Anxiety grows as Indian state’s national register deadline nears

Aytara Begum, of Bhaluka Bari village in the Kamrup district of Assam, is a distraught woman these days. She does not have any official papers — just a certificate issued by the village head — to prove that she is an Indian. If, by Dec. 15, she fails to provide any other evidence, the chances are high that she will be declared stateless or a foreigner.

Thousands of people in the northeastern state of Assam are living with constant anxiety as they bid to prove their nationality.

“I never thought the day would come in my life where my loyalty and my association with the land of my forefathers would be questioned,” says 35-year-old Begum, a mother of two.

On July 30 this year, the Assam government released a final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which saw 30.3 million people included and 4.7 million left out. Those who were left out have been given an opportunity to file claims for inclusion by Dec. 15.

The Supreme Court-monitored NRC is meant to weed out illegal immigrants from Assam, which shares a nearly 270 km border with Bangladesh. To file a claim for inclusion in the NRC, the government formulated a standard operating procedure, which was supposed to be transparent and help the genuine Indian nationals left out to file a claim of inclusion.

However, with only a few days remaining before the deadline, only 700,000 people have been able to file a claim.