NRC violates constitutional morality, principles of international law.
The case of Mohammad Sanaullah — where Sanaullah, a former soldier, was declared a foreigner by an Assam Tribunal — exposed a gaping hole in the National Register of Citizens. No doubt, the state will scramble to correct the injustice. But for the poor in the state, nobody will bother.
A tribunal meet on the NRC and the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB), 2016, revealed that the Muslim minority in the state is angry at the sheer injustice of millions of them being suddenly declared foreigners. Some have been put in detention centres in violation of international law. According to the National Human Rights Commission, they face deplorable conditions. They are terrified as they anticipate employment termination and denial of government health and education services.
On the other hand, the indigenous and tribal people of Assam are fed-up with what they consider to be their growing marginalisation: Unchecked in-migration has continued despite the Assam Accord of 1985, an enactment intended to curb in-migration. They are furious at the central government-proposed CAB, which will regularise millions of migrants. Fortunately, leading members of both communities have displayed extraordinary statesmanship. The highlight of the meet was an exchange with some tribal leaders who, when asked if they would press for deportation of those declared “foreigners,” answered — off-the-record — that they would not take such an extreme stand. Rather, they said the burden of in-migration ought not be on Assam alone.
Civil society is categorical that governments, in the past, betrayed them by not implementing the Assam Accord, and wants effective protection of the rights of the indigenous including prohibition of land transfers: They have become a rapidly shrinking minority in their own land. And the proposal to enact the CAB is seen as the last straw.
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