Anuradha Sen Mookerjee: In India’s Assam, a solidarity network has emerged to help those at risk of becoming stateless
Volunteers and human
rights groups have connected with civil society actors to help residents commute from Lower to Upper Assam for hearings
and verification, and on some occasion even raise money, creating a solidarity
network. Such a humanitarian
network is crucial at a time when marginalised people feel threatened with the
changing legal regime which seeks to redefine the basis of Indian citizenship.
These networks of solidarity in India’s north-eastern borderlands attempt to
draw out the real Indian body politic, reinforcing the plural fabric of the
Indian constitution.
The state of Assam in
India is currently
burning with violent protests against a new citizenship law passed by
both houses of the Indian parliament in early December. The Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA) will ease the Indian citizenship process for undocumented
migrants in India who come from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh – but only
for those who are not Muslim, undermining the promise of equality
by the Indian Constitution. The international community criticised the new
law, with the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights calling it “fundamentally
discriminatory”.
Since its
parliamentary approval on December 12, the law has triggered massive protests
across India including in the capital Delhi. Assam is directly
affected by the new law. It significantly undermines the National
Register of Citizens (NRC), a listing process that has been underway in
Assam since 2015 through which residents have to prove their claim to
citizenship based on documentary evidence. The NRC is designed to update a
first list conducted as an
all-India exercise in 1951 to combat illegal immigration flows,
primarily from neighbouring Bangladesh.... read more:
