Citizenship and compassion (Issue of immigrants)

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Citizenship and compassion (Issue of immigrants)

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• Assam NRC a reminder of incongruity of nation-state definition: The horror we see in Assam situation today reminds us that 19th c. definition of a nation-state purely on “borders” may be inappropriate for the 21st century. Evil has been banalised due to the scale of suffering  and its reduction to a cost-benefit scenario
• Indian detention camps: We rarely have used them, except in the 1962 China war situation against Indians of Chinese origin.  CONCEPT
• A governance problem turned into electoral opportunity : The NRC project’s results have been turned into a Panopticon (the circular prison design of Jeremy Bentham, 18th century)!  The bureaucracy is playing God, and each citizen is under surveillance.  Brute majoritarianism is sought to be revived.  CONCEPT
• Legal and illegal: In a long history punctuated by British-induced migration, the Partition and the Bangladesh war, now legality rests purely on “certificates” – stamped papers. Those who have grown deep roots, but don’t have the papers, are not legal!
• What do we mean by “citizen”? Is it land, residence, identity, cultural roots, language, ethnicity etc., or is it a clerical endorsement in the form of a certificate?
• “Infiltrator”: This term itself makes people look suspect! Three points made by the West Bengal CM were 
1. Infiltrators and refugees are different categories, 
2. Respect for history is important, and it cannot be reduced to one point in time, 
3. The ruling party is playing the infiltrator, by panopticonising entire Assam into a prison.
• Idea of the commons, and hospitality of the community: This hard method is at odds with such historical truths.  Is the ruling party rousing the old hatred between Bengal and Assam? Is it officialising parochialism, hiding behind the veil of sovereignty and security?
• Treatment of large populations: Assam is an example for the the issues of triage as well as exterminism. Triage = how a doctor assigns the urgency of wounds, to decide the order of treatment of a large mass of wounded Exterminism = the last stage of civilisation Assam cannot be handled through raw power of law. It needs generosity, compassion and hospitality. Because there is the real risk that once India starts accepting the idea of detention camps, then no one is safe 
• Can we? The question we need to ask is “Can we manage some amount of disorder to sustain a plural vision of democracy?”
• Summary : The Assam NRC exercise poses the fundamental question to Indian democracy – can we turn into a humanist, plural society, or slump into a surveillance state with no compassion.

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