For the last five years or so heated discussion on violence committed on minorities in Assam has risen to such a fever-pitch that any plea for a reasonable assessment of the Assamese concerns has been virtually ruled out of court.The Assamese,or a section of them,have been grave violators of human rights.But that by itself should not justify ruling out any[Read More…]
“In its present form, the NRC is basically a Rs1,600 crore waste paper that drove many to suicide, made thousands of poor people poorer and be in perpetual fear of being ejected from their homes.” In the entire country, Assam is the only State having National Register of Citizens compiled, wherein more than 19 lakhs that were left out of[Read More…]
To Secretary National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Sir, I refer to my letters dated 4-1-2021 & 16-1-2021 on violation of human rights of the detainees under the the Foreigners Act, 1946, the Foreigners (Tribunals For Assam) Order, 2006 and the other related laws in force in Assam. I have enclosed here copies of the two letters for your ready reference.[Read More…]
Assamese nationalism is a cultural project of the caste Assamese middle class. They have remained true to their conviction of the ‘anti-foreigner’ consciousness. The psychology of hate for the ‘outsider’ manufactured by this middle class became a norm in the public sphere in Assam. Any deviation from this norm turns one into an anti-cultural actor and destroyer of culture. Any[Read More…]
To Secretary National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) N.Delhi Sir, Kindly refer to my attached letter dated 4-1-2021 on arbitrary detention of Mohammad Nur Hussain, 34, a rickshaw puller in Guwahati who hails from Lawdong village in Assam’s Udalguri district, his wife Sahera Begum, 26, and their two minor children (Ages 7 & 5 years). In June, 2019, on a false charge[Read More…]
To Secretary National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) N.Delhi Sir, I refer to the distressing news report (https://indianexpress.com/article/north-east-india/assam/assam-nrc-detention-centre-7128303/) on how four members of a rickshaw puller’s family in Assam, unable to secure ready legal assistance, suffered gross violation of their basic human rights, when they were erroneously called “foreigners” in Assam under the Foreigners Tribunal Act, 1941, Foreigners Tribunal Order, 1964 and[Read More…]
“If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence. If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end”~ Bayard Rustin For people[Read More…]
It has been just over a fortnight since the publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. The publication of the Register culminates an unrivalled bureaucratic exercise for documenting genuine citizens of the state. The background of the exercise could be traced to the demands raised in the 1980s to update the 1951 Register. In its immediate phase,[Read More…]
The Foreigners’ Tribunals of Assam were first constituted around 1965,when the first alarm was raised about massive infiltration of foreigners from East Pakistan(now Bangladesh) and the Border Police were ordered to detect and deport them.The fact that the British had promoted an influx of migrants amounting to ten lakhs or more every decade and the notion that Assam had plenty[Read More…]
So Messrs Angshuman Choudhuri and Suraj Gogoi are at it again———aiming pot shots at me while passing over or trivializing the main argument and point of view. Worse,their diatribe is assuming an increasingly personal tone and turning the debate into a squabble.Hence this is going to be my last and final attempt to clear up the confusion born of lack[Read More…]
Co-Written by Pooja Kalita and Prithiraj Borah “As a woman, I have no country. As a woman, I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” These famous words by Virginia Woolf perfectly fit the present political situation prevailing throughout the world. Assam too is no exception, as it seems to be perpetually engulfed in a[Read More…]
The final list of updated National Register of Citizen (NRC) that has been published on August 31 which has excluded nearly 19 lakh people in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam of their citizenship. In the final draft of NRC, out of 3.30 crore applicants, 31.11 crore names have been found to be eligible for inclusion in updated NRC and[Read More…]
Nearly two millions people, predominantly Muslims have been left out of the NRC list in Assam. Now those who know about the Assam problem understand it will that Assam burnt because of the invasion of the outsiders in the state and conflict among different tribe groups. The issue of livelihood is greater. This issue was never communal or Hindu Muslim.[Read More…]
Over 1.9 million people have been left out of the final National Register of Citizens or NRC – a list intended to identify legal residents and weed out illegal immigrants from Assam. Those left out of the NRC can appeal to the Foreigners Tribunal within 120 days. After that those left out will be sent to Detention Centers! Are we[Read More…]
