC has been published. Rather, it has only entered a new phase, with the question to be raised now being – What Next?

One aspect that everyone must also remember is that the NRC is not a document that has identified illegal migrants. Instead, it is a document that has only enlisted and enumerated the Indian citizens in Assam, with those who were not included requiring to go through the process of the Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) to prove that their credentials. The Government has already announced that all those whose names have not found place in the final NRC could approach the FTs within a period of 120 days, and has thus accordingly begun constituting a large number of the Tribunals to facilitate this. It is good that the Government has also announced offering legal aid to people who require it while approaching the Tribunals. Legal experts will be able to suggest what steps the AASU and the Assam Public Works – the latter being the NGO on the basis of whose PIL the Supreme Court had taken steps to expedite the process of preparation of the NRC and made things happen – should take next in order to take the issue to a logical conclusion. Simultaneously, efforts should be made to provide as many suggestions to the Committee that the government has constituted to make recommendations for implementation of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord – that of providing Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social and linguistic identity and heritage of the indigenous people of Assam. Organizations including the AASU, at this hour, should ensure that the issue is not taken to the streets, but fought in the court of law. Assam just cannot afford to go back to another phase of agitations and disruption.

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