Chakma Community, Branded as 'Bangladeshi', Resists 'NRC' Exercise in Mizoram

Aizawl, March 4, 2020:

The Chakma community of Mizoram has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention in stopping the state government from conducting the "Illegal National Register of Citizens (NRC)", which according to the community is a "state-sponsored exercise" to identify them as "foreigners".

While speaking with Inside Northeast, Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) lone Mizoram MLA, Buddha Dhan Chakma said, "The NRC is just an excuse. They have always been branding us Chakmas as foreigners and they treat us like Bangladeshis, which should not be the case.

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Since last four five years, they had been planning to designate some Chakma-inhabited villages as "unauthorized" villages. So raising this issue, they are now creating a problem that the Chakmas are living in illegal villages. So in search of 'foreigners' as they brand us, they are conducting this NRC."

He added, "In every Assembly session, when questions are being raised by the MLAs of different political parties regarding the data of "illegal" Chakmas residing in these villages, they cannot give a single answer. The answer is always in negative. Yet outside the Assembly, they raise this issue and call the Chakmas as Bangladeshis. Officially, there is not a single Chakma who is a Bangladeshi. This is a mere political issue."

He further expressed concerns over the NRC. According to BD Chakma, the government would engage in "illegal" activities on the pretext of the NRC. "It is a state-sponsored self-styled illegal NRC exercise. They have created unnecessary columns that are not even in the Purview of the NRC. The government in itself is not in a position to declare the modalities of the NRC. A state is not authorized to do all these things."

It may be mentioned here that according to Chakma leaders, the Mizoram government has conducted the NRC neither sanctioned by the Centre nor the Supreme Court.

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