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The misadventure of a new citizenship regime (Why NRC is infeasible and illegitimate)
Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment
- Count, count, count: Indian state loves to count its citizens. For census 2021, a 10-yr project of household level data gathering is now completed by Office of Registrar General (ORG) and Census Commissioner. Individual data will be uploaded soon, to make the NPR (national population register) and the Census 2021. 123 crore Aadhar cards are already issued!
- NRC coming: The govt. now wants a National Register of Citizens (NRC), with a focus not on 'residents' but 'citizens'. It will include and exclude, because "weeding out infiltrators" is a goal now.
- Feasibility and legitimacy: NRC's rationale depends on these two aspects.
- Under Foreigners' Act 1946, individuals have to prove they are not foreigners, as charged by State!
- Citizenship Act has no method for identifying aliens. The S.C. struck down IMDT Act in 2005 (Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act)
- NRC will place the complete population under suspicion, and then begin elimination!
- The state is unable to secure its borders (hence illegal immigration is happening) and it has no method of detecting aliens - so now NRC!
- A huge exercise is being launched to meet a very small objective.
- Cost of NRC: Moral issues aside, the cost will be prohibitive. Assam NRC for just 3.3 crore people costed Rs.1600 cr, with 50000 officials working for many years, and produced a flawed output. For entire India, cost will be more than Rs.4 lakh crore!
- Consider a total of 87.9 crore electors. India will have to deploy 1.33 crore officials, when our total govt. force is 2.9 crore.
- If only Central govt. decides to do it, several crore new jobs can be generated (!)
- Time taken will be at least 10 years and entire population of India will become engrossed
- Massive new number of detention centres will have to be built
- The poor, illiterate who have forever lived in India but have no acceptable documentation will be worst-hit
- Many illegals (possessing better documentation) will get in and many genuine Indians (with poor documentation) will be out
- Suicides will rise sharply (Assam case)
- Cut-off date: March 1971 is irrelevant outside Assam. The date of July 1948 is not possible due to many provisions in constitution, and judicial pronouncements. No clarity yet on whether NRC is voluntary or compulsory, and what happens to those who refuse to be listed?
- Northeastern protests: Many NE states don't want it at all, as the ethnic tribes fear having non-ethnic people formally solidified amongst them. Centre has to take States' permission before doing anything. (In Arunachal Pradesh, Chakma and Hajong tribals never got citizenship due to political reasons, despite SC decision)
- Excluded and Preferred: The core idea in NRC is simple – nearly all infiltrators are Bangladeshi Muslims and their rights must be taken away. Hence the Citizenship Amendment Bill will fast-track citizenship for everyone except Muslims. (on grounds of religious persecution - without evidence)
- NRC creates pathways for exclusion
- CAB creates pathways for preferred groups
- CAB excludes persecuted minorities like Rohingyas and Ahmadiyas
- Relationship: Despite loud claims that CAB and NRC are unrelated, the larger message to all Muslims in India is clear. The trend established by vigilante violence, triple talaq legislation, Article 370 reading down is clear. Muslims must behave like second-class citizens in New India.
- Final outcome: The concept of citizenship in 1947 was totally different from what is sought to be created now.
- The Constituent Assembly settled on 'jus soli' (birth-based citizenship) as modern and civilized. It rejected the descent-based 'jus sanguinis' citizenship.
- That shift from soil to blood started in 1985. In 2004, the new law said a child born in India with one illegal migrant parent could not claim citizenship.
- NRC and CAB will consolidate a shift to 'jus sanguinis'.
- Total shift: India till date was a civic-national conception. Now it is being moved towards an ethno-national conception. Identity will determine grades of citizenship. India may end up losing its historical qualities of humaneness and hospitality, and the plural social fabric may be destroyed forever.
- Summary : The NRC-CAB combine is designed to change India from a civic-national country to an ethno-national country, with a parallel loss of historical virtues like pluralism and humaneness.
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