A small village on the outskirts of Ahmednagar in Maharashtra has become the first village to pass a resolution for non-cooperation with the implementation of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR). The twist? The village of 2,000 people does not have a single Muslim resident.
The village, Islak, has a pre-dominantly tribal population who voiced concerns over lack of identification documents, following which the gram panchayat passed the resolution., reported news channel NDTV.
“One of our residents proposed this move as they do not have any documents and even their fathers and grandfathers did not have documents. They will never be able to provide documents to prove their citizenship as these are old documents that are required.”Amol Shinde, a village official.
According to Shinde, the issue of lack of documents has been raised with the government over the past four years but no action has been taken.
“They have no access to government schemes and now there is one more burden on them to prove their citizenship.”Amol Shinde, a village official.
According to Madadev Gavali, a gram panchayat member, almost one-third of the village population belong to the Adivasi community.
“Citizenship on the basis of documents is impossible for the backward communities and we have sent our message to the Central Government through the district administration.”Yogesh Garge, Gram Panchayat member
The villagers state that the powers of a gram panchayat are established in the laws of the country and thus have decided to not cooperate with the implementation of CAA.
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