By P. K. Balachandran/Sunday Observer
Colombo, March 17: As India goes into the election mode, controversies have arisen around the counting of the population and the grant or denial of Indian citizenship.
These counting exercises are necessary for knowing the social, religious, caste and economic profile of the Indian population to enable correct targeting of the government’s economic and social welfare schemes. They also enable effective political/electoral mobilisation of people by political parties.
The exercises in question at this juncture are the decennial census, the National Population Register (NPR), the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019.
To varying degrees, all four have been controversial lately. Opposition parties, Chief Ministers of States not ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), sections of civil society and other interested parties have been registering their protest and even appealing to the Supreme Court against one or the other of these exercises.
Decennial Census
Since 1881, India had conducted a decennial census without fail till 2011. But the next census that was due in 2021 was not conducted. The pandemic of 2020 was cited as an excuse, though the UK, China, and the US had conducted censuses while the pandemic was on. The census is now likely to be conducted only after the parliamentary and State Assembly elections in 2024. Eight Indian States are scheduled to hold Legislative Assembly elections. Parliamentary polls are expected in May, 2024.
On January 26, 2023, Frontline magazine speculated about the reasons for the indefinite postponement of the census: Firstly, the BJP government at the Centre might have wanted to wriggle out of enumerating the population sizes of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), a politically sensitive and crucial constituency, until the general elections were over.
Secondly, the findings of the census might not confirm the “hysteria about growth rates of certain religious groups.” Thirdly, claims of achievements in human development and access to amenities might also be belied by census data.
Whatever the reason, the government offered no credible explanation for delaying the 2021 census.
National Population Register
The National Population Register (NPR) is a Register containing details of persons usually residing in a village or rural area, town or ward. The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive database of “usual residents” in any given area. No document will be required to back any statement.
Data thus collected are used to target the government’s economic and welfare schemes, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah told an ANI podcast.
However, the NPR became controversial because it was going to be done in conjunction with the more controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) country-wide. Many also asked why there should be an NPR when the census is going to be taken.
Shah said that the NPR and the census are two different things. The census encompasses a whole lot of parameters while the NPR is a simple exercise to help the better targeting of government schemes. Government also clarified that the NPR does not require the submission of any document. Documents are a bugbear for many poor or rural Indians who do not have any of them, not even birth certificates.
National Register of Citizens
The National Register of Citizens (NRC) was introduced after the 1951 Census of India to assess the number of immigrants in Assam from East Pakistan following the partition of India in 1947.
But given the unchecked immigration from East Pakistan (and later from Bangladesh), the cut-off date for recognition of Indian citizenship was fixed as March 24, 1971. This cut-off point was fixed in 1985 as part of the Assam Accord, following a prolonged and violent agitation by indigenous Assamese.
As per the Accord, a foreigner would be given full Indian citizenship including the right to vote if he/she had come to Assam between 1951 and 1961. Foreigners who had migrated to Assam between 1961 and 1971 would be given all the rights of citizenship except the right to vote, which would be denied for a period of ten years. Those who entered Assam after the year 1971 would be deported.
But despite the Assam Accord, massive infiltration from Bangladesh was alleged. In 2013, the Supreme Court ordered an updated NRC to be done by 2017. The new NRC required the submission of various documents. But as stated earlier, many did not possess such documents. Thus, more than 1.9 million of the 30 million applicants for inclusion in the NRC in Assam were left out.
Those who were left out could, of course, appeal to Tribunals. But the confirmed cases of illegal immigration were to be detained in special camps, and eventually deported. But though detention camps were built, the suspected persons were allowed to stay at home. According to Home Minister Shah, no one has been deported to date. But deportation hangs like the sword of Damocles over their heads.
Citizenship Amendment Act
The Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 (CAA) is meant to fast-track applications for Indian citizenship from Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis and Christians who had sought refuge in India due to religious persecution in Islamic Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Under the CAA, those who entered India after December 31, 2014 would be deemed illegal immigrants, detained and deported.
Though the CAA was enacted in December 2019, its rules were notified only on March 11, 2024. It was not notified in 2019-20 because of a prolonged agitation by Muslims (especially Muslim women) and liberals from all communities. It was widely covered by the international media.
Now, with the BJP riding a wave of popularity, the government feels encouraged to implement the CAA. But opposition parties and Chief Ministers of non-BJP-ruled States have opposed the CAA and declared that they will not implement it in their domains. The opposition parties feel that the CAA caters only to the BJP’s Hindu nationalist agenda and that its main aim is to garner the votes of the Hindu majority and select minority communities other than Muslims.
Unrest in Assam
Assam has already taken the cudgels against the CAA. The Act has rekindled the Assamese sub-national sentiment, which in the 1970s, had wrought havoc in the State.
The Assamese found that under the CAA, the cut-off date was December 31, 2014 while in the Assam Accord of 1985, the cut-off date was March 24, 1971. The Assamese fear that the new cut-off date will open the floodgates to Hindu migrants from Bangladesh.
The population of Hindus had dwindled sharply in Bangladesh before Sheikh Hasina came to power as Prime Minister in 2009. The country’s military dictators in collusion with Islamic radicals used to drive the Hindus out routinely. But Sheikh Hasina put an end to all that. There has been no migration to India under her watch though Indian politicians routinely allege that the number of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants is two million.
However, there is reason to fear that Sheikh Hasina’s exit from power could lead to the Hindus being forced to flee to Assam again.
As feelings are running high in Assam, the BJP Chief Minister of the State, Himanta Biswa Sarma, asked the agitators to appeal to the Supreme Court to shoot the CAA down.
Addressing critics of the CAA in other States and among the Muslims, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah explained that the CAA is not designed to take away Indian citizenship from any community, but to facilitate the grant of citizenship to specific persecuted communities from specified Islamic countries.
But he has not answered the charge that religion cannot be a criterion for granting citizenship under the Indian constitution. It is this aspect of the CAA that has been challenged in the Supreme Court by 250 petitions. The latest petition on it, submitted by the Indian Union Muslim League, sought a stay of the CAA notification saying that it was announced even as the issue was pending in the Supreme Court.
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