29 November 2019
#NRCNationwide
Is the national NRC simply going to reopen the question for Inspector Salim of blockbuster Sarfarosh, the wound of being told that this land is not his home? https://www.telegraphindia.com/entertainment/it-is-difficult-to-imagine-a-sarfarosh-2-in-2019/cid/1688696
I would not have waded into this ongoing ‘hip hop’ acrobatic and trying to land on feet and finding one’s head stuck in mire, exercise that is Assam’s NRC. Of course, there is a specific background to how a majority tribal area with free hold tribal lands, with islands that appeared and disappeared on her water bodies, was subjected to onslaughts on her native demography through a colonial draft much like how Indians were indentured to the Caribbean or parts of Africa and Asia. This issue in Assam is one that gathered momentum as a narrative a century after the first colonial experiment to allot tribal lands to individuals and harvest Assam’s fertility. In between, there was the partition of Bengal and Partition of India and finally the liberation of Bangladesh. At each stage the Assamese demography took on pressure cooker situations, and recouped somehow. Her own language had been replaced before it was restored. A final blow was when Assam herself suffered delimitation and several states were carved out of her including grant of territory to make her neighbours administratively feasible.Therefore, Assam, one could argue, was uniquely situated to delimit now her human resources, which was the key point of the Assam Accord that ended the student agitation in the state.
What we saw after rounds and rounds of negotiations and judicial interventions is the now concluded NRC. That nearly 2 million residents were declared ‘aliens’ and are now going to fight their case in the Foreigner Tribunals set up, and after that their evicted status in detention centres is going to be concretised. We know that Bangladesh has clearly stated that it will not take back these people. We know that there are many illegal immigrants of that country who are working not in Assam but across the country, who are economic migrants, for whom India has not created a legal framework till now. We are aware that Nepalis are the only people who can travel to India, ply their trade and go back to Nepal from time to time, which is sanctioned under the treaty with that country, one India honours more because of the ties the Gurkhas of Nepal have with the Indian Army. So India after 2014, did not come up with a work visa system, with caps on them, and try to tag all those in India who are here due to economic reasons. On the other hand, India acted very tough with a few thousand Rohingya, isolating them in camps, and then deporting them to the Bangladeshi border against the protestations of the UNHCR, the Bangladeshi government and many Indians who espouse a ‘liberal’ narrative. The proposed amendment to the Citizenship Act would exclude the Rohingya since they are persecuted, from the neighbourhood, but Muslim. The reason Assam is in such a fix is because its NRC threw out more ‘Hindus’ than it bargained for.So Assam proposes to publish its entire alien list and it would then look to retain all aliens who are ‘Hindu’ and not Muslim. So from a ‘native’ ‘non native’ the NRC in Assam has taken on a religious contour, one that was unspoken in the last couple of decades, but one that has now been ‘mainstreamed’.(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/assam-to-make-public-information-on-hindu-bengalis-out-of-nrc/articleshow/72285039.cms)
The Union Home Minister Mr Shah has on the floor of Parliament categorically stated that a nationwide NRC would soon be launched. Consider counting a billion and a half Indians, and now you know who are the these who will be in deficit of what the state seeks as proof of citizenship? Migrants across India, folks who held transferable jobs, people who traveled overseas for work and who retired back home, people who are now internally ‘displaced’ due to relocation by the State, due to political reasons like Kashmiri Pandits, Dam evictees, infrastructural project evictees, Forest management and declared sanctuaries, etc.
Most of these people who are going to suffer are people whose local administration is more on paper than on ground. Unlike the fears of the peninsular India, states like TN, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra are better placed for this NRC exercise as they have near 100% coverage through PDS identifier ration cards. These states also have updated electoral rolls, verified voter ID cards, they offer other types of cards issued by their local governments for various schemes that operate within their state. Beyond the Vindhyas, in the Red Corridor areas of Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharashtra, Telangana and states like UP and MP, which have poor local government will see maximum numbers of internally disadvantaged residents for whom proof of citizenship will be a stretch. Now that the amendment will state clearly that any ‘Non Muslim’ is automatically an Indian, if not by birth but by way of refuge, we can see this national NRC as an exercise for othering the Muslim community, a step up from their psychological othering through the Hindutva narrative, to their physical othering.
