More NRC Problems

More NRC Problems

When the exercise of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) of 1951 was taken up at the bidding of the Supreme Court, there was every reason to believe that a State like Assam with millions of illegal migrants from Bangladesh would at last have a means of distinguishing the illegal foreign migrant from the Indian citizens inhabiting the State. There was also the lurking hope that even the impossible might happen at least to a limited extent: the deportation of illegal migrants to their native land. Unfortunately, what most people seem to have overlooked is that in addition to the large number of patriotic Indians who wanted the foreign nationals illegally living in Assam to be deported to their country, there was a more powerful group of schemers who wanted the millions of illegal migrants to find a way of continuing to live in Assam and to eventually secure Indian citizenship by some means. And the illegal migrants from Bangladesh were far more determined to continue living in Assam than those opposed to their illegal presence here were to have them deported. One of the important reasons why it was so easy for the migrants from Bangladesh to continue living in Assam was the total apathy of the government to the enormity or the problem and the associated hazards of letting the problem fester. This made things ever so much easier for those who had a strong vested interest in ensuring permanent residence for Bangladeshi migrants in Assam. Among them was the Congress which secretly got the names of most of the illegal migrants entered in the electoral roll to swell the party’s vote bank. That the foremost political party of the country was indulging in a totally illegal and anti-national activity merely for political gains never got adequately emphasized by our patriotic politicians at any point. All politicians were beneficiaries of a larger vote bank.

For those opposed to the updating of the NRC because of what a reliable NRC would do to the electoral prospects of non-Indians masquerading as Indians, the attention being lately given to ensuring a correct and totally reliable NRC rang alarm bells. A whole lot of illegal migrants who had managed to get their names entered in the electoral were mortally afraid of the consequences of their names getting deleted from the updated NRC and the electoral rolls. But since a large number of names of foreign nationals had got into the NRC, there is now good reason for seeking re-verification of the NRC in some districts to ensure correctness and the total elimination of the names of foreign nationals. According to a legal counsel of the Assam government, the State government has pleaded for a direction from the Supreme Court seeking re-verification of 10 per cent NRC data in districts bordering Bangladesh and 20 per cent such data in districts that have recorded abnormal population growth. The Assam government’s petition to the Supreme Court is understood to have been filed recently in response to a direction of the Supreme Court issued on August 20.

While the petitions for re-verification made by the Assam government and the Assam Public Works are in the best interests of ensuring a correct and reliable updated NRC rather than one with the names of many foreign nationals, the fact remains that the business of seeking re-verifications and important queries relating to the updating of the NRC have caused delays, and should have been undertaken much earlier instead of delaying the publication of the final draft of the updated NRC. The kind of delay that the updating of the NRC has undergone for one reason or another, merely serves to make the lobbies interested in sabotaging the publication of the updated NRC happy and to extend the time that foreigners living in Assam illegally and their progeny born in Assam have managed to eke out. They can use this time profitably to continue living in Assam and to find other innovative ways of extending their stay. We have only the Assam government’s tardiness to thank for such misfortunes.

Thefts at our Temples

Avery startling and horrifying piece of news relates to the sustained loot of Indian temples. According to reports, about 1,000 pieces of ancient artworks are stolen from Indian temples every year, and shipped to international markets. This information comes from a Singapore-based shipping executive of Indian origin. “We are estimating about close to 10,000 major works of arts leaving India every decade,” said S. Vinay Kumar who has detailed the artwork theft in a book titled The Idol Thief which was launched in Singapore last Saturday. “We have tracked some of the huge objects —15-16 tonne sculptures, that have left the country by Ocean containers, declared as brassware and garden furniture,” he said. This loot of the country, of its artwork, that is often hundreds of years old, is something that is undertaken and organized by Indians with no commitment to their country except a lot of pretence. And such anti-India activities thrive because people with major political connections are actively engaged in such activities. We are concerned with works of art that no one has the capacity to replicate or reproduce today. We are concerned with our heritage that is being systematically looted and exported for huge sums of money. And those responsible for such anti-national acts are not foreigners. They are Indians. They are anti-national Indians pretending to be better Indians than the rest of us. We need a law that will specifically prevent rogues who sell our heritage to other countries while pretending to be better Indians than others. We need a law that will protect what is left of our heritage before some looters sell off all our artwork.

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