Assam NRC: The Supreme Court of India failed by state apathy - Part 2
Concerns Raised in NRC Process
The concerns expressed by Maulana Ajmal are, nonetheless, worthy of attention. The issue roiled both the upper and lower houses of the Indian Parliament following this draft publication for days, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s cry of foul play in the process and Congress MP from Silchar – one of Assam’s Bengali dominated areas, Sushmita Dev’s objections, are all but recorded apprehensions about the conduct and process of this work. Prateek Hajela, the Assam NRC Coordinator, could not execute his task well.
There have been some serious questions in the past too as how the direct descendents of a recorded freedom fighter - Maulana Mohammad Amiruddin, and the first deputy speaker of Assam State Council as well as State Assembly between 1937 and 1946 are slapped with foreigner tags and they have been hanging at the courts of Foreigners Tribunal for years on? The Awaaz petition, launched online on 12 July 2018 and addressed to the UN Secretary General, gathered around 7.5 lakh signatures till 29 July before the draft publication and 816,500 signatures till 1st August, 2018, after the final draft released, which alleged that publication of the NRC "will lead to mass violence, ethnic cleansing and the transfer of minority Muslims to prison camps for life".
The Assam Congress has alleged that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is interfering with the work of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) authority. "We have come to know that of late the NRC authority is facing problems in working as per the guidelines of the Supreme Court or its own. We believe the BJP is interfering with the works of the NRC update to reap political gain out of it," said Ripun Bora, President of Assam Pradesh Congress Committee, while talking to media in Guwahati. (www.ummid.com 17 July, 2018)
The Assam Tribune, popular English daily in northeast, carried a civil society meeting report in Guwahati in its 28 July 2018 publication, ‘Public meeting calls for preparation of correct NRC’. The news item reads: “It is also believed by many minority people that there is a conspiracy to exclude their names from the updated NRC by dubbing them as ‘D’ voters. Some people in power are also provoking the common people with irresponsible statements on the NRC update process.”
Giant media groups such as India Today, Outlook and Frontline magazines have carried public apprehensions in their successive cover stories about the process of NRC and aftermath implications. Apex NGOs such as Jamiat Ulama-e Hind (JUH), Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and All Assam Muslim Student Union (AAMSU) put repeated objections and met with delegations from NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela to Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, to Assam Governor and Central Home Minister Rajnath Singh expressing their anxiety that the process of NRC registrations was not going on as per the Supreme Court of Indi’s guidelines. It may create further confusion when the draft got published.
Following the publication of the NRC final draft on 30 July 2018 all apprehensions were proven right. We will analyze what a mess Mr. Hajela’s team made of a dream NRC of Assamese people in the next paragraphs and how the historic work has been spoiled by state apathy and official lethargy.
Credit game with NRC Draft
The National Register of Citizens (NRC) final draft is released on July 30, 2018 in Assam, in accordance with the Supreme Court order dated July 2, 2018. Thanks to the SC of India for its strong and decisive stand to bring out the draft list by all means. It is only because of SC that the NRC process, which formally resume in May 2015 when Tarun Gogoi led Congress government was ruling the Sate, could come out with roughly 50 percent of work done in four years under Sonowal led BJP government. The budget approved for the whole task up to 12 December 2018 was Rs. 1220.93 crores. Assam's people are therefore, skeptical and are expressing views in so so or fifty – fifty moods.
Notably the NRC process in Assam was actually conceptualized in 2005 by Manmohan Singh led Congress government in Delhi and Tarun Gogoi led government in Assam following a tripartite meeting with AASU. It was officially launched and begun working in 2010. However, AAMSU and some other minority organizations were not convinced with its modalities. They resorted to protest against the process, as a result 4 Muslim students were shot dead and 50 plus people were seriously injured in Barpeta. The Assam government had to call back the NRC process temporarily. “Violence erupted in minority - dominated areas in lower Assam during a State-wide bandh called to protest the death of four students in police firing as the government temporarily suspended update of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which led to the tension.” (The Hindu, July 22, 2010)
While hearing on the Writ Petition (Civil) No. 274/2009 by Assam Public Works (APW) versus Union of India and others, the Supreme Court of India took a decisive stand and passed orders asking the Union and State governments to finish the NRC updating work within a limited time frame in 2013. It also observed that the Court itself would monitor the process then onward and directed the governments to prepare the detailed modalities of the work and submit it before the Court. “In pursuance of the Supreme Court's direction, the exercise of NRC update in Assam commenced in December 2013 to be completed over a period of three years. The Supreme Court is continuously monitoring the progress of NRC update and has given various directions from time to time.” (Press Information Bureau Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, 04-April-2018). However, the government again failed to practically streamline the process from December 2013 which instead actually resume to work from May 2015 following repeated exhortations of the SC during Gogoi led Congress government.
The NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela deserves part of appreciation and applauds for his personal sincerity and hard work. His teamwork could have been better. He is failed by the state machinery. Apathy, interference and untrained BLOs (Block Level Officers) affected Hajela's performance.
The draft list in hand is a mess today. Let alone 40 lakh names left out, how he will correct all errors in the existing draft is a major question too! This author has checked 100 names of family members and friends from one district – Karimganj, who are listed in the final draft but shockingly 86 of these enlisted ones are faulty? Spelling errors, glitch in gender, mess up in family relationship – wife, mother, daughter; husband and son are misplaced senselessly in the list. This is undoubtedly a serious issue about authenticity, accuracy and usability of such a list in future.
The sole objective of the NRC has been to prepare a list in which all genuine Indians up to March 1971 and their descendents are included and all foreigners are excluded, once and for all, and settle the foreigners or illegal Bangladeshi migrants issue forever from Assam. The draft list could achieve only part of the objective; it could have scored better if the state machinery would have performed more professionally.
In this backdrop, chest thumping by BJP president Amit Shah in Rajya Sabha on July 31, 2018 where he stated, “Congress government could not brave to bring NRC in Assam, we have courage and our governments did bring it,” sounds just one more misplaced joke to the nation. He also asked the opposition parties in the upper house of the Parliament, ‘whom do you want to protect, these 40 laks Bangladeshis, who are not listed in the NRC?’ This indicates either Mr. Shah is utterly naïve about Assam and NRC update process or he is simply twisting facts to polarize common people and gain political mileage somewhere out of Assam.
The names of Bharatiya Janata Party’s sitting MLA from Morigaon – Ramakanta Dewri and Ex Deputy Speaker, present BJP MLA from Silchar – Dilip Kumar Paul’s wife Archana Paul are also not listed, with other popular social, political and academic names, in the final NRC draft of Assam. Does it mean that the BJP’s national president Mr Shah is accepting that at least his one MLA is Bangladeshi and other one is a husband of a Bangladeshi wife! This is unwise politics and uncalled-for rhetoric.
BJP or any political party – national or regional, has least role in making of this yet to be completed NRC update in Assam. Politics rather kept dragging the issue to befool respective party electors. All credits, if any, are due to the Supreme Court of India for its long persuasions, especially Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman; and the original applicant behind Assam Public Works (APW) Writ Petition – Pradip Kumar Bhuyan, who has been following this issue since 2006.
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