Millions in limbo
Fear and anxiety grip lakhs of people of the final NRC draft. in Assam who have been left out
A SENSE of uncertainty, confusion and fear pervades the length and breadth of Assam after more than 40 lakh people were excluded from the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) released on July 30. The people left out of the NRC are searching frantically for possible reasons for their exclusion; many of them have family members who are included in the list. While they cling on to the hope that everything will be set right once the final NRC is done, a niggling doubt in their minds forces them to contemplate a future of homelessness and despair.
The Hatishala Bhalukabari gram panchayat (GP) in Kamrup district presents a troubling scenario. From the five villages that comprise the Gp—bhalukabari, Hatishala Pam, Hatishala Gaon, Karaibil, and Laruajan—1,202 women were left out, though the men in their families, husbands, sons and fathers, were not. Octogenarian Suraya Banu of Bhalukabari village, who has had her name on the voters list since 1966, has no idea why it is not there in the final NRC draft. “Is it fair to make a person of my age go through this worry? I am an Assamese citizen, and yet my name is not on the list. What if my name is not on the final NRC either? What will they do to me?” she asked plaintively. Aitra Begum, wife of Altaf Hussein from the same village, is the only one in her family who does not figure there. She said it has taken away her sleep: “Shouldn’t I be worried? I submitted the gram panchayat certificate as well as the certificate from the village head, as I was directed to, and still my name is not on the list.”
‘PROBLEM OF LINKAGE’
Married women in the Muslim-majority villages face what local people call the problem of “linkage”—having to prove their legitimacy as resid-