the National Register of Citizens, for dummies
this post is intended to be informational, not opinionated. the purpose is to spread knowledge, so that people know the facts before making a decision. none of my personal opinions are reflected in this post - nor is it intended to support any one side of the debate. all sources are linked
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What is the National Register of Citizens?
the National Register of Citizens, or the NRC is exactly like it sounds - a registry of the citizens of India, made specifically for citizens of the state of Assam
Why the State of Assam?
Colonial Assam was historically more liberal than its surrounding provinces, and saw a lot of populace migration from areas like East Bengal from people looking for jobs. This continued throughout the Partition during the Independence of India - and so in 1951, the Government of India decided to make an official Registry to deal with the immigration problem
Following the Partition, Assam saw an influx of over 500,000 people - and the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950. In order to identify who exactly needed to be deported, the Registry was formed
Why is this relevant now?
After the influx of migration during Partition, Assam also saw another influx of movement during the 1970 Pakistan Civil War - which resulted in the formation of the Bangladesh
The NRC was updated to include the illegal migrants from this migration period
Who was a legal citizen under the new NRC?
It was an extensive list covering 10 criteria - but the crux of it falls down to this - if you could prove in some substantive way that you and your family existed in India before the 24th of March 1971, you were a citizen of India
How did you prove that you fell into these criteria?
An application form was posted both online, and NRC Seva Kendras, that is - help desks aimed at enabling citizens to submit their applications were set up across the country
Two sets of documents had to furnished by applicants in order to prove citizenship
The forms themselves were extensively distributed, sometimes from house to house
What happened after the NRC was implemented?
on the 31st of August 2019, almost 2 million people woke up to find themselves missing from the Registry - and therefore effectively stateless and without citizenship
Could the decision be appealed?
those excluded from the list has 120 days to appeal to local “Foreigners Tribunals”, and take their claims through the cumbersome Indian Court System
What happened to these stateless people?
They are currently being housed in detention camps while the government works out what to do with them
Why is this relevant to me? I’m not from Assam
the Home Minister, Amit Shah - has proposed that a similar “recalibrating” of citizens in India be conducted nationwide
How does this link to the CAA?
After members of the BJP expressed concern that a lot of the stateless citizens were in fact hindu - officials expressed interest in creating legislation to protect “legitimate citizens”
the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 is that promised piece of legislation
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this is everything you need to know about the NRC
a summary of the current state of affairs in india can be found here
again, tagging a few people so that this goes around: : @webheadstan, @spiderrpcrker, @rocknrollonthat45, @littlemissstark , @icarustarks , @lgbtonystarks, @rxmanoff , @starkrogerrs , @talesofsuspenses, @deathsweetqueen, @film-bro, @presidentrhodes (if you didn’t want to be tagged im sorry)