NATIONAL REGISTER OF CITIZENS- INDIAN CONSTITUTION’S PANDORA’S BOX – Settle them Indian/Pakistan Kashmir!

NATIONAL REGISTER OF CITIZENS- INDIAN CONSTITUTION’S PANDORA’S BOX – Settle them Indian/Pakistan Kashmir!

I- PROLOGUE

Nation states have existed for a very long time. Even though the nations did not prohibit their citizens to leave their country and settle in another, not many citizens did that. Similarly, many nations did not prohibit the entry of foreigners and in fact encouraged them to have properties, slaves and even families. The concept of passports and visas before entry are relatively modern, dating back to just 104 years. Hence, the first draft of the National Register of Citizens which apparently left out about 4.2 million residents of Assam has attracted a lot of attention. Most importantly, Ms. Mamata Banerjee had declared ‘civil war’ and ‘bloodbath’. Not surprisingly, some FIRs have been registered against her in Assam.

II- ASSAM, EAST PAKISTAN IN 1960s TO 1980s

a) The partition of India in 1947 on religious lines creating 2 countries and 3 geographical entities was the root cause of this problem. Any serious observer of history will recognize that West Pakistan treated East Pakistan merely as their ‘Colony’ and not as a co-participant in governance. Because of this, Pakistan split into two. Ms. Mamata Banerjee who brought about the rare unanimity in West Bengal Legislative Assembly to drop the word ‘Paschim’ before the states name and desires that it be called just ‘Bangla’.

b) Coming back to the point, at the time of its independence in 1971, Bangladesh’s population comprised of 83% Muslims, 15% Hindus and the remaining were other minorities such as Buddhists, Animists etc. Relatively, the parts closer to the coasts in Bangladesh were more developed than the parts which bordered West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, etc. The entry points closer to Assam facilitated easier access to the East Pakistani-Bangladeshi residents who wanted to escape their miserable economic conditions and settle down in the relatively prosperous and definitely more peaceful Assam. An average Mumbaikar, Delhiite or even a Bangalorian will refuse to believe that Assam is prosperous as these cities consume more electric power than the State of Assam!

c) Jokes apart, the Assamese as we now know them today realized that many East Pakistanis have started migrating from East Bengal and started settling in Assam. Many of these entrants bribed either the BSF or the cattle transporters to enter India. Whatever is their entry point they gravitated towards Assam. The local residents realized these problems. Hence, they commenced the anti-foreigner agitation in late 70s and early 80s.

III- EMERGENCE OF THE COMMUNIST STATE IN WEST BENGAL, TRIPURA AND REDUCTION IN NUMBER OF NAXALITES/NAXALISM IN WEST BENGAL AND THE NORTH EAST:

a) The movement of refugees from Bangladesh continued even after the liberation of Bangladesh. More or less simultaneously, THE West Bengal electorate rejected Congress rule and reposed their total trust in an elected Marxist Government in West Bengal and Tripura. At that point of time, many of the North Eastern states including Assam required cheap labour for their tea plantations. Even otherwise, many parts of North East then and even now, are sparsely populated in comparison with the surrounding areas of India and Bangladesh.                     

b)  All Assam Students Union commenced their anti-foreigner agitation demanding that illegal migrants who came from Bangladesh after 1971 must be sent back to Bangladesh. But the ruling Marxist Governments in West Bengal and Tripura found the illegal migrants in India to be their reliable vote bank and informally urged their cadre to help these people acquire documentation of their residence, such as inclusion in voter list, issue of ration cards and even passports. In 2005, when Mamata Banerjee was a part of BJP coalition, she protested vehemently against the continued entry of illegal migrants to the West Bengal. But now she is in power and aims to convert the illegal migrants vote bank to her political advantage. Not surprisingly, as it is said that politics makes strange bed-fellows. On this issue of National Register of Citizens, we find that the Congress and BJP have more or less similar views and TMC and CPM have the same views. Now that Mamata Banerjee is West Bengal’s Chief Minister, she cannot be indifferent to the issue of 4 million Bengalis being denied a chance to live in India.

