India declares four million Assam residents ‘stateless’

INDIA was braced for unrest in its north-eastern Assam state yesterday after authorities declared four million residents to be foreigners, effectively stripping them of their citizenship.

The residents, mostly Muslims of Bangladeshi origin, were deemed “stateless” after India published a draft list of citizens deemed to have entered the country before 1971, when millions fled into the state during Bangladesh’s independence war.

The government released its final draft of Assam’s National Registrar of Citizens in what many claim is as an effort by Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, to target Muslims hostile to his BJP nationalist party ahead of elections next year.

Officials said no one would face immediate deportation to Bangladesh and all those deemed foreigners had the right to appeal.

Despite this, the Indian army was put on standby and more than 40,000 state police and paramilitary personnel were deployed in Assam. “This is just a draft and not the final list,” insisted India’s census commissioner Sailesh, who uses only one name. “There is no question of anyone being taken to detention centres.”

He added that a four-week appeal process would begin on Aug 30. “Ample scope will be given to people for making objections” Sailesh declared.

To be eligible to stay, Assam residents would have to produce documents to prove they or their families had lived in the state before March 24 1971, the day before the war for Bangladesh’s liberation from Pakistan began.

Following independence from Britain, the sub-continent was divided between India and West and East Pakistan. Political and ethnic differences led to East Pakistan declaring independence in 1971. In a brutal military crackdown that followed, thousands of refugees, mostly Muslim, fled to Assam.

However, Bangladesh, already burdened by the Rohingya refugee crisis, has indicated no willingness to accept more newly-created “stateless” expats.