Assam NRC: The Supreme Court of India failed by state apathy - Part 3
How is the Final Draft NRC?
Striking off 40 lakh people's names from the draft NRC is certainly a big issue. The NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela affirmed in the SC on July 31, 2018 that between 30 August and 28 September, 2018, in 30 days, he would “complete receipt of claims and/or objections”. It means he is going to process about 1.33 lakh forms in a day without even a Sunday break during this period! Mr. Hajela better knows how he is going to execute this mounting task in this short span of time. Or he is going to produce one more erroneous final list which will definitely be troublesome for the state of Assam and even for whole of India.
The prominent names missing from the final NRC draft, just to mention a few, are Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Morigaon – Ramakanta Dewri, former Deputy Speaker of Assam Assembly and present BJP MLA from Silchar – Dilip Kumar Paul’s wife Archana Paul, two times former MLA from Katigorah of Cachar district – Maulana Ataur Rahman Mazarbhuiya, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) MLA from Abhayapuri South (SC) – Anata Kumar Malo, Retired Subedar, Indian Army – Ajmal Haque, India’s former President Dr. Fakaruddin Ali Ahmed’s nephew Ziyauddin Ali Ahmed et al.
There are a number of cases, rather lapses which make no sense. These typical set of clerical or official slips could surely be avoided to make the list a smooth step towards achieving the real objective of the NRC by reducing number of genuine citizen's names from delisting. One of my students – Zuber Ahmad, 26, from Hojai district of Assam, is worried because his mother's name was not found in the final draft of NRC.
The lady 48 year old – Fuljan Begum’s father, mother, brothers and sisters from parent's side are listed. Similarly her husband, sons and daughters from in laws side are also in the final draft. Moreover, her name appeared many times as daughter, wife and mother, in linkage data, in this very NRC list, but her own name got struck off as citizen from the draft! It is quite peculiar, as if her 4 children – all sons, were directly dropped from the heaven without her being, or the lady has given birth to all these children, who all are adult now and citizens of India, being in abroad- both are impossible situations in common sense. However, this uncommon has already happened in July 30 complete NRC draft publication in Assam of India.
The Indian Expresses reported a case from Barpeta district of Assam in its July 30 online publication. The long article carries various anomalies, one of them reads: “Many like Farhad Bhuyan of Barpeta’s Bohori town was there to check his name early this morning at the NRC Seva Kendra (NSK). Bhuyan was shocked when he found that he was the only member in his family of four, whose name did not find a mention in the list. “When the first draft was published in January, none of us were there. Apparently, it was a problem with the way my father’s name had been spelt. I was then called for a re-verification process where I submitted all the necessary documents and even got three senior citizen witnesses to prove my father’s identity. Even the officials told me that I should not worry. And yet today, my name is not there,” he says. While Bhuyan is certain that it is a technical glitch that has prevented his name from appearing in the list, he is still worried. “My family came to Assam in the 1800s. I know I am an Indian citizen, but what if another ‘technical’ glitch happens. I won’t even know what to do,” he says.”
In my office there are five young men from Assam. Three of them are victims of the final NRC draft. Shamim Uddin, 28, from Karimganj, Assam has six brothers and 3 sisters from two mothers. Everyone from his family, including his cousins and uncles, all 20 members of the extended family, are listed in the final draft except he, whereas, he has an Indian passport, issued last year. Dilwar Hussain, 22, from Badarpur LAC, missed the list with his mother and younger sister from the family of six. His father, two brothers – one younger and one elder, however, are enlisted in the NRC draft. Anwar Hussain, 23, again from Badarpur LAC of Karimganj district in Assam has two brothers, two sisters and parents back home. From this family of seven, 6 are in the final draft, including Hussain, but his youngest sister – ten year old Sharmin Begum could not meet the criteria of local NRC authority, thus the young child is left out, which is a major cause of stress for young Hussain, who works with Eastern Crescent, Mumbai.
These were the incidences where certain family members’ names did not come in the NRC draft, obviously due to clerical sluggishness and official negligence, else how a 10 year old girl-child Sharmin, could be left out of the list, when her parents all siblings are included? The second set of cases, where names are enlisted in the draft NRC, are rather hilarious.