c) Actually, a good part of the immigrants has shifted to different parts of India which can accept a population increase without getting noticed. Many of these people now work as plantation labourers in South India and have also obtained voter ID, ration cards, passports, etc. Many of them migrated to big cities like Delhi and Mumbai, which have a great need for transient and migratory labour to fill the bottom jobs in the employment pyramid. The other sad story is that a good lot of sex workers in Mumbai and Delhi are illegal migrants from East Bengal who entered India either through Assam North East or West Bengal, who later migrate to other parts of India to prevent detection and deportation.

d) For about a decade and a half, the rest of India ignored the ‘Anti-Foreigner Agitation’. On this plank, AASU even came to power in Assam. It is a sad story that their leadership got entangled in matters which projected them in a bad light. Nevertheless, their Government entered into an agreement. The years from 1979 to 1985 witnessed political instability in the state, collapse of state governments, imposition of President's Rule, sustained, often violent, agitations, frequent general strikes, civil disobedience campaigns which paralyzed all normal life for prolonged periods, and unprecedented ethnic violence.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

e) The central government's effort to hold a constitutionally mandated election to the state assembly in 1983 led to its near total boycott, a complete breakdown of order, and the   worst killings since 1947 on the basis of tribal, linguistic and communal identities. The election proved to be a complete failure with less than 2 per cent of the voters casting their votes in the constituencies with Assamese majority.
The 1983 violence had a traumatic effect on both sides, which resumed negotiations in earnest. Finally, the Rajiv Gandhi government was able to sign an accord with the leaders of the movement on 15 August 1985. All those foreigners who had entered Assam between 1951 and 1961 were to be given full citizenship, including the right to vote; those who had done so after 1971 were to be deported; the entrants between 1961 and 1971 were to be denied voting rights for ten years but would enjoy all other rights of citizenship. A parallel package for the economic development of Assam, including a second oil refinery, a paper mill and an Institute of Technology, was also worked out. The central government also promised to provide ‘Legislative and Administrative Safeguards’ to protect the cultural, social, and linguistic identity and heritage’ of the Assamese people.

f) The task of revising the electoral rolls, on the basis of the agreement, was taken up earnestly. The existing assembly was dissolved and fresh elections held in December 1985. A new party, Assam Gana Parishad (AGP), formed by the leaders of the anti-foreigner’s movement, was elected to power, winning 64 of the 126 assembly seats. Prafulla Mahanta, an AASU leader, at the age of thirty-two became the youngest chief minister of independent India. 

IV- BANGLADESH’S RESPONSE TO THE ISSUE OF ILLEGAL MIGRANTS

a) To begin with, we must recognize that many erstwhile citizens of East Pakistan, a good many of them Hindus started leaving East Pakistan and settling themselves both in West Bengal, Assam and even Tripura. The liberation of Bangladesh aggravated the illegal immigration problem even more. In all fairness, one must state that a good lot of refugees went back after the liberation of Bangladesh. But, as it would normally happen, a reasonable number among the refugees stayed back in India and in fact migrated to other states where their detection and subsequent deportation will become impossible.     

b) It would be interesting to analyse the demographic profile of Bangladesh today and compare it with the corresponding figures when it was East Pakistan. The 1961 census of East Pakistan indicated that East Pakistan had about 83% Muslims, 15% Hindus and the remaining other minorities such as Christians, Buddhists, etc. if you look at the present-day figures of Bangladesh, the Hindu ratio of the population has shrunk to less than 8% of their population. Conceding that Bangladesh does not suffer so much notoriety as Pakistan in the matter of forcible conversions, the issue of the declining Hindu population in Bangladesh is perplexing.                      

c) When India took up this issue of illegal migrants and insisted on their deportation back to Bangladesh, the latter took the position that there is no large-scale migration at all. Furthermore, they also took the position that the people who left Bangladesh for India have violated their immigration rules and hence will be prosecuted if they return to Bangladesh. But over a period of time, Bangladesh was forced to concede the reality and in fact has taken people back. If you believe the Congress spokesman Mr. Surjewala, in pursuant of Assam Accord, between 2005-2013, 82,728 illegal immigrants were deported back to Pakistan from India. He also accused Modi Government for not doing enough for deportation of migrants.                  

d) Assuming that Bangladesh will be willing to take back the stateless persons of North East states, it would be unreasonable to expect them to take all the 4 million back. In fact, many of these 4 million would plead their right to ‘non-refoulment’, meaning the right of a ‘refugee’ or a ‘stateless person’ to insist that he should not be sent back to the country which he had left because they felt that he had no other option. Even though, India is not a member of the UNHCR refugee convention, it will not take the risk of causing such large-scale human relocation.

