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The idea of citizenship

Articles of Faith
Last Updated 21 September 2019, 19:57 IST

These days, the ruling dispensation in the country can’t seem to get their hands on something they don’t immediately want to break into pieces. Whether it is Lutyens Delhi’s architecture or India’s relationship with Kashmir or the economy, the giant toddlers in office seem to want to immediately smash it to the ground and see what happens. The latest thing in their toddler hands is Indian citizenship, and they’re waving it around in a dangerous manner.

I’m referring to the proposal of a nationwide National Register of Citizens -- one that will apparently identify ‘infiltrators’ and “throw them out”. Given how the NRC has played out in Assam, causing endless harassment and anxiety to everyone before putting the citizenship status of about two million people in doubt, one wonders what kind of perversity drives the likes of Amit Shah to want to inflict this on the rest of the nation. The NRC exercise was so successful that no one, not the state government or the Union government or the judiciary, wants to carry it to its logical conclusion anytime soon!

Let’s be fair to them though -- it is not exactly their original idea. Very many people have contributed to making the disaster that is the NRC today -- starting from the British, who actively encouraged large-scale migration by Bengali speakers and tribespeople in eastern India to Assam to turn what they saw as “wasteland” into farms, factories, mines and refineries, to Rajiv Gandhi’s 1985 Assam Accord, all the way to the CJI Ranjan Gogoi-led benches of the Supreme Court.

Will the Citizenship Amendment Bill help those left out? Leave aside the unconstitutionally communal basis being sought to be used to determine citizenship for the moment, and you’ll find that this is also a giant jumla that will help few, if any, of those left out of the NRC or new non-Muslim refugees that come seeking citizenship. They – the Hindu, Sikh, and other non-Muslim intended beneficiaries -- will have to first show that they are originally from Bangladesh, Pakistan or Afghanistan, a requirement that’s practically impossible for those who have no documents to show nationality anywhere, whatsoever.

If we extrapolate the numbers from Assam for a “nationwide NRC”, it is quite likely that a hundred million Indians will probably find themselves being declared non-citizens. And this is a conservative estimate. Given the minimal reach of the Indian state, how many people would be able to produce a valid birth certificate from the local authorities thus “proving” Indian citizenship? Will you, reader, be able to do so? Do you want to make a quick check once you finish reading this column?

A solution must be found for Assam, and it lies in simply adhering to the constitutional vision of who can be a citizen of India. The present provisions in the Constitution were the result of one of the most extensive debates on any clause, according to Babasaheb Ambedkar. This was possibly because, as Sardar Patel pointed out, the whole world was watching how India would deal with the question of citizenship. Unlike most constitutions that came before, the Indian Constitution imposed no test of religion, caste, language, ethnicity or race in determining citizenship. It followed the principle of birth-right citizenship, until it deviated partially from the same following the Assam Accord by amending the Citizenship Act in 1987.

To move forward on the NRC in Assam may require a move “backwards” -- by acknowledging that Indian citizenship is not hinged on identity and is capable of accepting in its fold multiple identities and origins. It requires only a minor amendment to Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, and has in fact been done in the past -- for those who had come to India between 1966 and 1971.

As in 1949, so in 2019 -- the world is watching how India handles questions of citizenship.

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(Published 21 September 2019, 19:20 IST)

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