NRC: Migrant settlers too miss the bus!

Morigaon (Assam), 31 July 2018:

While publication of the complete draft of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam on July 30 may have led to jubilation among a large section of the people due to inclusion of their names, there are also those who are heart-broken at having missed the bus.

Of course, this is not to suggest that the NRC update process was flawed, but many have been left out of its purview unwittingly.

Meet Paran Majumdar of Bordia village in Mayong area of Morigaon district who is at a loss after having found that not one of his family members’ names, included those of his extended families, featured in the complete NRC draft.

Paran claimed to have migrated from West Bengal in 1975 and settled down at Teteliguri in Morigaon district before shifting to Bordia in1989.

“While applying for inclusion of our names in NRC, I had enclosed a copy of voters’ list of January 1, 1971 containing my late father’s name. The voters’ list was of Gajol Assembly constituency in West Bengal’s Malda district. So, how do I become an illegal immigrant now?” wonders Paran.

And there are scores like him out of the approximately 40 lakh people who have been not included in the draft facing a similar dilemma. Since Independence, scores have migrated from others parts of the country to Assam for various socio-economic reasons post 1971, and it is suspected that their names have not been included in the complete NRC draft.

In fact, a number of Bengali Hindus of Mayong, also known as the land of black magic, are facing a similar predicament. While some families did not have a single member in draft NRC, a few had the names of their children but not parents. Several others had the names of only one spouse. They also fear harassment from authorities in the name of Bangladeshis.

It will be interesting to see how things play up in the days to come, and how authorities respond to such peculiar cases