{"id":52992,"date":"2019-10-11T19:00:19","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T13:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogadmin.forumias.com\/?p=52992"},"modified":"2019-10-11T17:21:46","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T11:51:46","slug":"7-pm-do-we-need-a-countrywide-national-register-of-citizens-11th-october-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-do-we-need-a-countrywide-national-register-of-citizens-11th-october-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"7 PM | Do we need a countrywide National Register of Citizens? | 11th October, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Context:\n<\/strong>All\nIndiaNational Register of Citizens\n(NRC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>More\nin news<\/strong>:\nAfter rolling out the National Register of Citizens in Assam, the BJP-led\ngovernment at the Centre has said it will conduct a similar exercise in the\nrest of the country.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>National\nRegister of Citizens (NRC):<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is\nthe register containing names of Indian CITIZENS.<\/li><li>National Register of Citizens (NRC) was\nprepared first in 1951 after the conduct of the Census of 1951<\/li><li>The provisions governing NRC update in\nAssam are \u2018The Citizenship Act, 1955\u2019 and&nbsp;\u2018The Citizenship (Registration\nof Citizens and Issue of National Identity cards) Rules, 2003\u2019.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<table class=\"wp-block-table\"><tbody><tr><td><\/td><\/tr><tr><td><\/td><td><strong>The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity cards) Rules, 2003:<\/strong> <br>It states that for the formation of National Register of Indian Citizens <br>The Registrar General of Citizen Registration shall establish and maintain the National Register of Indian Citizens. <br>The National Register of Indian Citizens shall be divided into sub-parts consisting of the State Register of Indian Citizens, the District Register of Indian Citizens, the Sub-district Register of Indian Citizens and the Local Register of Indian Citizens and shall contain such details as the Central Government may, by order, in consultation with the Registrar General of Citizen Registration, specify. <br><strong>The Citizenship Act, 1955:<\/strong> This act mentions four ways in which a person may be Indian citizen viz. by birth, by descent, by registration and by naturalization. Citizenship by birth and descent are called natural citizens.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Background:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>There had been several waves of migration\nto Assam from Bangladesh but the two major waves of migration came after\nBritish rule \u2014 first after Partition, from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and\nthen the biggest in the aftermath of the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. This\neventually led to an agitation during 1979-85, led by the All Assam Students\u2019\nUnion demanding illegal migrants to be identified and deported.<\/li><li>The Assam Accord of 1985 that ended the\nsix-year anti-foreigners&#8217; agitation decided upon&nbsp;the midnight of March 24,\n1971 as the cut-off date to root out foreigners. The NRC process was thus\nstarted to address the issue of illegal migrants, specifically from Bangladesh.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Role\nof Supreme Court:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Supreme Court has decided that it will\njudicially oversee the process of updating the NRC which is supposed to help\nidentify Indian citizens residing in Assam in accordance with the Citizenship\nAct, 1955 and Assam accord.&nbsp;<\/li><li>The first draft published in 2017 include\nonly 1.9 crore names (less than 60% of state&#8217;s population), causing panic among\nmasses but averted on the promise that more names to come.&nbsp;<\/li><li>A section considers it non-transparent and\nquestioned the neutrality of presiding judge, Justice Ranjan Gogoi , who\nhimself hails from Assam.&nbsp;<\/li><li>It has led to a court that has discarded\nprocedure, caused grievous injury to vulnerable communities and diminished its\nown credibility through its overreach on matters.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Outcome\nof the NRC Updation in Assam:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Of the 3.3 crore applicants, 3.11 crore\nfigured in the final citizens\u2019 list, while about 19 lakh residents were\nexcluded from the final list published on August 31, 2019.<\/li><li>The excluded people have about 120 days to\nappeal against their exclusion to the foreigner tribunals. To speed up the\nprocess 200 new tribunals have been made functional in addition to the already\nexisting. If they are not satisfied with the tribunals, people can also move to\nhigh court and the Supreme Court for redressal.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Does\nIndia need Pan-India NRC?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>NRC exercise makes sense in Assam because\nin 1971 around 10 million people crossed over from Bangladesh to India and that\ncaught the attention of authorities. However, there is no need to get into this\nfoolhardy kind of exercise at national level, which is likely to divide the\nnation terribly.&nbsp;<\/li><li>All India NRC cannot be seen separately.\nThe citizenship amendment bill seems to be in line with the proposed NRC for\nwhole of India. If both are seen together, it will only manifold the problems\nof communalism. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Issues\nwith NRC:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>There is uncertainty about the future of\nthose left out from the list.<\/li><li>Expelling them to Bangladesh is not an\noption since Dhaka has never accepted that they are its citizens or that there\nis a problem of illegal immigration. In the absence of a formal agreement,\nIndia cannot forcibly push the illegal migrants back into Bangladesh.<\/li><li>Moreover, raising this issue can also\njeopardise relations with Dhaka. Such an attempt would not only damage\nbilateral relations but also sully the country\u2019s image internationally.<\/li><li>Apart from deportation, the other option\nis large scale detention camps &#8211; which is an unlikely option for a civilised\ndemocracy like India.<\/li><li>Another option is instituting work\npermits, which would give them limited legal rights to work but ensure they\nhave no political voice. However, it is not clear what will be the fate of\nchildren of such individuals.<\/li><li>With no end to uncertainty, NRC seems to\nbe a process without an end.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Conclusion:\n<\/strong>India,\nas a country which follows the ideology of \u2018Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam\u2019, should not\nbe hasty in taking decisions that can disenfranchise her citizens \u2013\ncontradicting its centuries-followed values. A person\u2019s citizenship is a basic\nhuman right. Declaring people foreigners in haste without judicially verifying\ntheir credentials can leave many human beings stateless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source:\n<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/do-we-need-a-countrywide-national-register-of-citizens\/article29649391.ece\">https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/do-we-need-a-countrywide-national-register-of-citizens\/article29649391.ece<\/a><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context: All IndiaNational Register of Citizens (NRC). More in news: After rolling out the National Register of Citizens in Assam, the BJP-led government at the Centre has said it will conduct a similar exercise in the rest of the country.&nbsp; National Register of Citizens (NRC): The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is the register containing&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-do-we-need-a-countrywide-national-register-of-citizens-11th-october-2019\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">7 PM | Do we need a countrywide National Register of Citizens? | 11th October, 2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":49370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-pm","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/7-PM.png?fit=1000%2C500&ssl=1","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704263640},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}