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WORLD NEWS Saturday 11 auguSt 2018
In northeast India, the politics of citizenship flares anew

By RISHI LEKHI ing. Many analysts, how-
Associated Press ever, say those numbers
MAYONG, India (AP) — The in part reflect the higher
rice farmer doesn't know birth rates among Muslims.
how it happened. Ab- Estimates on the number
dul Mannan just knows a of illegal immigrants vary
mistake was made some- wildly, from a few hundred
where. But what can you thousand to many millions.
say when the authorities While Muslims appear to
suddenly insist one of your dominate the 3.9 million
five children isn't an Indian? people left off the citizen-
What do you do when your ship rolls, they aren't the
wife and daughter-in-law only people now facing a
are suddenly viewed as il- bureaucratic gauntlet.
legal immigrants? "I don't know about politics.
"We are genuine Indians. I am a poor man. I work
We are not foreigners," said all day, eat, and sleep at
Mannan, 50, adding his night. I don't go anywhere
family has lived in India's else," said Khitish Namo
northeastern Assam state Das, 50, a rail-thin Hindu
since the 1930s. "I can't farmer who insists he was
understand where the mis- born in India and whose
take is." People whose names were left out in National Register of Citizens (NRC) draft stand in a queue to family of eight — except for
Neither can nearly 4 million collect forms to file appeals in Mayong, 45 kilometers east of Gauhati, India, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. one daughter-in-law — are
other people who insist they Associated Press now considered illegal.
are Indian but who now "When the names did not
must prove their national- Mannan, who lives with his project that involves 52,000 newspaper. appear on the list it made
ity as the politics of citizen- family in a bamboo-walled officials, visits to 6.8 mil- Today, hundreds of Ben- me worry," he said, then re-
ship — overlaid with ques- hut, supporting them on lion families and countless gali-speaking Muslims with assured himself: "I have the
tions of religion, ethnicity about $150 a month in hearings to examine the suspect nationality are al- documents so I don't think
and illegal immigration — farming income. "How will details of family trees. ready living in a half-dozen I need to worry too much."
swirls in a state where such we live? What will we do? But the politics of religion detention camps in Assam. It's not clear what will hap-
questions have a long and How will we stay in Assam?" and ethnicity have been Assam has a population of pen to people who, once
bloody past. For decades, fears of on the rise in India since roughly 33 million, with a their appeals are used up,
Today, nativist anger churns widespread movement 2014, when the Hindu na- little over one-third of them are still not listed as citizens.
through the hills and plains across the porous border tionalist Bharatiya Janata Muslims. Detention is a strong possi-
of Assam state, just across with Bangladesh have trig- Party was swept to power "The concern over illegal bility for some, but impov-
the border from Bangla- gered tensions between in national elections. The migration is indeed genu- erished Bangladesh insists it
desh, with many here be- the state's majority ethnic party quickly pushed to up- ine," said Akhil Ranjan will not accept mass expul-
lieving the state is overrun group, Assamese-speaking date the citizenship registry Dutta, a political analyst sions back into its territory.
with illegal migrants. Hindus, and its Bengali- in Assam, where politicians and professor at Gauhati Activists worry many could
"India is for Indians. Assam speaking Muslims. have eagerly grabbed University in Assam. "But un- be left in limbo for years,
is for Indians," said Sam- In the 1980s that erupted hold of the issue. fortunately, political parties perhaps decades, stateless
mujjal Bhattachariya, a into violence, with hun- "First our target is to segre- have always tried to score wanderers like Myanmar's
top official with the All As- dreds of people killed in gate the foreigners. What brownie points on the issue Rohingya Muslims.
sam Students Union, which Assam amid waves of anti- steps we will take against purely to gain votes." Even some of those who
has been in the forefront of migrant attacks. New Delhi them will come next," As- Few deny there has been support the citizenship sur-
pushing for the citizenship eventually ruled that any- sam's top elected official, widespread illegal migra- vey say the migrants are
survey. "Assam is not for il- one who could prove their Sarbananda Sonowal, told tion into Assam, often a significant part of the
legal Bangladeshis." family had lived in India be- the Times of India in an by poor Bangladeshis in economy.
"We need a permanent so- fore Bangladesh's 1971 war interview early this year. search of work as farm "Those immigrants play a
lution," he added. of independence, which "They will have only one laborers. The state's de- very important role in sup-
On Friday, some of the 3.9 drove millions of Bangla- right — human rights as mographics have shifted plying your labor econo-
million residents left off As- deshis to flee across the guaranteed by the U.N. dramatically in recent de- my. So if those people are
sam's draft list of citizens border, would be consid- that include food, shelter cades, with the percent- given work permits, minus
began picking up forms ered an Indian citizen. and clothing." age of Bengali-speakers political rights, they could
to file their appeals, wad- But proving that can be "For almost 40 years our jumping from 22 percent in be very valuable in Assam,"
ing into a byzantine legal deeply complicated in a people have been living 1991 to 29 percent in 2011, said Nani Gopal Mahanta,
and bureaucratic process region where basic paper- in a state of confusion and and the percentage of an Assam-based political
that many fear could lead work — birth certificates, uncertainty," he told the Assamese-speakers declin- analyst.q
to detention, expulsion or marriage certificates, leas-
years in limbo. es — has only recently be-
Mannan, his two daughters come commonplace in
and two of his sons were many rural villages.
all listed on the citizenship State officials insist they
list released in July. But his have done everything pos-
wife, a 17-year-old son and sible to make the proce-
his daughter-in-law were dure fair.
nowhere to be seen. No "It's been an extremely
explanation was given. exhaustive process," said
"We are worried that the Prateek Hajela, the coor-
names are not there," said dinator of the citizenship