A free and fair NRC updation in Assam may spell the endgame for BJP

The migration of Muslims of Bengali origin started in the later part of the 19th century. Later, the British administration promoted migration under “grow more food” policy, as Muslims of Bengali origin were hardworking peasants and there were abundant barren lands in present day Assam. Migration was at its peak during the first three decades of the 20th Century. By 1951, the Muslim population of Assam was 24 per cent. After Independence, migration of Muslims to Assam has been almost negligible. Muslims of Bengali origin gave up their mother tongue and accepted the Assamese language, they got assimilated into Assamese culture. It is very rare in history to find such a large number of people having sacrificed their mother tongue for a different language. Today, there is not even a single Bengali medium school in lower Assam districts where there is a concentration of Muslims of Bengali origin.

But despite this, Bengali Muslims have always been harassed, persecuted and massacred in the name of illegal immigrantion. During the Assam Movement, several thousand Muslims were massacred by branding them as illegal immigrants. On February 14, 1983, around 500 Muslims were killed in Chaolkhuwa, in Darrang district. This was followed by the worst massacre Independent India has ever seen. Three thousand three hundred (3,300) Muslims were massacred in Nellie in less than six hours on February 18, 1983, most of them women and children. They were massacred on the pretext that they were “illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. After that, massacre of Muslims became cyclic in Assam and every time Muslims were killed, they were abused for being illegal immigrants. During the 2012 Kokrajhar violence, LK Advani went on record to say that the clash was between Indians and foreigners. When lakhs of people were driven out of their homes, hundreds killed, a senior BJP leader abused the victims as foreigners. This led to scrutiny of papers of Muslims before they could return to their homes. No wonder the authorities didn’t find a single Bangladeshi.

One of the main demands of the Assam Movement was updation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), Assam, in order to detect illegal immigrants. The movement’s leaders formed the state government twice but did not update the NRC while they were in power.

Finally the Hon’ble Supreme Court ordered to update The National Register of Citizens 1951. The entire process to update NRC is being monitored by the Supreme Court bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Nariman.

Fear and apprehensions among Muslims

Muslims in Assam have seen how their neighbours, kins have been harassed and persecuted for being a ‘foreigner’. Till December 2016, a total of 4,68,934 cases were referred to various Foreigners Tribunal. Of them, 2,69,522 cases were disposed of and 80,194 persons were declared foreigners. Altogether 26,026 cases were decided ex-parte. Thus majority people were declared Indian citizens after a rigorous trial. Most of these cases were sent to trial without any prior investigation. Even former Army and Air Force officers, teachers, Assam Police personnel were not spared.

Just because the Tribunal has held someone to be a foreigner does not mean he or she has actually illegally entered India. The Foreigners Tribunal held a person a “foreigner” because of discrepancy, often minor, of age and spelling errors in their name or names in documents of parents or grandparents through whom they claim citizenship, and also for not mentioning certain facts in the pleadings. It is a very peculiar situation where only one person of a family has been declared as a “foreigner”, but the rest of the entire family are Indian citizens. In some cases, more than one family member have been declared “foreigners”. Most of the people who are harassed in the name of illegal immigrants happen to be poor and illiterate. When they are asked to prove their citizenship by Foreigners Tribunal, they appear before the Tribunal through their lawyers. In cases, where people have been declared “foreigners”, their lawyers very often are found incompetent and insincere. In losing cases, the lawyers handle the cases very badly. Thus Indian citizens are being declared as “foreigners” because of technical reasons. Although the Foreigners Tribunal hold these people as “foreigners” for technical reasons, the ground reality remain that these people are Indian citizens. Just that they have failed to prove their citizenship before the Foreigners Tribunal, which is governed by a colonial act, The Foreigners Act, 1946, where the burden of proof is on the accused. In a drive to separate Indians from foreigners, Indian citizens, particularly Muslims, have always been harassed. Muslims in Assam see the NRC as an opportunity to stop the harassment and persecution forever.

But the fear and apprehension arise because of past bitter experiences. Muslims don’t fear the lack of documents supporting their Indian nationality, but because despite possessing all documents they have been persecuted for decades. The only hope is that the NRC updation process is monitored by the Supreme Court.

The process of updating the NRC is not faulty. If a free and fair NRC is published, following Supreme Court's orders and judgment by letter and spirit, no genuine Indian citizen’s name will be dropped. But, the executing authorities of the NRC are directly or indirectly under the influence of the BJP-led government which is hostile towards Muslims. This government rode to power, spewing venom against Muslims, alleging that 35 constituencies were dominated by Bangladeshi Muslims. The entire political future of BJP is at stake in Assam. A free and fair NRC will have names of all those Indian citizens who have been harassed, persecuted, abused and massacred as illegal immigrants all these years. The apprehension of most Muslims is that the state government and some other vested parties might try to manipulate the verification system in attempt to keep the names of many genuine Indian citizens away from the updated NRC.

