[Many Indians might lose their rights as citizens because of clerical errors or a lack of documents, said Aman Wadud, a human rights lawyer. It also means that Bangladesh — which is sheltering more than 1 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, also known as Burma, on its southern border — could see a new influx of stateless migrants from the north.]
By
Vidhi Doshi , Reporter
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People
whose names were left out of the National Register of Citizens draft stand
in line to
collect forms to file appeals in Mayong, India, on Aug. 10.
(Anupam Nath/AP)
|
GUWAHATI,
India — The list drew lines through villages, divided
families and caused chaos in communities.
The Indian state of Assam last month put out
a draft of the National Register of Citizens that excluded 4 million people who
claimed to be Indian, part of a wider campaign to “detect-delete-deport” as
many as 20 million illegal immigrants from Muslim-majority Bangladesh. Last
week, many of those excluded in Assam began submitting applications to find out
why they were left off the list — the first step in what could be months of
limbo and cumbersome legal battles to prove their nationality.
“I cried,” said Sumiron Nessa, in her early
20s, who found out last month that both she and her mother were not on the list.
She has no birth certificate or document to prove she owns land, only school
records, which were rejected without explanation.
“I am a student. I am an Indian,” Nessa said.
“Why do I have to go through all this to prove it?”
The citizens’ register is part of a
multipronged effort to remove foreigners from Assam. The state
has a long, porous border and has wrestled with illegal immigration for
decades. But critics say the list effectively disenfranchises the millions of
people who have been excluded, the majority of them Muslim.
Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said
that Indian citizens left off the list will have opportunities to prove their
nationality, but that has not assuaged the fears of minorities, especially
Muslims, who feel targeted by the policy.
Villagers of Hathishola, a verdant
paddy-growing village about 40 miles from the state’s capital, raised the issue
one recent Thursday morning to Akram Hussein, the ex-president of the village.
About a third of his mostly Muslim village —
4,886 people — is facing scrutiny for having insufficient proof of Indian
nationality. Poring over papers, Hussein tried to identify the flaws in their
documents: One man had misspelled his father’s name, he pointed out; another
had no birth certificate, and so could not prove her connection to her father,
raising questions about her ancestry.
Some cases baffled him. A pair of twins who
had submitted nearly identical documents were told that one was on the list and
the other was not.
Hussein said that the registry was being used
to legitimize racist abuse against Bengali-speakers and Muslims, who have
become targets of xenophobic abuse.
“We were born in Assam, we practice Assamese
culture,” he said. “But they call us Bengali. Many people have started speaking
only Assamese outside their home for fear of being mocked.”
Many Indians might lose their rights as
citizens because of clerical errors or a lack of documents, said Aman Wadud, a
human rights lawyer. It also means that Bangladesh — which is sheltering more
than 1 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, also known as Burma, on its
southern border — could see a new influx of stateless migrants from the north.
India would need Bangladesh’s cooperation to
deport migrants, and there have been no formal talks between the two countries
on the matter. Speaking to television channel News 18, Bangladeshi Minister of
Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan said the country would consider taking back
migrants if their Bangladeshi citizenship could be proven.
“We share a very good relationship with
India, and due to this excellent relationship, we believe that India will not
push them to Bangladesh in haste,” he said.
Efforts to deport Bangladeshis have a
decades-long history in Assam. In 1985, India’s government signed the Assam
Accord, which made all undocumented migrants to the state after 1971 illegal.
Over the years, Bengali speakers have faced repeated rounds of xenophobic
violence.
“We cannot compromise our identity,” said
Samujjal Bhattacharjya, chief adviser to the All Assam Students Union, which
has been at the forefront of an anti-immigrant campaign in the state. “We
cannot feel like second-class citizens here.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election in
2014 gave new momentum to the movement to remove foreigners from Assam. Amit
Shah, president of the governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), labeled the unlisted 4 million “infiltrators.”
Since 2015, more than 62,000 government
workers waded through 66 million documents from 33 million applicants who
claimed Indian citizenship. But establishing a person’s citizenship is
especially difficult in the poorest parts of India, and the list they produced
has been repeatedly criticized. Even relatives of India’s former president,
according to local media, were unable to show documents to prove ancestry in
India.
The government asked for legacy documents
that show land ownership, voting records, or residency in India since before
1971.
Those who were born in India after 1971 or
who don’t have legacy documents were asked to show links to parents or
relatives who passed the test for citizenship — and that’s where many people,
especially women, stumble. Many who sought Hussein’s help had proof that their
fathers had voted in an election in 1966 but no birth certificates to show that
they were their father’s daughters. Women are especially vulnerable because
land is usually passed down to male heirs and so they don’t appear on documents
proving ownership or inheritance.
Assam has seen waves of migration from
present-day Bangladesh for generations, before India or Bangladesh existed as
independent nations. Many Muslim Assamese, whose Bengali language resembles
Bangladesh’s, claim their ancestors migrated here during World War II under a
campaign by British colonial rulers to increase production on farms.
Another wave of migrants was given refuge in
India during Bangladesh’s war for independence from Pakistan in 1971, in which
the army’s brutal campaigns raised death tolls to more than 300,000, according
to some estimates.
Prateek Hajela, the Supreme Court-mandated
coordinator of the National Register of Citizens, said the list did not
specifically target Muslims and that many Hindus were also among the unlisted.
“Whosoever has got left out has the
opportunity to appeal,” he said, adding that the process was not flawed but
instead “incomplete.”
“Whatever we have done is for the
identification of citizens,” he said. “It is the result of the anti-immigration
issues raised by the people of Assam.”
Chandrani Sinha contributed to this report.
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