Articles
The NRC’s Aftermath
Dt: 10/8/18
The NRC’s Aftermath
Dr T.H.Chowdary*
One of the questions arising out of the preparation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC ) in Assam is what to do with all those among the four mln who are not in the NRC. Ignoring the obvious mistakes like some former Presidents’ kith and kin and children of parents not finding place in the NRC, ( these are few and flukes; they can be solved easily) the case of the rest seem to present formidable problems. Assuming that most of the four mln will be held to be foreigners what to do and how to do with them is the question. The NRC is guided by the Citizenship Act, whereas those who are to be deported will be governed by the Foreigners Act. The latter has many provisions which can help the foreigners to gain Indian citizenship. If millions go to the courts, how long would it take to decide each individual case and what happens to such people in the meantime and after the courts’ decision that they are foreigners.
2. Firstly ,the foreigners (almost all of them from Bangladesh) are to be deported to Bangladesh . That county will have its own procedure to verify whether the deported persons had ever been Bangladesh’s citizen. That will drag on for long. How many millions will Bangladesh accept is the next question. And if it does not accept, what is to be done to such people ? Are they to be put in camps; how many camps of what size and at what cost will be built. The existing camps are attachments to prisons. They can’t hold more than a few thousand. One stand-alone camp recently sanctioned by the government to accommodate 3000 detainees is costing Rs. 46cr. For millions, how much money would be required to construct the camps and can we afford to feed and look after them, and for how long?
3. The infiltrators and illegally living foreigners are not confined to Assam only. There are more than a million in Delhi alone. And many millions are in West Bengal and Bihar and even in far off Hyderabad. And these have been living here for more than a decade. The local
people are aware; the governments are aware but the political parties and their infiltrators’ co-religionists have found it convent to keep them here. Some of them offer cheap labour and most of them are used as vote banks by foul means of getting them voter identity cards. Many women are getting married to their co-religionists and are having children , a process of Indianising the infiltrators .
4. It is obvious that the problem is created by the vote-hungry political parties starting with the communists in West Bengal and the Congress and of late the Trunamul Congress and other self-styled “secular” parties. Now all the vote-hungry political parties excepting perhaps the BJP and Shiva Sena will be interested, if not openly but silently, to keep all of them here. Such efforts will be supported by the do gooders, the human rights wallahs, the left, liberal, intellectuals and of course, the Marxists in various academia.
5. A remedy is for true nationalists to become vigilantes to identify the foreigners and impose social boycott and other extreme measures to force them out. Even that is a very risky and a problem creating job. In view of these complexities, it is necessary that nationalists as vigilantes should prepare lists of those who are suspects and expose new infiltrators as and when they are detected and identified.
6. One of the questions arising out of the preparation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC in Assam) is what to do with all those among the four mln who are not in the NRC.
7. The Hindu population of 30% of Bangladesh’s has come down to 7% . That means most Hindus have been fleeing to India ( mostly Assam) or are converted to Islam. Secondly, Bangladesh has not recorded the usual high increase of its Moslem population, which means that many Bangladesh Muslims are infiltrating into Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Delhi, Hyderabad and of late Kerala too.
8. The situation of the now two and more million Palestinian Moslem Arabs who left Israel as a result of the 1948, 67 and 73 Arab-Israeli wars who are still living as refugees in the West Bank (of Jordan river ) area under the Palestinian Authority (PA) offers one parallel. These millions are sheltered, fed and clothed and looked after by the United Nations’ Refugee and Rehabilitation Authority (UNRRA). The member nations of the UN including India contribute annual sums towards the upkeep of these Palestinians. India may approach the UNRRA to take care of the illegals in Assam. UNRRA may ask India to accommodate these four and more millions in Bengal, Bihar, Delhi, Hyderabad and other places. Another possibility is we, Bangladesh and the UN request the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) of about 60 Muslim countries to take these millions, as Islam is said to be a frontier -less brotherhood of believers. For Hindus outside the NRC, as well as anywhere else in the world India is the sole country of ultimate refuge; besides they are the fall-out of the enforced partition of India. We must accept them as our citizens. (882 words)
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