Aug 01, 2018 12:20 (IST) Meanwhile, National Register of Citizens (NRC) Coordinator Prateek Hajela submitted the compliance report in the court on publishing the final draft of the NRC on July 30 as per the direction of the Supreme Court. The bench noted from Hajela's report that the full draft will be available for people by August 7 and from August 8, people will get to know reasons of their non-inclusion in the NRC. The report added that those whose names are not included in the final draft will get the opportunity between August 30 and September 28 to file claims and objections before the registrar concerned and at NRC Seva Kendras.<doc-sep>Assam residents queue up Monday to to check if their names are in NRC. AP Assam residents queue up Monday to to check if their names are in NRC. AP The issue of citizenship has been dominating the public discourse since Monday, when Assam released the draft of an updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) leaving out 40 lakh of 3.29 crore applicants for inclusion. What determines who is or is not a citizen of India? And what are the special circumstances in Assam, the only state with an NRC? How is citizenship determined in India? Indian citizenship can be acquired by birth, descent, registration and naturalisation. A person domiciled in India as on November 26, 1949 — the date when the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution — automatically became a citizen if he or either of his parents was born in India, or if he had been in India for at least five years until that date. For those born in India after the Constitution came into effect, the Citizenship Act, 1955, grants citizenship by birth based on birth dates. Anyone born between January 26, 1950 and July 1, 1987 is a citizen by birth; a person between July 1, 1987 and December 3, 2004 is a citizen by birth if either of his parents is a citizen of India at the time; those born on or after December 3, 2004 is a citizen by birth if both parents are citizens of India at the time, or if one parent is a citizen and the other is not an illegal migrant — defined as a foreigner who entered India without valid documents, or stayed beyond the allowed period Citizenship by registration can be acquired by persons of Indian origin who have lived in India for 7 years before applying, persons of Indian origin who live in any country outside undivided India, persons married to a citizen of India and who have lived in India for 7 years before the application. Any minor child can be registered as a citizen if the government is satisfied that there are special circumstances. Is it possible for a foreigner with no connection to India (marriage, descent etc) to become a citizen of India ? This is citizenship by naturalisation. Any foreigner, provided he is not an illegal migrant, can acquire citizenship, provided he has stayed in India for 12 consecutive months preceding the date of application, and for 11 years out of the preceding the 14 years. Is citizenship permanent? Under Section 9(1) of the 1955 Act, a person ceases to be a citizen if he or she voluntarily acquires the citizenship of another country or renounces Indian citizenship. India does not allow dual citizenship. Under Section 10, anyone who has become a citizen of India by naturalisation or by registration due to marriage to an Indian citizen can be deprived of the citizenship by the Home Ministry for certain reasons. How is Assam different? Why a separate National Register of Citizens? This is because of a history of migration. During British rule, Assam was merged with Bengal Presidency for administrative purpose. From 1826 to 1947, the British continuously brought migrant workers to Assam for cheap labour in tea plantations. Two major waves of migration came after British rule — first after Partition, from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and then in the aftermath of the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. This eventually led to an agitation during 1979-85, led by the All Assam Students’ Union. It culminated in the 1985 Assam Accord signed with the Rajiv Gandhi government, under which illegal migrants were to be identified and deported. Clause 6A was inserted in the Citizenship Act with special provisions for Assam. Express Explained | What it means to be out of NRC What are those provisions? These take into account two cutoff dates — January 1, 1966 and March 25, 1971. Anyone who was a resident of Assam before the first date is a citizen. Migrants who entered on any day between these two dates, and remained there, would need to register with a Foreigners Tribunal. For 10 years, they would have all rights of a citizen except the right to vote, which would be granted at the end of 10 years. Finally, migrants who entered Assam on or after March 25, 1971, are not eligible for citizenship. Is this not the cutoff date for NRC, too? Yes. For inclusion, applicants need to prove that they — or their parents, grandparents etc — were citizens before March 25, 1971. Those who could not prove this, as well as their offspring, have been excluded. Assam already has an NRC, prepared in 1951 with 80 lakh citizens, on the basis of that year’s Census. In 2003, the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules were amended for updating the NRC in order to identify genuine citizens. What was the mechanism for identifying migrants earlier? When Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister, the government introduced the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, applicable only to Assam. Against the Foreigners Act that was in force elsewhere, the IMDT Act was seen as ineffective as the burden of proof of someone being a foreigner was on the accuser and not on the state or the accused. In 2005, the Supreme Court struck down IMDT Act on a petition filed by Sarbananda Sonowal, then an AGP leader, now Assam Chief Minister and a BJP leader. Before the NRC update, Assam was witnessing protests over the Citizenship Amendment Bill. What was this about? In 2016, the Centre introduced amendments to the Citizenship Act to grant citizenship to religious minorities (mostly Hindus and including other non-Muslims) from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who took shelter in India. The Bill relaxes norms for granting them citizenship by decreasing the residency requirement from 11 years to six years. In Assam, where the agitation was against migrants irrespective of religion, this has led to protests. The Bill is currently pending with a Joint Parliamentary Committee. Is there a similar situation for migrants in any other state?