‘Ill-informed people are trying to communalise update process’

Assam for the publication of the final draft of the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC), a section of people from the state have voiced concerns over what they allege was a “malicious misinformation campaign” to derail the process.

The complete draft of the NRC, the update of which is being done to identify foreigners living in Assam, will be made public on July 30. The first draft was released on December 31, 2017.

“Now that the draft is nearing publication, there is an uproar from certain linguistic and religious bodies from outside the state that the updated NRC will result in catastrophic violence and disorder,” author and social scientist Hiren Gohain said.

“It may be that those people and organisations are misinformed or it might be an intentional attempt to hijack the process. We have suspicions that there could be some international hand behind this, but there is no proof yet,” Gohain added.

Gohain’s views follows a factfinding report by a group called United Against Hate, which conflates the NRC process with activities of the state’s foreigners’ tribunals and the election commission’s direction to mark people without valid identity documents as D-Voters or doubtful voters.

“It is true that due to bureaucratic bungling and the inhumane way the border police and foreigners’ tribunals function, there may be some cases of genuine citizens getting listed as D-Voters or being declared foreigners. But such issues have nothing to do with the legitimacy of the NRC process,” Gohain said.

Some allege that sections outside the state are trying to give the process an ‘Assamese vs Bengali’ or ‘Hindu vs Muslim’ colour. “Not many know that Assam had agreed in the 1990s to the NRC process with the signing of the Assam Accord of 1985 at the end of a six-year agitation to detect and deport illegal Bangladeshis,” journalist Haidar Hussain said.

GUWAHATI:As