National Register of Citizens

A Frankenstein Monster

- WARIS MASIH, Journalist & Social Activist, New Delhi

The Indian Democracy has its own peculiarities which sometimes do seem to erode off the moral undertone of our social edifice. Rule by majority is more often than not accentuated as rule by the majoritarian sentiment, regardless of how valid that sentiment is with respect to law and humanity. What such situations underscore is that it is not always prudent to accede to the uninformed and high-handed desire of the majority population. Democracy, in essence, is also the need to secure rights for those who have been at the receiving end of the cycle of politics and ethnic conundrums. National Register of Citizenship (NRC) is emblematic of the fact that the Indian State no longer heeds to the settled humanitarian practices, international law and even its own Constitution. The instant attempt in Assam, to segregate citizens and non-citizens through NRC, is an attempt by the Indian State to obfuscate justice and keep the communal pot burning. The ostensible purpose is to evacuate from the State, illegal immigrants who barged in from East Pakistan in 1971.