<doc-sep>The Memorandum of Settlement on the Assam problem was signed between Central Government and the leaders of the Assam movement at the residence of Prime Minister of Rajiv Gandhi (Express Archive Photo) The Memorandum of Settlement on the Assam problem was signed between Central Government and the leaders of the Assam movement at the residence of Prime Minister of Rajiv Gandhi (Express Archive Photo) In the late 1970s, an extraordinary student movement had taken root in Assamese soil. The Mangaldoi constituency, which was voting in a bypoll after the death of its MP Hiralal Patwari, was under the spotlight. The seat, with a very high concentration of immigrants from East Bengal, drew national attention due to a sudden rise in the number of voters compared to the previous election two years earlier. Even as reports suggested a large-scale immigration from Bangladesh into the state, on June 8, 1979, the All Assam Students Union went on a 12-hour general strike demanding the ‘detention, disenfranchisement and deportation’ of all foreigners. What followed in the next few months and years was a spree of protest movements, several rounds of negotiations with the government and ultimately the signing of the Assam accord in 1985 that listed down a number of measures to be taken for the state to deal with the issue of immigration. Also read: 40 lakh not in register cannot be called illegal, says Assam official behind NRC It has taken 33 years for this crucial piece of the Assam Accord to finally fall into place. On Monday, when the final draft of the National Register of Citizens was released, close to 40 lakh residents of Assam were disappointed to find their names missing from the list. With the Opposition, especially West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee slamming the move, BJP president Amit Shah reminded everyone that the accord was signed in 1985 under the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress government. “Rajiv Gandhi signed the Assam Accord in 1985, which was similar to NRC. They did not have the courage to implement it, we did,” he said in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. What was the Assam movement? The issue of immigration had rankled ethnic relations in Assam since the years preceding Independence. American political scientist Myron Weiner, carrying out a census study in Assam, had noted – based on the projection of the 1891 census – that immigrants and their descendants would then number 8.5 million as opposed to locals and their descendants at 6.5 million. However, after free India was born the issue was brushed under the carpet until 1979, when the Assam movement began. What kept the immigration issue at bay was the centrality of language issue in defining the boundaries of ethnic conflicts for a long time. Also read: NRC poses a political and moral question While the immigration issue did come up once in a while, it was only in 1979 that it shook the state, defining the contours of ethnic and religious relations for years to come. “It ruptured carefully nurtured ethnic coalitions that were at the foundation of political stability in the state, setting the stage for a prolonged period of political turmoil,” writes political scientist Sanjib Baruah in his article ‘Immigration, ethnic conflict and political turmoil- Assam 1979-1985’. The 12-hour strike of June 8 was soon followed by the formation of the Assam Gana Sangam Parishad (AGSP) for conducting a coordinated statewide movement. “An unprecedented mass popular upsurge followed in the form of sit-ins, picketings in front of government offices, strikes, and symbolic disobedience of the law,” writes Baruah. Between 1980 and 1982, close to 23 rounds of negotiations took place between the movement’s leaders and the central government. Even though the Assam movement had sufficient support, there were many against it as well, considering the size of the immigrant population in Assam and the political cost of agreeing to the demands of the movement. By the end of 1982, however, an agreement was reached between the Centre and the movement’s leaders that all those who made it within the Indian borders between 1951 and 1961 would be given citizenship status, while those who came after 1971 would be deported. But the status of those who entered between 1961 and 1971 was not resolved. Also, there was no agreement on the procedures to be used in order to conclude the status of a resident. In the meantime, the movement had gained sufficient momentum to be able to disrupt the functioning of the government including the 1980 parliamentary elections, and the Assembly elections of 1983. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Home Minister S.B. Chavan with a delegation of Assam Gan Prishad leader headed by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta and Bhrigu Kumar Phukan (Express archive photo) Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Home Minister S.B. Chavan with a delegation of Assam Gan Prishad leader headed by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta and Bhrigu Kumar Phukan (Express archive photo) Negotiations between the movement’s leaders and the central government were once again initiated in 1984. By this time the Janata Party was no longer in power, and the government lay in the hands of Rajiv Gandhi. Consequently, an accord was signed on August 15, 1985, according to which, all illegal aliens who entered the state between January 1966 and March 1971 would be disenfranchised for 10 years, and those who came after March 1971 would be deported. Once the accord was signed, the state government was dissolved as fresh elections were held based on revised electoral rolls in December 1985. What is the Assam Accord? The Assam Accord of 1985 began with the assurance that the “government has all along been most anxious to find a satisfactory resolution to the problem of foreigners in Assam.” Consequently, it put together a list of resolutions to be implemented in order to solve the immigration issue in Assam. As per the accord, all people who came to Assam prior to January 1, 1966, would be given citizenship. Those who moved in between January 1, 1966, and March 24, 1971, would be “detected in accordance with the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order 1964”.