V- NATIONAL REGISTER OF CITIZENS: A HITHERTO UNKNOWN INSTITUTION)

A.        The National Register of Citizens is prepared by the Registrar General of India under Rule 15 of the Citizenship Rule of 2003. The first list was prepared in 1951. This revision and the modalities of revision have been developed jointly by the Government of Assam and Union of India. In Assam, the eligibility criteria for inclusion in National Register of Citizens is one of the following:

a) Persons found in 1951 census.

b) Persons whose name have been found on electoral rolls as on 24^th March, 1971.

c) Descendants of any of the above two.

d) Persons who came to Assam after January 1966 but before 25^th March, 1971 and registered themselves with the Central Government (Foreigners Registration Regional Officer).

e) Persons declared as a non-foreigner by the Tribunal under the law.

f) There is a two-part verification process. The first part is- i) office verification done by the validation of documents submitted along with the application form

ii) field verification carried out to establish the identity of the applicant and their linkage to the quoted reference in the legacy data.

B. Recently, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) has published their first draft of the revised NRC. The newspapers have reported that roughly about 4 million residents in Assam do not find their names in the list. The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) celebrated the release of the list. Mamata Banerjee made a U-turn and as usual responded in a feisty and unwarranted, aggressive way. The Congress and the BJP have been guarded in their responses after initially welcoming the general contours of revision.                                          

C. The rules provide the aggrieved people an opportunity to prove their claims before NRC Seva Kendras up to September. The process of handling claims, objections, corrections will be done as per the Supreme Court guidelines. Even after this process, if people do not find their names in the register, such people will be deemed as illegal migrants within the meaning of the Assam Accord, 1985. By Indian law they will become stateless persons, not eligible for Indian Citizenship. In fact, many believe that illegal migrants have been very careful about their documentation (made after false declaration and bribery). Local tribal residents were not that diligent. There have already been reported cases of very prominent public persons in Assam not finding their names in the revised list. Assuming that, 1/4^th of these persons manage to get their names included in the Correction Process, that would still leave a staggering 3 million people to be repatriated to their country of origin, namely Bangladesh. This development will naturally make Bangladesh uncomfortable because it is also a facing an influx of Rohingya refugees.                                 

D. In the past, India accepted people of Indian origin from Sri Lanka and Burma, even though these people have been resident in other lands for more than a century. The best India can hope for in the situation is that at least 50% of these 4 million is rehabilitated back to Bangladesh. This would mean India would have to substantially increase their bilateral aid to Bangladesh and I doubt whether Bangladesh would agree to Indian proposals despite the aid. Further, it is doubtful whether people will agree to go back to Bangladesh. In that case, they would continue to live in Assam and 3 decades after the recognition riot of illegal migrants should be deported.                                              

E. When non-BJP governments cry themselves hoarse against the forcible repatriation of these people, they should also come up with solutions as to how and where in India, these stateless persons can be rehabilitated. Surely, Assam alone should not be compelled to bear the burden of illegal migrants. All other states should equitably bear the burden of illegal migrants who cannot be repatriated back to Bangladesh. While resettling them in other parts of India, it must be made sure that it does not unreasonably tilt the demographic balance in terms of religion. The population density of the proposed abode must be lower than the Indian average. So quite ideally, we must resettle a substantial number of them in Kashmir where Muslims are anyway in a majority. So, whenever any regional politician or an opposition leader condemns forced repatriation, he must also come up with proposition of resettlement and how much their state can take.                                                     

F. After all, we should not forget that before the Assam Accord came into being, 855 young Assamese have lost their lives for pointing out the existence of this problem and try for a solution. Don’t let this go in vain. AASU deserves congratulations, notwithstanding their current political irrelevance in the State of Assam!