September 01, 2019

The final list: how 2 million Indians may have become stateless overnight

topic:	Discrimination
located:	India
editor:	Tish Sanghera

As the final version of the Nation Register of Citizens (NRC) was published yesterday, roughly 1.9 million residents of Assam – a tea-producing state in the North East of India – found themselves missing from the list.

However, the full implications of this still remain unclear. While this group of people has the right to appeal their exclusion in Assam’s foreigner tribunals, many do not expect their fortunes will be reversed.

In the long run-up to the preparation of the final NRC, millions travelled huge distances, lost out on days of work and faced sustained harassment as they tried to prove they belonged to the country they had lived in their entire lives. Multiple media reports showed that the odds were stacked against them though, with claims that many of the tribunal proceedings were biased and discriminatory.

The NRC process is backed by the Supreme Court and is a long-held wish of nativist Assamese political parties. Since the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, the exercise has taken a decisively communal turn as reports surfaced that the register was being used to purposefully exclude Muslims.

Ahead of the 2019 elections, the BJP used the NRC as a vote-winning mechanism and promised to remove Bangladeshi “termites” from Assam – a communal dog-whistle for Muslims.

The fact that this has become an anti-Muslim drive now appears confirmed, as the BJP backtracked this week on its support of the NRC and surprisingly said they had “lost hope” in the draft. It appears they are unhappy with the number of Bengali-speaking Hindus missing from the list, who are traditionally their largest vote bank in Assam.

The BJP-government is currently trying to amend India’s citizenship laws to allow any Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jains or Paris migrants from South Asia automatic rights. This will help it get around the issue of the currently excluded Bangladeshi Hindus while ensuring Muslim migrants are outright expelled.

For those unsuccessful in their appeal, their fate remains in limbo. Bangladesh has refused to recognise any persons India forcibly makes stateless, while the United Nations has warned against the instability that millions of expelled citizens with nowhere to go will cause. There are also fears that many of those suddenly deemed a ‘foreigner’ could end up in one of the six detention camps that currently hold 1,000 people across Assam.

As BJP leaders in other states, including Delhi and Telangana, raise the call for NRCs in their states too, the painful process of proving one’s right to remain in their own home looks set to continue.

In the same week that India posted a dismal 5% quarterly GDP growth, a six-year low, many are now calling for an end to such divisionary politics and for the government to focus instead on national growth and development.