The total population of Assam is 3 crore 20 lakh. About a third of them are Muslim. Assam is the largest Muslim state after Kashmir. Many of them settled here during the British rule, following the sources of their immigrant ancestors. Illegal migration from neighboring Bangladesh to this state is also a long-standing concern.
After an agitation that lasted for almost six years, the central government had an agreement with the protesters in the sixth. The agreement states that those who entered Assam without papers after March 24, 1971 will be considered foreigners.
The draft National List of Controversial National Citizens (NRC) has now made more than 4 millions people illegal as a result. Assam has also been in the same situation as the President Trump administration in the United States separated their children from illegal immigrant parents.
With the release of the final list of civic registrations, over 4 million people have become stateless overnight. Assam State is now ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pro-Hindu party Bharatiya Janata Party BJP. His party has also announced in the past that illegal Muslim migrants will be expelled from this state and sent to Bangladesh.
Assam's final citizen registry has been published. In this registry, 3.11 million people are shown as legitimate citizens of Assam and India and 1.9 million people are illegal citizens. The illegal 4.1 million immigrants was shown at the draft register published last July.
At that time, hue and cry started in Assam and West Bengal after seeing the illegal list of huge numbers and panic spread in Bangladesh. In this context, even before the elections in Bangladesh and India, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah seemed very aggressive.
He publicly stated that they were all Bangladeshi Muslims. These Bangladeshis have entered Assam in the hope of getting a job and a better life. Now they will be driven to Bangladesh. When the Supreme Court appealed against the draft in July, the Supreme Court ordered the scrutiny of the draft again and ordered the final report to be published by 31st August.
Accordingly, the final citizen registration was published on 31st August. Now the number of illegal immigrants in the register has dropped from 4.1 million to 1.9 million. Since the Central Government and the Assam government have declared that those who are illegal will be treated as foreigners. Now over 1.9 million people have been regarded as illegal or abusive. What action will be taken against these 4 million people?
The BJP's tone has been softened a bit this time about taking action. They are saying that right now they will not send those illegal 1.9 million to detention or return them to Bangladesh. They gave illegal immigrants another chance. On that occasion, the illegals will first go to the tribunal demanding their citizenship. It may be mentioned that around one thousand tribunals are being formed to reconsider the appeal of this 1.9 million.
The aggrieved persons can go to the High Court if they are not satisfied with the trial of the tribunal. If they are not satisfied with the High Court, they will go to the Supreme Court. If they are not satisfied with the Supreme Court justice, where will they go? That issue was not clearly stated in the Citizen Register. However, it can be assumed that those who go illegally after the Supreme Court verdict may be jailed in detention camps. But the question is whether millions of people will be caught in jail. In that case, they will be sent back to Bangladesh.
During the partition year 1947, liberation war in 1971 and post independent period Bangladeshi people have exchanged with the Hindus on the issue of communal and political violence. For the same reason many Hindus from this country have gone to India by exchanging property. Such incidents have occurred everywhere in Bangladesh. In this situation, in the Indian government threatens to return the people who have gone to India through exchange in Bangladesh, it would be very unreasonable.
As a result of this, if Bangladeshi return the people from India, may fall the one situation. Could anybody immagin it? So, India should by emphasizing on the historical context granting citizenship to migrant people based on location, and recognizing them as Indian. And if any Bangladeshi illigally reside in India, Bangladeshi will accept them if they send them back.
If Bangladesh returns the people from India, may fall the one situation. Indians who are smugling money in the various economic activities in Bangladesh will have to handover to the Indian government. According to Bengali rights activists living in Assam, the 'NRC' is actually being used for a special purpose.
It is nothing more than a political conspiracy. They (Hindu nationalists and non-fundamentalists) are publicly threatening Muslims. So what can happen here is what happened to the Rohingya in Myanmar. The present government has not taken any visible initiative to look at the situation in Assam because of its busyness.
Of course, there may be diplomatic tactics and political reasons behind this. But West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said that Assam has deported 4 million people in fuel for the central government. This will push the country towards civil war, provoke militancy.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has criticized the BJP over the NRC in a series of criticisms against BJP over the final list of national citizenship in Assam state of India. He said the NRC outbreak has opened their mask. At the same time, he expressed his condolences to the Bengali-speaking people of Assam who were dropped by name. Mamata Banerjee attacked the BJP in a twitter. In a tweet, he said, "NRC catastrophe was trying to make political gains. They have to respond to the country.