One Mohammad Azizur Rahman has four sons and a daughter. All 5 children are adult with separate families and their own children. As per the NRC guidelines the 4 sons applied for NRC registration with proper documents under different application registration numbers (ARNs). They have same father, obviously they all attached the same documents of their father as linkage as well as legacy data in all 4 applications having different ARNs. Their names including all family members are listed in the draft NRC, but Mohammad Azizur Rahman, their father's name, appeared with four different ways in all four places. At one place it is Azizul Rehaman, at other Azizur Rahman, without Mohammad, in 3rd it is Mohamed Ajijul, without Rahman and part of name Azizur became Ajijul; and in the fourth place it appeared as Aijul Haq, the whole name is changed altogether! It looks that the typist has decided to innovate with this name and entered a new name in all four places. Now the sons will have to find a way out, since it may be troublesome for them in future. They submitted their father's and grant parents' documents which clearly mention their father's name as Mohammad Azizur Rahman to the NRC officials at local NSK!
Samir with “Samyy Nan” nickname, on facebook from Assam comments: “In the final draft, the names of my mother and two brothers are included but my name could not make a place. So it seems I have been included in this family unnaturally. Moreover, there are mistakes in my elder brother's name and in all the surnames. So in spite of being an real inhabitant of India, I have to knock the doors of legal process to prove myself as an Indian and it is only and only due to the incompetence and insincere work of NRC team.”
NDTV India’s political editor and the author of ‘Behind the Bar’ Sunetra Choudhury twitted:
“I heard @AmitShah says those not on #NRCAssam are ‘ghuspaith’ or infiltrators. My cousin a top Guwahati doctor, her mother, my uncle in Tezpur are all now branded that? This despite giving all papers! What mental torture (is this?)”
While many people have found their names on the list, there are spelling errors and other kinds of slips. “Sometimes a man’s photo has appeared against a woman’s name. Surnames, genders and family relations have been bungled up. At times, only the middle and last name have been published or a single name is only in the list. If someone is from Daulatpur village, it shows up as Dahrampur,” says one Salma from Assam to Indian Express journalist.
Such typo errors are uncalled for, professionally unacceptable and this has unnecessarily added troubles even for the people whose names are already in the draft list. A glance on the draft reveals that such typo-mistakes are uncountable. This indicates how serious the state machinery might have been while preparing a list of such a paramount importance. How come a blunder be repeated 4 times with a single name such as in the case of Mohammad Azizur Rahman?
These cases, as aforementioned, rightly indicate that among the 40 lakhs, a big number could have been left out simply because of clerical apathy. This is not done. It does not make sense at all. The honorable Supreme Court of India is failed by the system. May be due to such silly mistakes by BLOs, typists and clerks, the system might have put lakhs of people in trouble as well as in stress. They will have to run from pillar to post, for how many days, months and year they do not know yet, to register their names in the list once again.
Who is responsible for this mess? Who will pay for all these extra use of private and public resources? The whole process has been extremely painful and costly for the poor and less aware peasants. Maulana Mahmood Daryabadi, General Secretary of Mumbai based All India Ulama Council rightly demanded for a thorough enquiry in to the causes of this massively erroneous list and asked for punishment against the culprits. Maulana Daryabadi’s press statement was carried largely by national Urdu press on August 2, 2018 where he said. “…let the extra costs be borne by the Assam state government employees who carried out the process in the field or by the Wipro Company which manages the NRC website, as it was appointed as the system integrator to update it.” Wipro employs data entry executives who update the NRC.
Delhi based All India Majlis-e Mushawar president, Navaid Hamid, penned a piece of article following 30 July final NRC draft publication in Assam which was carried by online news portal millattimes.com in the same evening. Mr. Hamid titled his article as ‘NRC exercise in Assam is a fraudulent exercise to steal citizenship of genuine Indians’.
However, Assamese people want NRC update work be done properly and professionally. They want to move ahead of this Hindu - Muslim, Assamese - Bengali and; indigenous and non-indigenous politicking now and focus on real development issues. Assam witnessed enough bloodshed in the past; it may need peace and unity as priority, nonetheless, an accurate NRC is everyone’s dream. This half-done work by Prateek Hajela’s team created additional issues with some hope and some dismay.
The author M. Burhanuddin Qasmi is Assamese native and editor of Eastern Crescent, Mumbai
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