Minting a huge humanitarian crisis with national citizenship register in Assam
Hong Kong, August 30, 2018
A Written Submission to the 39th Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council by the Asian Legal Resource Centre
The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) wishes to draw the attention of the United Nations Human Rights Council to the draft National Register
of Citizens (NRC) that India has recently launched in the North Eastern state of Assam and its far reaching consequences not only for
the country but also for South Asia as a region and the world too.
The ALRC also wishes to draw the attention of the Council to the fact that the final draft list leaves a whopping 4,007,707 persons out of a
total of 32,991,384 people who had applied. The exercise is accused of gross negligence despite being mandated and monitored by the Supreme
Court of India.
The final draft is full of problems ranging from personal tragedies like that of a single family member left out of hundred plus members
of an extended joint families to at places whole communities are being left out. Those excluded include even persons like family members of a
former president of India, veterans of Indian security forces, policemen, kith and kin of legislators to the poor who have no papers to show.
Many of those excluded complain of reasons behind their exclusion being subjective biases and the inherent flaws in the NRC of 1951 and
the electoral rolls of 1961 and 1971 that make up the core of the ‘legacy data’. There are many cases in which the direct descendants of those figuring in the NRC of 1951 having been left out
from the final draft. The primary reasons behind this include clerical errors resulting in misspelt names right from the parents to those of the claimants now, mismatched relationships and so on. Most of the
people being very poor and living in areas routinely affected by floods have also lost their documents.
There are also large-scale complaints of the sectarian biases based on
linguistic identity having played against even genuine claims of many
of those left out. Chief Minister of West Bengal, a state neighbouring
Assam, has complained of Bengali speakers having borne the brunt of
the exercise with about 3.8 million of those left out from the NRC, or
almost ninety percent, consisting of them.
There have also been allegations about a systemic bias against
Muslims, a religious minority community in India and Dalits, erstwhile
victims of untouchability now protected by the constitution and listed
as Scheduled Castes. Matua Mahasangha, a religious organisation
consisting principally of Namashudra Dalits with origins in
Bangladesh, gives credence to this argument and claimed most of those
affected are members of the community.
The argument gets further support from the fact that India has seen a
continuous influx of Hindu refugees, mostly poor Dalits, fleeing
persecution in Bangladesh. Studies estimate the total numbers of those
who came to India seeking refuge at around 11 million, settled mostly
in West Bengal, Assam and Tripura.
Though both the government and Supreme Court of India have promised
another chance to all those left out to prove their citizenship along
with no coercive measures against them till then, many fear losing
their citizenships as all the documents they had have already been
produced. Estimates of those finally left out are as high as 2 million.
Further complicating the situation is the fact of Bangladesh’s stern
refusal of having anything to do with those left out. Authorities in
Bangladesh have already called this issue an ‘internal matter of
India with ethnic undertones’. This effectively turns those finally
left out as stateless people with nowhere to go adding almost 2
million to already huge number of 10 million people currently
estimated to be stateless.
That gives rise to the fear of large internment camps for those
excluded from the final NRC list, violation of their human rights and
another humanitarian crisis for the world.
In light of this, the ALRC urges the Council to:
1. Ask the government of India to exercise extreme cautiousness in the
registration of the citizens and ensure that not a single genuine
citizen of India is left out because of clerical errors or a lack of
documents missing because of reasons beyond the control of applicants.
2. Ask the government of India to mobilise all authorities in the
state of Assam as well as other states like West Bengal, Bihar and
others from where many of the people excluded from the draft list come
from to cross check their claims and help them secure their documents.
3. Ask the government of India to take concrete measures to dispel the
allegations of discrimination against people on the basis of religion
and caste and that nobody is denied citizenship because of
discrimination.
4. Ask the government of India to urgently engage with the government
of Bangladesh to find solutions in case of people still getting left
out of the NRC as it claims that most of the ‘illegal’ immigrants
are from Bangladesh.
5. Ask the government of India to not take any coercive action and
deny people of their fundamental human rights and work for a
humanitarian solution to the impending crisis.
The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) works towards the radical
rethinking & fundamental redesigning of justice institutions in Asia,
to ensure relief and redress for victims of human rights violations,
as per Common Article 2 of the International Conventions. Sister
organisation to the Asian Human Rights Commission, the ALRC is based
in Hong Kong & holds general consultative status with the Economic &
Social Council of the United Nations.
Asian Human Rights Commission
G/F
52 Princess Margaret Road
Ho Man Tin, Kowloon
Hongkong S.A.R.
Web: www.humanrights.asia
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* This Press Release was sent to e-pao.net by Asian Human Rights Commission who can be contacted at www.humanrights.asia
This Press Release was posted on September 03 2018
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