This is what happens when you act in a dishonest way, avoiding the interests of the country and society. Sounds bad for Bengali-speaking siblings. They have suffered from falling into the net." The Congress says that the BJP has made this rude by turning a blind eye to the special people. And the BJP says that the thousands of workers who were engaged in the formation of citizens' cadres did not perform their duties properly. So what's the matter? Citizen Calender is about to be thrown into a wast paper box.
Because in the meantime, during the visit to Bangladesh, Indian Foreign Minister Jayashankar has said that the incident of this citizen registration is completely internal to India. According to the Indian Foreign Minister's statement, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abdul Momen has said that millions of people in the civic register are illegal, not a single Bangladeshi. So there is no headache in Bangladesh with citizen registration. In this situation, the formation of Citizen Calender is going to be the opposite of a hit for the BJP.
Various examples of the extent of fault or bias in this initiative to create a citizen list in Assam are being published in various newspapers of the country. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad, the fifth president of India, was a Muslim from Assam. The family of the late Fakhruddin's brother has been listed in the NRC as a non-citizen.
The family of a retired man who has served in the Indian Army for over three decades has been identified as a civilian. There are many instances where one brother's family is on the citizen list, but another brother's family is excluded from the list.
The father is on the citizen list but the son is dropped. The BJP's main organization, the Sangh Parivar, has two major political agendas. Its first agenda is to transform India into Hinduism. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat says Hindutva will be the main identity of Indians. All the religious people here should be known as Hindus.
Here Muslims will be Hindu-Muslim, Christians will be Hindu-Christian, and Buddhists will be Hindu-Buddhists. RSS believes that followers of other religions will practice their religion only after adopting a culture of Hindutva. The RSS wants to unite 80 percent of India's lower and upper-caste Hindus on the basis of this ideology.
In the final NRC, how many people are out of state, there is speculation in Assam right now. If, at the end, 2 million people are declared 'foreigners' and their appeal begins at the Foreigners' Tribunal, then on average, at least two thousand cases will be submitted to each tribunal.
If the tribunal decides every application in one day (which is almost impossible), then many applicants are obliged to stay in detention centers for 3-5 years. It is also uncertain where these persons will be found if they are released from the detention center after being finalized as non-citizen from the tribunal.
The UN has written to India at least three times during the writing period to prevent human rights violations in Assam in various ways in the NRC process. Letter was given on June 11, 2018 and December 27 of 2019. On the last date, five senior UN officials wrote, "India has not answered any UN inquiries and concerns about Assam.
The UN has a recognized right to dialogue on this matter, especially in cases where millions of human rights abuses are suspected and those who are minority and stateless are in prolonged detention. And there is an extreme risk of being forced to be shipped anywhere there has never been a day in the past." While the UN's statement is strong, the fact that Assam has lost the nationality of millions of people in Assam, just like the one million Rohingya in the Arakan, has failed utterly to prevent the loss of nationality.
It is not desirable that the peace of one's own neighbor be disrupted in fundamentalism or Hinduism. In exchange for the blood of a sea, the state of Bangladesh has emerged. In Bengali nationalism we are more than in the policy of democratic and non-communalism. Most of us are Muslim because we do not see anyone as a minority or a minor.
We have faith on the humanity of people. Now, under the leadership of our Hon'ble Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, we have our faith on humanity and activities free from violence. Our foreign policy does not justify any provocation, stubbornness, and power display. Rohingya-centered that demonstrated humanity. In Assam or any other case, we are going to show it in logic.
After living in other countries for a long time, what comes to us if someone goes out of purpose without a stateless or civil list? In this case, we do not have the mentality to harm ourselves by being generous or liberal. We will never allow ourselves to be tied up or threatened by our existence in the face of pressure or power. So we as, neighbors believe in cooperation and cordiality.
We must not be silent about any wrongdoing or illegal behavior of persons against humanity. In the language of our protest, peace will be restored without confronting rigorously. In this situation, there is no alternative but national unity is inevitable.
The writer is a reacherser
& columnist
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