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The NRC process has distorted Indian nationhood. Set it right | Analysis
The exercise failed to distinguish between those fleeing religious persecution and those seeking opportunities
There’s an encounter, firmly etched in my mind, that may have a bearing on the present furore over the Supreme Court-monitored National Register of Citizens controversy in Assam. It happened in the other end of the country, on the outskirts of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, more than two years ago.
There is an encounter, firmly etched in my mind, that may have a bearing on the present furore over the Supreme Court-monitored National Register of Citizens (NRC) controversy in Assam. It happened in the other end of the country, on the outskirts of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, more than two years ago.
I was on a tour with the Joint Select Committee of Parliament assessing the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that had been proposed by the Narendra Modi government. The Committee was meeting a small community of Hindu banjaras (a nomadic tribe) who had crossed over into India from Pakistan a few years ago, and sought both refuge and citizenship. For the moment they were very poor, living a pitiable existence as daily labourers in a makeshift roadside colony.
They said they had left Pakistan to escape the humiliating and daily harassment that was doled out to them, not least because of their faith. All the Members of Parliament, including those bitterly opposed to the bill, were deeply moved by their plight.
“We sympathise with your predicament,” one MP told a small group after the formal interaction, “but tell me, why did you come here?” There was a hushed and somewhat bewildered silence. Then, the sardar of the group spoke up: “Where else are we to go? This is our desh.”
Traditionally, in Bengal at least, desh is used to denote the place of origin, and never equated with the place of residence — which may or may not be the same. However, for this destitute refugee, desh meant something much more. To him, it was perfectly natural that the community should come to India, their homeland. The idea of the homeland had been detached from the place that for generations they had regarded as home.
Earlier, I had encountered something similar when engaging with nervous Hindus in Bangladesh. At a small meeting in Dhaka five years ago, they whispered that in their estimation nearly 40 Hindu families were crossing over to India each day. Those who were departing weren’t from the big cities, but from rural areas where Hindus felt socially isolated and vulnerable to attacks. However, even in the cities, those with some disposable income were surreptitiously buying property in West Bengal so that they could leave at short notice. They didn’t envisage a future for themselves in Bangladesh, and where else but India could they go?
Moving to India was not a question of seeking temporary political asylum, till political and other difficulties were resolved; it was envisaged as a homecoming by the isolated Hindu communities who had left on the wrong side by Partition. It was even true for the small community of Sikhs who left Afghanistan after the troubles began in 1980 and headed straight for India. The analogy may seem politically incorrect, but the undeniable reality is that for Hindus and Sikhs all over there is an unstated ‘right of return’ to India. Just as Jews all over the world view Israel as their homeland and their ultimate sanctuary, Hindus and Sikhs have seen India as something much more than a modern nation-state governed by codified citizenship. Whatever passport they may at present hold, India remains their desh.
Unlike Israel, India hasn’t actively encouraged this homecoming. At the same time, it hasn’t shied away from its moral responsibility either. Partition, of course, triggered a big movement of peoples in both the western and eastern parts of the country. However, it didn’t stop at that. Till the 1960s, India opened its doors to those ethnic Indians who were ousted from Burma, Malaya, Ceylon and even newly-independent countries of Africa. The Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950 attempted to deny this for East Pakistan but the reality proved otherwise. The Hindus of eastern Bengal — who had been in the vanguard of the freedom movement — voted with their feet and crossed over to India in a steady trickle. They were self-professed refugees, but they never saw themselves as foreigners.
The problems with the NRC that has identified 19 lakh people as illegal settlers in Assam is two-fold.
First, the process of verification could not take into account the crucial difference between those who fled East Pakistan/Bangladesh to avert religious persecution and those who settled in Assam in search of either a better livelihood or as part of an organised process.
Second, the NRC preceded, rather than followed, the enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that would have been a first step in addressing the concerns of the Assamese people over demographic change. The government must take legal steps to invert the process taking care, at the same time, to safeguard the interests of the indigenous peoples of Assam.
The NRC process has triggered a distortion of India’s nationhood. It has to be set right without delay.
Swapan Dasgupta is Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
The views expressed are personal
