HOME MINISTRY ALLAYS FEAR OVER CAA LINK WITH NRC
Releases FAQs to address concerns over NRC, CAA
NEW DELHI: The Union government on Friday tried to allay concerns around the relationship between the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and a proposed countrywide National Register of Citizens exercise, saying that documentation required to establish citizenship in a NRC wouldn’t be as stringent as it was in Assam.
NEWDELHI: The Union government on Friday blamed those who have filed petitions against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, in the Supreme Court for instigating violent protests across India even as it tried to allay concerns around the relationship between CAA and a proposed countrywide National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise.
Assam’s NRC, ordered by the Supreme Court and completed earlier this year, left out 1.9 million people, including lakhs of Hindus. Subsequently, several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including home minister Amit Shah have said that an NRC will be carried out across India, but only after passage of the amended citizenship law. The understanding was that this would protect the interests of non-Muslims excluded from NRC.
The CAA fast-tracks Indian citizenship to “persecuted minorities” from three Muslim-majority neighbours of the country, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
On Friday, the ministry of home affairs made it clear that the documentation required to establish citizenship in a national NRC wouldn’t be as stringent as it was for in the Assam exericse.
“It would be sufficient for you to provide the details of your birth such as date of birth, month, year and place,” the ministry said in a 13-point FAQs, or Frequently Asked Questions, issued late on Friday evening. Those who do not have details about their birth will have to share information about their parents although they are not required to submit documents related to the parents.
This is the first time that the home ministry has officially answered questions around NRC. To be sure, plans for a nationwide one are yet to be announced (leave alone the methodology), although it is widely believed that the basis for this will be the ongoing National Population Register or NPR, launched when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was in power.
The FAQs said the documents that are “likely” to be accepted are “voter ID cards, passports, Aadhaar numbers, licenses, insurance papers, birth certificates, school leaving certificates, documents relating to land or home (ownership) or other similar documents”. But this list is illustrative, it added. “A decision is yet to be taken on such acceptable documents,” it said.
A home ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that NRC, mandated under the citizenship (registration of citizens and issue of national identity cards) rules of 2003, will come after the government prepares the National Population of Register (NPR).
“Just like we present our identity cards for registering our names in the voter list or getting an Aadhaar number, similar documents shall need to be provided for NRC, as and when it is carried out,” the document said.
Indian citizenship is automatically granted to any person born in the country until 1987. Those born between 1987 and 2003 in the country are citizens if either of their parents are Indian citizens.
Those born after 2003 are citizens only if both parents are Indian citizens. India’s only experience with a citizens’ register has been in Assam. The FAQs said Assam was a different case in light of the NRC’s peculiar circumstances in this state. “Infiltration is an old problem in Assam...in 1985, the then Rajiv Gandhi government, to identify the intruders, had to enter into an agreement to prepare NRC, assuming the cut-off date of 25 March 1971,” it said.
A key concern expressed by activists and opposition leaders including Congress president Sonia Gandhi has been that the NRC documentation would be so stringent that it would leave out the poor and disadvantaged.
Even if a person is “illiterate and does not have relevant documents’, the ministry said, “the authorities will allow that person to bring a witness.” The government questioned the assumption that the poor do not have any means of identification. “If you are living here, you will have something,” a home ministry official said.
A second home ministry official defended the internet shutdowns across states and said these were done to ensure mobs do not gather and damage property.