Several lakhs of people stand to lose their right to be called ‘Indian citizens’ as the final NRC list will be published on 31 August.
What does the NRC entail? How many people will be included in the list and how many will lose the right to call themselves ‘Indians’? For this podcast, we spoke to several residents of Assam whose families have been affected by the NRC as well as Sanjoy Hazarika, the director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Tune in!
The National Register of Citizens dates way back to 1951. The NRC was created in 1951, as a list of Indian citizens in Assam to prevent “unabated” migration from then East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh.
This list was supposed to be updated but wasn’t. The situation came to a head in 1985, when the Centre, the Assam government, and the people who were a part of an anti-foreigner movement entered an agreement called the Assam Accord, which would deport all “foreigners” in Assam.
Who were these foreigners? Anyone who couldn’t prove that they lived in Assam before 24 March 1971, the day the Bangladesh War began.
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