Born In India, Branded Bangladeshi!

On August 31, Assam will publish the final draft of its National Register of Citizens. The NRC will render more than 40 lakh residents—mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims—officially stateless, including families that have been in India for generations. As anger and apprehensions grow, THE WEEK reports on the fault lines that are growing wider

- Rabi Banerjee

Moulavi Muhammad Amiruddin played a pivotal role in putting Assam on the map of independent India. In 1946, the legislative assembly of Assam gathered to discuss whether Assam should be part of India or merge with East Pakistan. Most legislators—34 of 108 legislators were Muslim—wanted to join Pakistan. A few non-Muslim MLAs, too, supported the demand. Sir Syed Muhammad Saadulla, Muslim League leader and the first prime minister of Assam in British India, wanted Assam’s Muslim-dominated regions to be merged with East Pakistan if a complete merger was not possible.

As the first deputy speaker of the assembly, Muhammad Amiruddin played a key role in foiling Saadulla’s project. A member of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, which opposed the partition of India, Amiruddin was a fiery critic of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Muslim League leader who led the Pakistan movement. Amiruddin and Gopinath Bordoloi, Congress leader and chief minister, reached out to all legislators, Muslim and non-Muslims alike, and convinced them to vote for staying in India in a referendum in 1947. Assam became part of the Indian Union after the historic referendum.

Seventy-three years since, Amiruddin’s relatives have been branded as Bangladeshis. Many members of his brother’s family did not figure in last year’s draft of the National Register of Citizens, from which the names of 40 lakh residents were missing. As the foreigners’ tribunal considers their cases, Amiruddin’s relatives are having sleepless nights, fearing that they would be driven out of India after August 31, when the final draft of the NRC is published.