BY TCN News:
The National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam had earlier released its first report on December 31, 2016, in which 1.9 crore of 3.29 crore applicants were declared as “Indian citizens‟ leaving out 1.39 crores.
And now the second report released today July 30th has declared another 2.89 crores names excluding nearly 40 lakhs Indian citizens. This report and the move by the current government to render people whose domicile has been in the state of Assam from several decades as stateless and non citizens has been condemned by several political and non political groups across India.
The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), an advocacy group based in the United States that works safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos has condemning the NRC report has called for the immediate suspension of the National Registry of Citizens, until irregularities are corrected and the exclusion of four million people from the list is set right.
The Bengali speaking Muslim community in Assam has now become the worst victim of this mass disenfranchisement and has been accused of being “infiltrators,” although they are Indian citizens.
International bodies such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as civil society institutions across India have expressed concern about the process that could render the four million people stateless. “It is possible that the process will arbitrarily deprive people, who have lived in India for decades, of their nationality,” Amnesty said in a statement.
“The fact that this is an exercise in subversion of democracy and has a clearly bigoted, discriminatory agenda is reflected in the exclusion of the relatives of the former President of India,” said Mr. Ahsan Khan, President of IAMC. “The entire program should be suspended until the criteria for exclusion are clearly defined,” added Mr. Khan.
Excluding the relatives of former President of India Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed in the list and including them among those at risk of becoming stateless exposes the true motive of the Government which is to target religious minorities and render them stateless.
The IAMRC also pointed out the start difference in attitude of the Indian Government in welcoming the Hindu migrants from Bangladesh and its openly hostile attitude to Rohingya refugees. Human rights activist Suhas Chakma has also condemned the NRC report and dubbed it as the “biggest exercise for disenfranchisement in human history.”
IAMC has called on the central government not to allow religious differences to define the socio-political landscape of the country, where something as basic as a citizen’s right to be called a citizen of the country is arbitrarily snatched away.