Oh No, Not Again!

As government pushes for NRC repeat, people in the state fear the worst

- Abdul Gani

For the ruling BJP, the NRC is unfinished business. And Assam is only a job half done. The right wing claims that nothing short of “homecoming” of persecuted Hindus from neighbouring countries will ensure closure of a story with roots in the tumultuous Partition on the eastern front. And therein lies the story of the second—and perhaps more controversial—chapter of the NRC. The BJP believes that the names of genuine Indian citizens—most of them Hindus— have been excluded from the NRC.

Union home minister Amit Shah has set the cat among the pigeons by asserting the government’s plans for a pan- India citizenship document and making a second push for the citizenship amendment bill (CAB), which aims to ease the process of getting Indian citizenship for non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has added fuel to the fire by claiming, barely a few months after the 1951 NRC was updated to exclude 1.9 million people, that the state will have to go through the process again.

For lakhs of people in Assam, this could mean another long haul—going through the painful, frustrating process of proving their citizenship all over again. Only, this time around, it could become even more difficult as they might have to prove their Indian roots way back to 1951, that is, 20 years earlier than in the last NRC exercise. Ask the people who have gone through ordeal.