Strong Voices from Assam Civil Society Speak Out for an Error free, Bias Free, NRC
Image: AFP
Guwahati, 8 August: Influential sections of Assamese Civil Society and the Forum against the Citizenship Amendment Bill has strongly voiced a need for an error-free, NRC. These two organisations voiced this urgent concern at a joint press conference held here on Tuesday. Prominent spokespersons from these fora have vocally raised this issue at a time when specific attempts are afoot to discredit the entire process of updating the draft NRC, more specifically to label all those dropped out of the list (more than four million) as ‘Bangladeshi’.
Dr. Hiren Gohain, prminent thinker and chief convenor of Forum against Citizenship Amendment Bill underlined strongly that the final draft of the updated NRC may have some errors; ordinary people have faced difficulties due to some avoidable steps taken by the NRC authority. He opined that this process is the lifeline of the future generations in the state. This has been understand even by the Jamiat leadership of Assam. All those who love Assam and have interests of the people at heart, are of the opinion that the updated NRC must both error and bias free. Dr Gohain emphasised that all those who have been dropped from the draft NRC are not all Foreigners. There may be many Indian citizens who have been dropped from the draft NRC: they must be given proper opportunity to be heard, so that their names are not dropped from the Final NRC.
Dr Gohain was also unsparing in his criticism of the NRC authority for not giving proper attention to the Linkage Certificates, due to which many names have been dropped from the updated draft NRC. He warned that evert step and procedure followed by the NRC must be above board and unbiased so that it doesn’t become a bunch of Communal Document. Eminent poet and former DGP of Assam Dr. Harekrishna Deka, who is also President of Assam Said that vested interests and sectarian political forces are making a shrill noise, and trying to wrongly project that all those four million persons dropped from the draft NRC are Foreign Nationals. N
The NRC is an initiative aimed at preparing a list of Indian citizens. Even those who may be dropped from the final NRC, will and must have recourse to the judicial process as per Indian law, after which alone will a ‘list of foreigners’ be possible to draw up. Until then, no one has the right to brand them as foreigners. He appealed to the people of the state to maintain peace and have faith on the Supreme Court. Dr. Deka said the deliberations and outcome of the Supreme Court should be respected by all.