Opinion: The Tricky Task of Defining "Indigenous" Identity in Assam

By: Axomson

As the hue and cry over many pending issues of Assam rises over the growing dissent against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act among the people, the Government is trying hard to showcase itself as the harbinger of peace and goodwill. It first began with many new developmental schemes announced for the good of different sections of the society in Assam where "identity" and cementing of jati, mati, bheti remain a burning topics. Grants for artistes and theatre personnel, separate autonomous council announcements for tribes, different concessions for students studying at different levels etc.

These steps are no doubt beneficial and preferable for the people of Assam but the timing of the Government choosing to act upon these demands was questionable and the people were able to see through this. When the Government faced further questions as to their policy of appeasement and divide and rule, they decided to up the ante and took up long standing demands that had been kept in the backburner for ages.

These included issues that defined the political scenario of Assam like the Bodoland struggle, the ULFA agreement which is in the pipeline according to government officials and the implementation of the Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. The high level committee working on this issue was asked to quicken its pace and after many deliberations and few extensions the report was prepared.

It was not accepted by the home minister Amit Shah though, but instead was handed over to the Department of Implementation of the Assam Accord. Among many other reasons, speculations are rife that this long chain handover is because of the suggestion of the committee to use 1951 NRC as the base year for identification as well as the recommendation of the implementation of Inner Line Permit in Assam. Both of these go directly against the provisions of CAA and might result in Assam being removed from the list of States that can be eligible for CAA.

But these reasons aside, the use of 1951 NRC as the base document to verify indigenous identity and identify foreigners is a hollow and impossible task.

Even BJP stalwarts like Himanta Biswa Sarma have repeatedly voiced their concerns with using 1971 as the base year and have advocated the use of 1951 as the base year for citizen identification through public addresses and publications in social, print or electronic media. But this is not seen in paper. In an answer to a petition by Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha,, the counsel for the state of Assam has mentioned that since the Section 6A of the Citizenship Act (the part dealing with the special provisions under the Assam Accord) does not suffer from any vice of unconstitutionality on any arguments put forward by the petitioners, all such petitions against the claim for a separate base year other than 1971 should be dismissed.

The fact is that the 1951 NRC is actually a patchwork document that is available for consultation only in a fraction of the State of Assam. The data from the NRC exercise conducted in 1951 is incomplete, unavailable, damaged or missing to such a degree that it cannot possibly be used as any kind of reference.

This document cannot possibly answer complex questions like the identity of indigenous and foreign people. In a 2012 answer to a question in the Assam Legislative on the status of NRC and availability of latest electoral rolls, it was mentioned that the data of 35.42% villages was totally unavailable. In fact, for major districts like Dibrugarh, Sivasagar and the hill districts of Dima Hasao and Karbi Anglong, no NRC data is available at all. Furthermore, for districts like Lakhimpur, Golaghat, Kamrup and Tinsukia only partial data is now available for use.

If instead of NRC data, electoral rolls are used as documents of reference, only two districts have an intact electoral roll of 1952. For districts like Baksa, Chirang, Cachar, Sibsagar and the hill districts electoral rolls as late as even 1971 are unavailable or damaged or missing.

The question is how to address this problem? If the government wishes to use 1951 as the base year, how will they do it in the places where NRC or electoral data is unavailable? Will they fall back to 1948 electoral rolls (assuming they are intact) or will they shift forward to say 1966 electoral roll for a select few districts. If they do so, are they not breaking the uniformity that is expected in a citizenship document in the first place? Even for a 10% window of error, the number of citizens at risk is too high. Citizenship and the risk of rendering a section of the people stateless is a very sensitive and grave issue and cannot relying on extrapolations and hunch work is absolutely unaffordable. Under such circumstances, considering the 1951 NRC data as a base document is fairly rhetoric.

The UN angle:

The United Nations defines the indigenous people as “the descendants of the original people or occupants of lands before these lands were taken over or conquered by others. Many indigenous people have maintained their traditional culture and identity. (Way of dressing, culture and cultivation of land) Therefore, they have a strong and deep connection with their ancestral territories. Culture and identities.”

This definition has been referred to by many to choose to describe the indigenous people of Assam as well. The Clause 6 committee was also charged with defining the word ‘Assamese.’ But with regards to applicability to Assam, there is a huge hurdle.

The tea tribes of Assam, an integral part of the greater Assamese community were brought to the state by the colonial British Empire. The Britishers brought these people primarily from areas in present day Orissa and Jharkhand to work as labourers in the newly established tea industry.

Thus, by definition of the UN they do not fall in the indigenous category as they became

inhabitants of the land only after the lands were “taken over or conquered.”

Bengali Muslims who have come in to the region from East Bengal or Bangladesh also use this definition to claim their indigenity. Their assertion is that they were the original inhabitants of the land until the mongoloid tribes like Bodos and Kacharis arrived and chased them away. But their claim fails in the second part of the definition. The fact that the people need to be present in the land and maintain their traditional culture and identity continuously to be considered as indigenous is not satisfied by the Bengali Muslims who had ceased to stay in the area after the mongoloids arrived and were only brought back by the Britishers as cultivators of the fallow lands in lower Assam.

All things considered, it has to be understood that the question of citizenship is one that cannot be messed with at all. The unreliability of a base document may as well render moot the very cause of the entire exercise. Also, the definition of indigenous people is a very complicated one and has to be looked at from an entirely different but lucid and empathetic perspective for the state of Assam.

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