Flaws in the NRC

With every passing day, a large number of people have started saying that the NRC has a lot of flaws, and is hence neither complete nor fully correct. It was the All Assam Students’ Union who said it first. “The number of persons whose names have not been included in the NRC is nowhere close to the figures of illegal migrants that different governments had cited from time to time. That is why AASU is not happy. Several flaws and errors have remained in the NRC preparation process. Thus the AASU believes that the NRC has not been complete. AASU will approach the Supreme Court for redressal,” – this is exactly what the AASU, the student body that has been relentlessly fighting for detection and deportation of illegal migrants from Assam, stated immediately after the NRC was published on August 31. On Friday, the influential Bodo Sahitya Sabha too has aired similar views. It has said that while a sizeable number of illegal migrants have made their way in to the NRC, a large number of indigenous people of Assam – ‘sons of the soil’ – have been excluded. The Bodo Sahitya Sabha, like the AASU, has made an appeal to the Supreme Court to look into the matter. Assam minister and NEDA convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma too has made a statement on similar lines. It was at the initiative and the strong stand taken by the Supreme Court of India that the NRC saw the light of the day. There is a very strong lobby – both within and outside Assam – which has been working overtime since the beginning to scuttle the process of updating the NRC in Assam. The AASU, Bodo Shitya Sabha and all such bodies which have prayed for the intervention of the Supreme Court are right. While all those who wanted a flawless NRC must thank the Supreme Court for the strict and vigilant role it played in ensuring the NRC itself was not scuttled, the Supreme Court probably should also go through its historic judgment of July 12, 2005, through which it had struck down the notorious Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act of 1983. In para 32 of the said judgment passed by Chief Justice RC Lahoti, and Justices BP Mathur and PK Subramanyan had said – “The foremost duty of the Central Government is to defend the borders of the country, prevent any trespass and make lives of citizens safe and secure.” That judgment had also described influx of large number of persons from across the border into India as an act of aggression, and had recalled an official statement by India’s then representative in the 6th Committee of the UN General Assembly which had referred to “a unique type of bloodless aggression from a vast and incessant flow of millions of human beings forced to flee into another State.” In para 38 of the judgment, the Supreme Court had said – “This being the situation, there can be no manner of doubt that the State of Assam is facing ‘external aggression and internal disturbance’ on account of large-scale illegal migration of Bangladeshi nationals. It, therefore, becomes the duty of the Union of India to take all measures for protection of the State of Assam from such external aggression and internal disturbance as enjoined in Article 355. Having regard to this constitutional mandate, the question arises whether the Union of India has taken any measures for that purpose.” There are several more paragraphs in the said judgment through which the Supreme Court of India had clearly described the scenario. It is now also for the government to take time out and go through the above-mentioned judgment of the Supreme Court and ask itself two simple questions – One, was the Supreme Court wrong? And, Two, has the Union of India followed what the Supreme Court had asked it to do over 14 years ago?

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