Everybody’s fight for identity

Mukesh Ranjan in Guwahati

Identifying illegal migrants in the state and deporting them was an integral part of the Assam Accord signed and announced by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1985. However, the real trigger behind revising the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam was the serial bomb blasts that took place in the state on October 30, 2008. The blasts that were carried out by the banned National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) at Guwahati, Barpeta Road, Bongaigaon and Kokrajhar, killed 81 and left more than 400 injured.

That evening, Aabhijeet Sharma, president of Assam Public Works (APW), a Guwahati-based NGO, met Pradip Kumar Bhuyan and his wife Bonti Bhuyan, an elderly couple, in Guwahati to discuss the situation in the state. Sharma recalls how all of them had “cried that day and decided to do something. That meeting was the genesis of our fight against illegal immigrants.”

“For a complete year, we researched the documents available with the government and the Election Commission and found out that around 41 lakh were in excess in the voters’ list. Thus, we decided to approach the court for updating the NRC of 1951 to weed out illegal immigrants — something that had been part of the Assam Accord signed in 1985,” Sharma says.

In July 2009, the Supreme Court accepted the petition filed by APW, which stated that 41 lakh illegal migrants had been included in the voters’ list of 2006 and sought directions to strike their names from the electoral rolls. Deciding on the case in 2013, the apex court directed the Centre to update the NRC. It set the ball rolling and, on July 30 this year, the updated draft NRC was released. Of the 3,29,91,384 applicants in the state, 2,89,83,677 were included in the list and 40,07,707 were left out.

“Illegal immigrants have flooded Assam. Publication of the complete draft is only a step in the process. We want names of all foreigners removed from the electoral rolls. I want my 13-year-old daughter to live in a safe Assam without the fear of foreigners,” says Sharma.

On Friday, the NRC authorities issued forms for inclusion in the final document through claims and to raise objections if somebody has doubt about any name included in the draft copy. However, the legal battle still continues as several other NRC-related petitions are pending in the Supreme Court.

One such petition is filed by Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha (ASM), an umbrella organisation of 26 ethnic groups in the state, which opposes the current exercise claiming that it will “legitimise unlawful stay of illegal migrants between 1951 and the current cut-off midnight of March 25, 1971”. Senior advocate KN Chaudhary, who represents ASM in the Supreme Court and is based out of Guwahati, says, “We are trying to impress upon the apex court that the current exercise will legitimise the illegal stay of migrants and, instead of solving the problem, it will complicate it further. Our matter is being referred to the Constitution Bench and we are hopeful of a favourable outcome.”

However, men and women on the streets of Guwahati and other places appear happy with the exercise. They say they are hopeful that their state will finally get rid of illegal Bangladesh migrants, majority of whom are Muslims. They feel the exercise is “good for the state” and the long-ranging issue of ‘outsiders’ would now settle once and for all. Among them is Krishna Rai, a taxi driver from Guwahati, whose family migrated to the state from Nepal’s Birganj area in 1965. Rai’s name is not in the draft NRC, but says that it does not bother him much.

“Names of my entire family, including that of my father, wife, brother and his wife and three children, are there in the NRC. I will also get my name added to the list as I am genuine,” says Rai. Many of his friends’ names are missing from the draft too, but none is perturbed. “This could possibly be because of the urgency of publishing the draft within the deadline fixed by the Supreme Court,” he says, while adding that he is sure of making it to the final list. However, what does bother him is that it would require going to the NRC office again with his documents.

Rai’s friend Mohd Shakeel, whose family shifted to Assam from Bihar’s Darbhanga district, also has a similar story. In Shakeel’s case, his and his other family members’ names are there, but his father’s is not.

Even though more than 40 lakh people have been left out in the draft NRC, the state has remained peaceful and not a single violent incident has been reported from any part. Chief Minister Sarbanand Sonowal says it is reflective of “people’s faith in the government and the process through which the NRC is being finalised.”

However, many still believe that the real test on the security front will emerge once the process of “claims & objections” kicks off. While talking to people belonging to different social strata, one can easily make out that lines are being drawn to settle the issue of “claims and objections”. While one section is readying to vigorously pursue “objections”, the other is preparing to not only contest these “objections”, but also aggressively go in for settling “claims”.

Faces behind the NRC

Not many know that the petition that started the process of updating the NRC was drafted by Pradip Kumar Bhuyan, an engineer, who passed out of IIT-Kharagpur in 1956. “As we went to Arvind Kumar Sharma, an advocate in Delhi, to represent us in the Supreme Court, he was amazed to see how well the petition had been drafted. He asked if it was drafted by a lawyer,” says Aabhijeet Sharma, president of Assam Public Works (APW), a Guwahati-based NGO. 

While Sharma, a 44-year-old businessman, became the public face of the fight for updating the NRC and kept shuttling between Guwahati and New Delhi for hearings of the petition, media shy Bhuyans stayed in the background. Bhuyan (83) is an industrialist, academician and crusader, while his wife Bonti (76) is one of the main trustees of one of the best private schools in the Northeast.

NRC at a glance

2,89,83,677 
Names included in the draft

40,07,707
Names not included

Rs 1,220 crore
Fund allocated for the 
NRC by the Centre

Officials involved in the 
exercise:

Govt employees: 55,000

Police: 70,000