The context of such an exercise, if any one were to understand is ‘cricket’. I know for a fact, how the Hindutva core base resented the waving of ‘green flags’ during cricket matches in Indian grounds, whether Test or One Day or now T20. I know that the distinction between Islamic Green and Hindutva Saffron, is of legitimacy in the eyes of the spectators, one where the narrative has been pushed by the RSS backed right wing of doubtful loyalties to the Tricolour. Of course, there was no effort on part of Muslims to counter this, deny the celebrations of the few Pakistani victories on the cricket field that got reported, and this solidarity of the community through silence was to extend later to terrorist incidents as well. But never forget it all started with a game that Bernard Shaw termed as a contest of fools! Over a period of time, the distinction between Islamic Green and Pakistan blurred, private media broadcasts of India Pakistan matches then made it a ‘war’ no holds barred! That India has a World Cup record against Pakistan, is in itself most redeeming for the BCCI India Team. In crass commercialisation of national jingoism, BCCI is the biggest beneficiary of the largesse Indian fans offer through their vocal support for the cricket team, one that makes all cricket great, but an Indo-Pak clash an all together different league!
So now, will this NRC expose and intimidate those who cheered not for India, a derivative sentiment once tweeted by current Indian Captain Mr Kohli. Will it show these ‘sporting fans’ their place, by placing Nationalism first. So even if you happen to be of ancestry of hundreds of years, going back 20 generations, even if you can discern that your ancestor probably did not come as an immigrant Mongol or Mughal or Turki, but converted in medieval India, are you legitimate target for this NRC.
If you look at the logistics of this exercise, it will be one larger than the census drill that is a decadal event. Further media reports suggest that a standing army of nearly 4 million workers will be required to carry it out. It will involve a budgetary outlay of more than ₹ 4 lakh crores! So ‘volunteers’ to be paid notional stipends for carrying out this work instead of government employees like teachers, revenue officials who would prefer this exercise to ride on the now due National Census exercise for Census of 2021? NRC will also be an exercise for the BJP government to rally its base in two ways- One is empowering its core for nursing its angst against the Muslims to its logical end- placing them in spot light for their nationality credentials as Indian citizens. The other is if RSS Sangh Parivar is offered this work through voluntary scheme, majority of these who are for hire ‘lynch mobs’, Gau Rakshaks, Ghar Wapsi volunteers, love jihad vigilantes and more, will find gainful employment and will be enthused to stay the course in the run up to 2024. It will be a retainership of the Hindutva family at the cost of the national exchequer! A win-win situation where sentiments and prejudices are ‘professionally rewarded’ in a tangible manner on ground, egging them on and enthusing them to ensure a mandate stronger than 2019, while buffering the economic pain of a downward spiral to the extent of this budgetary outlay. It could be the BJP’s very own MGNREGA!
That is why folks who think state governments will refuse this NRC drill, that people in states will agitate against it in large numbers and protests will thwart this exercise, or that Government itself may water it down due to logistical nightmare and the lack of an end game are all riding ‘phantom horses’ and are totally out of sync with the cold calculus that is mooting this NRC is the first place.(https://www.news18.com/news/politics/nrc-behind-tmcs-victory-in-bengal-bypolls-bjp-candidate-blames-peoples-fear-for-loss-2403979.html) This NRC is not narcissism or an audacious attempt by Mr Shah to emerge as historically an equal to India’s first MHA Sardar Patel. This is an end unto itself, part of the same RSS logic that is pushing the agenda of this government since Day 1 in 2014.
indiarubberman.com 