NRC: A pointless exercise

NRC: A pointless exercise
Activists of the Hindu Yuba-Chattra Parishad burn copies of NRC list in Guwahati

The BJP’s electoral calculations. And its sectarian imagination

The 'final' version of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam was published on Saturday. By downsizing the number of people excluded, from a little over 40 lakh people to a little under 20 lakh, it has pleased almost no one, including significant sections of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in power in the state and at the Centre, and its coalition partner in Assam, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP).

When the BJP-led coalition came to power in Assam in 2016, it lost no time in stepping on the gas as far as expediting work on the NRC was concerned. Parallel to this the central government began work on an amendment to the Citizenship Act. To recollect, the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 was tabled in the Lok Sabha in July 2016.

It proposed to relax existing provisions for granting citizenship to illegal Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Parsi and Sikh refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. It doesn't require a great feat of logical deduction to figure out that the aim of the Bill was to regularise the status of illegal Hindu migrants from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Nor does one have to be especially observant to realise that the only religious group missing from the list was constituted by Muslims.

That this Bill would have violated Article 14 of the Constitution is for the moment irrelevant because it was not passed by both Houses and has now lapsed. But the determination of the government to pass the Bill provoked widespread protests in the Northeast, including in Assam. What the BJP got wrong was its reading of Indian sociology, which applies to the NRC exercise as well.

You don't have to do Indian Sociology 101 to know that Indian society is not just divided along religious lines; it is also fractured along linguistic, ethnic and other lines. In the Northeast, the religious factor does not trump ethnic and linguistic factors. Thus, for instance, in Assam, the 'indigenous' people are as opposed to the influx of Bengali-speaking Muslims as they are to Bengali-speaking Hindu settlers. That made the citizenship bill a red rag.

That has, it now transpires, made the NRC problematic. it cannot countenance the fact that many Indian citizens who migrated to Assam before 1971 (the cut-off year) have been left out: and, paradoxically, it is unhappy at the drastic fall in the number of those excluded. Both the positions were underlined by Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who tweeted: "I reiterate that as requested by the central and state governments at least 20% re-verification (border districts) and 10% re-verification (remaining districts) should be allowed by Hon'ble Apex court for a correct and fair NRC." Assam BJP chief Ranjeet Kumar Das echoed these twin concerns: the exclusion of 'genuine' citizens from the register and the inclusion of many who were not meant to be in the final list.

The BJP's conflicted loyalties arise precisely from its initial inability to read the social fissures in Assam. That could be the reason for Das being cagey on the question of reviving the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 (CAB). "We are not saying we will bring back the CAB, but we will explore protective measures for Indians rejected by the NRC, including through amendment of existing legislation," he said.

There is a four-month window for appealing against exclusion at foreigners' tribunals, 400 of which are to be set up soon, and more if required. There is, logically speaking, the possibility that the approximately 19 lakh exclusions will fall further. That is likely to cause a mixture of relief and dissatisfaction in Assam: relief that some genuine citizens will get their due and dissatisfaction because the register will become leaner.

Despite these contretemps, BJP units in other parts of India are pushing hard for a countrywide NRC. Party leaders in Delhi, Jharkhand Telangana and West Bengal have demanded NRC exercises in their states. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad has done the same for Bihar, while BJP national secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya has demanded a countrywide NRC, thereby nationalising the issue.

Let's take a look at some facts. The Assam NRC exercise cost Rs 12,000 crore, according to Assam Public Works, whose petition in the Supreme Court initiated the process of updating the register six years ago. It has satisfied practically no one. If preparing a roll for just one state, albeit one with a very complex demographic problem, cost the exchequer this amount and took all of six years, even after being monitored by the Supreme Court, it should not take much effort to imagine what would happen to an exercise on a nationwide scale. Moreover, Assam had a role in preparing the NRC. It is not clear what would happen if a state refused to allow an NRC exercise.

Given all these facts, and the Assam exercise, it is clear that the attempt to nationalise the NRC is based on electoral calculations, especially in Bengal, at the heart of which lies the BJP's sectarian imagination.
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