Assam: Zero Citizens

The NRC was meant to end all doubt over who is a citizen and who’s not in the state. But, as the date of the final draft nears, there’s more fear than clarity.

- Anupam Bordoloi and Abdul Gani

Right after a spread of freshly dug ginger laid out to dry under a blazing July sun, the car eases ginge­rly past an elephant feasting on banana leaves off a roadside tree. It’s not a wild one, it belongs to some­one. Savour the various shades of meaning the word ‘belong’ carries: animals belong to people, people bel ong to places. ‘Who belongs here?’ is a question that knives through Assam’s collective being right now, just like this newly macadamised four­lane highway cuts through its physical geography. Even in this remoteness, this picture­postcard Assam, we are not far from a place that would ring a bell across India. A deep, ominous ring. Nellie....

Millennials who have not heard the name may soon be familiarised with what has been called the “worst pogrom since World War II”. Here, though, there are no overt signs of being close to the site of one of history’s flashpoints, and no trace of the bad blood that flows through society’s veins even as we speak. The humid monsoon air holds no visible portents of being able to precipitate some serious trouble. A few ducks laze idly in a pond, unmindful of the children playing merrygo-round close to the bank. A rooster—its magnificent plumage shining in the sun, the rare reprieve of a clear blue sky in this season—rummages through the foliage for worms, close to a bamboo grove. It’s a season rich with prey.