Sixty-five-year-old Kaniz Fatima has lived in Assam for around 40 years. She moved to the state from her native Kisanganj, in Bihar, after she married Nurul Laskar, 68, a former bank official. Laskar was born in Shillong, which was then the capital of Assam.
As the publication of the final draft of the National Register of Citizens draws near, the couple are anxious. The registry is being updated in Assam for the first time since 1951, an exercise that is aimed at counting Indian citizens in the state and identifying “illegal immigrants”. The terms for citizenship here are set by the Assam Accord of 1985, which says that anyone will be declared an illegal immigrant if they cannot prove that they or their family entered the country before midnight on March 24, 1971 – in other words, before the start of the Bangladesh war, which triggered a wave of migration from across the border.
While Laskar found his name in the first draft of the newly updated register, published in January this year, Fatima did not. To prove that she lived in the country before 1971, Fatima would have to show legacy data, or documents proving her ancestry, from Bihar. None of the seva kendras – help desks tasked with aiding members of the public in searching for data to prove their ancestry – have approached the couple so far. They do not yet know whether the relevant documents are available in Bihar.
The publication of the final draft of the National Register of Citizens, initially due on June 30, has now been postponed to July 30 after the office of the state coordinator for the National Register of Citizens asked the Supreme Court for more time. The floods, which have swept Assam over the last month and claimed at least 24 lives so far, have held up the work of around 70 seva kendras, state officials said.
But there may be another bureaucratic reason for the delay: the tardy and inadequate response from other states requested to answer queries on the legacy data of individuals who later moved to Assam.
“Queries concerning legacy data of around 5.50 lakh individuals had to be sent to other states,” said Prateek Hajela, state coordinator for the National Register of Citizen. “But the response we got was rather limited. For this, we had to resort to an alternate mechanism that was designed for emergencies concerning limited response from other states, if any.”
‘Who is to be held accountable?’
Thousands of residents who have migrated into Assam from other parts of the country now fear they may be left out of the citizens’ register because of bureaucratic blunders.
“I do not think measures like this [the updating of the National Register of Citizens] mean much in the long run,” said Laskar. “It is yet to stand the test of logic and human rights.”
He added: “Also, if any clerical error has taken place in any state, leading to such a massive problem today, who is to be held accountable for that? Does it mean that all who fail to prove legacy under given parameters will be compelled to leave Assam?”
A 57-year-old Hindu Bengali, who owns an advertising agency in Guwahati and did not wish to be identified, had a problem related to legacy documents. His father had migrated to India from East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) in 1949. But he spent his initial years as a manager at a tea estate in Tripura’s Dharmanagar. The family migrated to Assam in the late 1960s.
“We too have not found place on the first list and we are unsure about what documents the Tripura government has provided to the NRC [National Register of Citizens] directorate,” he said.
‘Alternate mechanism’
According to Hajela, the office of the National Register of Citizens had sent queries about 5.50 lakh individuals to other state governments till May 31. Of these, it had received documents pertaining to only 1.60 lakh individuals.
The “alternate mechanism” that Hajela referred to was investigations by the offices of district magistrates in Assam. Under this method, officials from these offices were required to deal with each candidate based on whatever documents they could produce, and coordinate with other states on a case-to-case basis, but with limited queries.
Hajela did not comment on the status of these inquiries.
Those affected are also left in the dark. “I am not aware of any district magistrate’s investigation in our case,” said the owner of the advertising agency. “If anything goes wrong, I believe, we would still have the right to contest that in a court of law.”
Fatima does not know if her case has been sent to a district magistrate’s office either.
When asked whether the patchy response from other states was one of the main reasons for the delay in publishing the final draft, Hajela said, “The verification process is complete. At this stage the main reason is the floods. We cannot comment beyond that as the matter is with the Supreme Court now.”
Assam began to update the National Register of Citizens in 2015 to create a definitive list of citizens of the state. The first draft was published on January 1, and has verified 1.9 crore people out of the 3.29 crore who applied.
As the deadline for the final draft approaches, and thousands fear they may suddenly be declared foreigners, tensions run high in Assam. Anticipating turbulence when the final draft is published, the state administration has deployed security forces across Assam and asked for fresh reinforcements from the Centre.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!