Citizenship in Assam is a long contested issue shaped by forces of migration, partition and movements based on communalism, xenophobia and hatred for the “other”. This conflict will not end with the NRC but will take different forms as long as the hysteria and paranoia against the Muslims persist. Different instruments will be reinvented to dehumanise and decitizenise the Muslims[Read More…]
As the sun sets in the West, North and South India, FIRs have been issued against 10 poets of North East who basically belong to the Bengali – Muslim community. FIR has been lodged against them for writing a specific type of poetry named “Miya” poetry which has recently seen the light of the dawn in the North East. Miya[Read More…]
GENEVA (3 July 2019) – UN experts* today expressed their grave concern over the ongoing update of the National Register of Citizens in Assam, India, and its potential to harm millions of people, most of whom belong to minorities. The experts also issued warnings on the rise of hate speech directed against these minorities in social media, and the potential[Read More…]
UDALGURI,Assam,Mar 5: The updating of the National Register of Citizenship for Assam has ostensibly triggered a rash of suicides, suggesting that it has become a source of tremendous stress and anxiety for segments of the state’s population. These emotions do not necessarily arise from paranoia — after all, exclusion from the National Register of Citizenship (NRC) implies revocation or denial[Read More…]
The world is awash with thousands of anecdotes about large-scale migration of people to places away from their homelands. Compelled by reasons to escape persecution, evade conflicts, economic and nature-driven pressures, et al. Ideally to make a living, which erupts from a longing for infrastructure, homogenous and pervasive, quintessential for survival. However, a deliberate reducing of millions to the position[Read More…]
The problem of presence of illegal Bangladeshi nationals in Assam is quite complex and old. When the students movement against the Bangladeshi infiltration in Assam held in the eighties, they were supported by socialists and Gandhians of the country. Then that movement was secular and its emphasis was on Assamese citizens identity. Although there was opposition to Bangla-speaking population, but[Read More…]
After making nearly 40 lakh people predominantly Muslims as suspect as an Indian citizen, BJP leaders seems to have found new hopes to create turmoil in rest of the country. Now they are demanding that this exercise should be taken in their states too. The chorus will be louder day by day with the thuggish anchors competing each other in[Read More…]
40 lakh people have been excluded in the final draft of National Register of Citizens which was prepared jointly by Central Government and State Government of Assam and monitored by Supreme Court. The total expenditure incurred till date for conducting NRC is reportedly Rs1200 crore with a half lakh people engaged in collecting data and processing it which includes both[Read More…]
A few days ago Countercurrents.org published a petition by Avaaz. Its first few lines read this way, In a few days, India will delete as many as 7 million Muslims in Assam State from its master list of “citizens” because they speak the wrong language and worship the wrong God. Husbands, wives, and children could be torn apart and left[Read More…]
They call it National Register of Citizen (NRC) but it is basically an attempt to take away the citizenship of the people on the basis of your religion. In pure political terms BJP wanted to polarise the north east through its vicious anti Muslim agenda and were finding ways to make permanent presence in the states of north east. The[Read More…]
Such mass-scale profiling has been done officially only in Germany of the Jews by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. Now, 40 lakh people in Assam have found themselves trapped in a twilight zone As many as 40 lakh people have been dropped from the “final” list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. Finally, 2.9 crore people have found[Read More…]
Forward I as part of the fact-finding team and being associated with its day-to-day work – from field work to preparation of the report – can say with confirmity that Assam is sitting on the tip of a volcano that can erupt if the injustices meted out to Bangla-speaking Muslims and Hindus on the basis of language and religion in[Read More…]
Amid cacophonies of blowing horns and revving engines of lumbering trucks on the national highways 37 and 31 and the deafening whistles of diesel locomotives across the state, one could easily hear the hues and cries of the most Bengali speaking people in Assam.For them the new year began with utter suspense as millions of Assamese woke up to a[Read More…]
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My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