BJP’s interference in detecting “foreigners”:

After the BJP came to power, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal met all Foreigners Tribunal members and said that the Tribunal members had got a golden opportunity to work for a national cause and they should not let go of such an opportunity, though the Chief Minister meeting members of a judicial body is ultra vires to Article 50 of the Constitution of India.

The service of these judicial officers are on contractual basis for two years or is extended from time to time on need and performance basis.

On June 21, 2017, the state government showed the door to 19 members of the Foreigners Tribunals for their “underperformance” over the last two years. Further, the home department has also issued strict warning to 15 more members of the Foreigners Tribunal asking them to improve their efficacy. The 19 Tribunal members approached the Hon’ble Gauhati High Court. By its judgment dated 22.10.2017, the Hon’ble Gauhati High Court has set aside the termination and stated that the assessment of the performance can not be done by the government and the Gauhati Court should asses the performance of the members of the Foreigners Tribunal. Lawyers who regularly appeared before these 19 members say that they were judicious in their approach and were holding people as Indian citizens if they had proper documents. So, basically this government was annoyed with the fact that these 19 Tribunal members were not declaring Indian citizens to be “foreigners”. Under the BJP rule, results of Foreigners Tribunal have seen a surprising change. Till December 2016, 80,194 people were declared as foreigners since 1985, but the number increased to 93,628 till November 2017. In eleven months alone, 13,434 people have been declared as “foreigners”. Ask any lawyer who appears before Foreigners Tribunal regularly, and he or she will tell you how the attitude of the Tribunal have changed in the last one year. The pressure on the Tribunal members has become very apparent. There are hundreds of Tribunals across Assam. The Hon’ble Supreme Court have increased the number of Tribunal from 36 to 100 to detect foreigners and not to declare Indian citizens as foreigners. Most tragically, many Indian citizens are being declared as foreigners making them stateless; this is only going to create more problem than it solve.

Post Publication of first draft:

Very interesting trends have emerged after the publication of first draft of the NRC. Two days after publication of the first draft of NRC, Shiladittay Ray, a BJP MLA, called a press conference and stated that names of many Bangladeshi Muslims have appeared in the first draft. The BJP has not reprimanded its MLA for such bizarre claims, when the NRC updating process is being monitored by the Supreme Court. Two organisations have filed FIR against the BJP MLA at Latasil Police station, Guwahati. Another Senior BJP MP from Tezpur, RP Singh, also stated before the press that there are 70 lakh Bangladeshi Muslims in Assam. This kind of statement, immediately after publication of the first draft, has raised suspicions. Many see these statements as part of a very well thought out strategy of the BJP. AASU has on record reprimanded the BJP MP and warned him not to derail the process of updating of NRC.

On January 10, Hasen Ali, a Muslim labourer, was picked up by the police personnel of Dhula Police station in Darrang district. He was brutally tortured; his wife says water was continuously poured in his mouth, a torture technique only heard in Guantanamo bay. He died in police custody within a few hours. Next day, when a crowd of 5000 blocked the highway at Dhula protesting the custodial death of Hasen Ali, police opened firing, killing one and injuring several protesters. The person killed in police firing has been identified as Mahidul Islam. The next day a newspaper owned by a powerful BJP Minister came up with a headline that people were told to gather and block highways because of non-appearance of their names in the first draft of the NRC. For ten days, no one raised a whisper because of non-appearance of many names and suddenly a crowd of 5000 gathered to protest? Does the government want to invite a law and order problem? If that is the case, Hasen Ali might have become the first victim of this evil strategy and Mahidul Islam the second.

On January 11, the right-wing e-magazine Swarajya came up with a piece on NRC. It stated, “If the National Register of Citizens succeeds in identifying a huge number of illegal migrants, the BJP will be the only party to benefit politically from the exercise.”

The BJP will try to manulate the updation process and politically benefit from the exercise.

When the NRC application process was on, I toured most Muslim- dominated districts, creating awareness about filing the application forms. Although some were annoyed with the complexities around it but most people saw it as a final process to segregate foreigners from Indian citizens and thereby once and for all stop the harassment and persecution of Muslims in the name of detecting foreigners. Many hailed the Supreme Court for monitoring the entire process. Now with the BJP in power, all hopes lie with the Supreme Court for a free and fair NRC. Akhil Gogoi has termed Justice Ranjan Gogoi as real “Jatiyo Nayak”, this feeling resonates with the Muslims of Assam.