Aren’t all people born in India citizens of the country?

Not all of them. Children of foreign diplomats or enemy aliens born in India are anyway excluded from citizenship. For all others, it depends on their date of birth. According to Section 3 of the Citizenship Act 1955 (as amended), this is how it works:

How are things different for the people in Assam?

Strictly speaking, things are only supposed to be different for people in Assam who are covered under the Assam Accords – that is, foreigners who have come to Assam. However, the mechanism used to decide who’s a foreigner and who’s not is the NRC, and so effectively it has created a different process for everyone in Assam. People, thus, have to show that either they or their families were on the original NRC compiled in 1951, or the electoral rolls in Assam up to 1971. If they can’t show electoral rolls, other documents like tenancy records, passports etc for that time will suffice.

How can there be a different set of criteria for Assam?

That’s because the Citizenship Act itself allows this. Section 6A was added to it in 1985, to reflect the Assam Accords, which created a threefold system to separate illegal immigrants from original residents and legal migrants:

Do all citizens of India need to prove their citizenship? Do all of us need to apply to be on a National Register of Indian Citizens?

No, there is no requirement for the average Indian citizen to prove their citizenship, or get their name added to a register. The Citizenship Rules 2003 do envisage a nationwide register, but this has not been put into place.

So effectively, people in Assam have to do something nobody else in India has to. Isn’t that unconstitutional?

Cases have been filed before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act (which forms the foundation for all of this), though the challenges are actually predicated on harm to the state of Assam because Section 6A allows a different system of regularisation for illegal immigrants as compared to the rest of the country. Justices Rohinton Nariman and Ranjan Gogoi were hearing these cases in 2014, but while they ordered the updated NRC to be finalised (by 31 January 2016, a deadline that has been left far behind), they referred the constitutionality questions to a Constitution Bench. No progress has been made on the cases since.

So what options do the 40 lakh people excluded from the second draft of the NRC have?

At this moment, the best those excluded from the list can do is attempt to get themselves included in the final NRC, which is to be prepared by 31 December 2018. There will be a window from 30 August to 28 September to file forms to demonstrate they have been wrongly excluded from the list. Those who made their original application to be on the NRC before September 2015 can fill in new claim forms, while others can file corrections.

What happens after the finalised NRC is published in December 2018?

There is no clarity about what will happen to those who don’t make it to the finalised NRC. Till it is out, the Supreme Court has reiterated that no action can be taken against anyone not on the draft lists, and Home Minister Rajnath Singh has confirmed that nobody would be declared a foreigner till then. After the final list is out, however, the fates of those not on the list will rest with the Foreigners Tribunals which make determinations of who is a foreigner and who should be deported. Deportations will then need to be ordered by the Centre, but it is difficult to say how they will deport people to Bangladesh or other countries since those countries are unlikely to accept them.

Assam NRC: Citizenship is a Unique Ordeal for the Assamese

Why is this whole NRC business such a big deal?

Over 40 lakh people in Assam or from the state have been excluded from the second draft of the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRC), which was released on Monday, 30 July. The NRC is supposed to separate illegal immigrants in Assam from those who have a right to be there, and is meant to be a definitive list of citizens from the state.

While this seems innocuous enough, the situation in Assam is more fraught because it requires everyone in or from the state to submit documents to prove they are not illegal immigrants, rather than the state identifying suspected illegal immigrants and then asking for proof.

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Topics: Supreme Court National Register of Citizens 1971

Published: 02 Aug 2018, 5:05 PM IST

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Citizenship is a Unique Ordeal for the Assamese, Thanks to the Law

The law allows there to be a different set of rules to be applied to ascertain citizenship of those from Assam.

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Topics: Supreme Court National Register of Citizens 1971