<doc-sep>India was braced for unrest in its north eastern Assam state on Monday after the authorities declared some four million residents to be foreigners, effectively stripping them of their citizenship and raising fears of deportation. The residents, mostly Muslims of Bangladeshi origin, were deemed ‘stateless’ as India published its draft list of citizens deemed to have entered the country before 1971, when millions fled Bangladesh's war of independence into the state. The government released its final draft of Assam’s National Registrar of Citizens (NRC) in what many claim is as an effort by Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, to target Muslims hostile to his BJP nationalist party ahead of elections next year. But in a bid to quell growing unrest officials insisted no one would face immediate deportation to Bangladesh from where they had migrated decades ago and that all those deemed foreigners had the right to appeal. The authorities on Monday also placed the Indian Army on standby and deployed over 40,000 state police and paramilitary personnel across the state. “This is just a draft and not the final list” India’s census commissioner Sailesh, who uses only one name, told reporters in Guwahati, the state’s principal city. “Based on the draft there is no question of anyone being taken to detention centres”, he stated adding that the four-week long appeal process would begin on 30 August and last till 28 September.<doc-sep>
The first NRC was prepared in 1951 and included all those who were mentioned in the 1951 Census of India. The Assam NRC issue has become such a widely debated topic in India that even international media has taken note of the fact that there are over 40 lakh people who are now at risk of losing Indian citizenship. While the Opposition has accused the BJP-led central government of playing vote-bank politics over this issue, the government has responded by saying that the demand for the NRC being updated is a very old one. Here is all you need to know about this issue: What is NRC? The National Register of Citizens is a list of all the legal citizens of a state. It is governed by The Citizenship Act, 1955, and The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 (amended in 2009) and a 2010 order of the Ministry of Home Affairs, published in the Gazette of India. When was the first NRC done? The first NRC was prepared in 1951 and included all those who were mentioned in the 1951 Census of India. Why is the NRC being updated in Assam right now? The idea of updating the NRC in Assam stems from the demand to identify illegal migrants from the state from Bangladesh, something which the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) demanded during the six-year-long Assam Movement. The movement culminated with the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985. Even though the Assam Accord does not mandate updation of the NRC, it does talk about the deletion of foreigners' names from the electoral rolls. A formal decision to update the NRC was first taken by the Centre in 1999, but the work did not begin. In a tripartite meeting among the central government, the Assam government and AASU on 5 May, 2005, it was decided to update the NRC. But nothing much progressed beyond talks. In July 2009, Assam Public Works — an NGO — filed a case in the Supreme Court, demanding updation of the NRC. In 2010, the government decided to hold pilot projects of NRC updation in two blocks in the state. But violence in Barpeta district stalled the work yet again. It was only after the Supreme Court directed the government to update the NRC in 2014 that work on updating the list began in full swing. The court also fixed a cut-off date of 1971, meaning that anyone who came to Assam after 1971 would be considered a foreigner. Thus, the demand to update the NRC has existed for a long time. Who are eligible to register for the NRC? As The Telegraph explains, people whose names appear on the 1951 NRC and those who appear on any voter list in Assam up to midnight of 24 March, 1971, and the descendants of the above are eligible to register for the NRC. Moreover, people who came to Assam from Bangladesh between 1 January, 1966 and 24 March, 1971, registered themselves with the Foreigner Regional Registration Office, and were declared by the Foreigner Tribunal as Indian citizens are also eligible. Indian citizens who moved to Assam after 24 March, 1971 will need to provide proof of residence in another part of the country as on 24 March, 1971. Has the final NRC been published? No. The second and final draft of the NRC was published on Monday. The first draft of the NRC was published during the intervening night of 31 December and 1 January this year, containing 1.9 crore names. The final NRC will be published later during the year, after a process of claims and objections has ended. According to News18, the final NRC is expected to be published in December this year. What is the political controversy surrounding the final NRC draft? The names of 40.07 lakh applicants did not find a place in the second and final NRC draft. This fact caused all the political outrage over the NRC, with the Opposition disrupting Parliament proceedings over the exclusion of such a large number of applicants. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee lashed out at the BJP over the draft NRC, accusing the party of playing vote-bank politics, while also warning that the issue will "destroy" India's relationship with Bangladesh.