Within India or abroad in recent times, nothing has defiled the ruling Bharaitya Janata Party’s (BJP) political image more than the botched up NRC (National Register of Citizens) operations in Assam. Official attitudes in Delhi towards the tedious, self defeating exercise have reversed dramatically from initially euphoric to currently funereal during the last five years, never mind Union Minister Amit Shah’s hype.
There can be no denying that the NRC has landed India into a deep mess: it faces problems with regional neighbours, especially Bangladesh, not to mention the censure of enlightened opinion in the US, the EU and the Islamic countries. There has been trouble at home too, with states rejecting the NRC results violently and its former allies parting ways with the BJP.
Ironically, the socio-political problems of Assam have been further exacerbated post NRC instead of being solved. Fresh problems have emerged, as though a new bigger Pandora’s box has been opened, by way of an outcome. It has been a costly learning process for India’s ruling party, as well as for Assam’s BJP Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal. As of now, the chief Minister who had presented wistful visions of 10 new detention centres to hold illegal Bangladeshi migrants indefinitely in Assam , is now trashed as an anti-Assamiya politician to be socially boycotted.
Instead , people are upset and angry that Hindu Bengali migrants from Bangladesh will get their long awaited citizenship following the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). This is seen as a move which would challenge Assam’s domination in India’s Northeast. Existing demographic stats do not confirm such a dire foreboding . At best, Sonowal says, about 500,000 people would benefit---surely, not a major threat within an Assamiya majority population of 320 million people ? ‘Try explaining that to the Assamiyas’ , said one Guwahati-based analyst.
The idea behind the NRC was ‘to throw out illegal Bangladeshi Hindu and Muslim immigrants.’ Now the Hindus would stay, , but the Muslims could be in trouble. But in a state of 32 million people only tens of thousands may be aliens, as per the final NRC report. But even they cannot be deported readily. Dhaka has indicated firmly that it would take back its citizens from India only after India offered convincing proof about their Bangladeshi origin
So the NRC has been a total disaster for Assam, never mind the talk of its being implemented all over India. Sonowal is desperate, now that the exercise has exploded the familiar myth of’ millions of Bangladeshis illegally settling in Assam’. He points to the clause 6 of the Assam accord as a defence mechanism. The clause ensures an Assamiya domination in jobs, official facilities, land/property buying etc, along the lines of similar arrangements earlier adopted in Fiji , where Indians were in a majority.
But this brings no comfort to Assamiyas who are apparently unwilling to share even physical space with any other non Assamiya , let alone political power. On the other hand, Bengali Hindus strongly resent Assamiya domination in the three Barak Valley districts where they form a majority . Already they have been pressing for a separate union territory status, demanding to be ruled directly by Delhi than from Dispur. If clause 6 is given effect to, surely the demand to break away from Assam would get stronger.
Assamiya politicians like former AGP leader Ms Anjana Neog and peasant leader Akhil Gogoi, still fear a Bengali takeover. Gogoi even said that over 10 million Hindus settled in Bangladesh would now come over to Assam. This, despite knowing fully well that (a) there is a cutoff date for Bangladeshi migrants and that there will be some stringent conditions for them to fulfill before they get Indian citizenship, as Sonowal insists. In addition there is clause 6 of the Assam accord.
As for Bangladeshi Hindus , all indications suggest that hardly anyone will be tempted to come to Assam. The present per capita income in PPP terms in Bangladesh is about $1600, close to India’s figure whereas for Assam it is only $890 ! And the income is rising faster in Bangladesh than in India ! As top Bangladeshi diplomat to India the late Syed Muzzem Ali told Indian newsmen in Delhi recently, his countrymen went mostly to Italy, other parts of Europe and advanced countries in search of jobs. India did not attract them as before. This has been supported by Hindu community leaders like Pankaj Bhattacharya and others in Bangladesh. Some Hindu Bangladeshis have settled down abroad as well, without looking at India as an option.
The present low number of Bengali Hindus of Bangladesh origin in Assam is understandable from another development. The earlier generations of Bengali Hindu/Muslim migrants mostly moved to relatively more developed West Bengal and other states ,using Assam and the NE as a corridor. Migrants mostly come in search of work, money and minimum security --- all of which have been not exactly plentiful in Assam or the NE. Except for the very poor or weak migrants, the majority must have shifted elsewhere over the years.
By all accounts, the result of the Assam NRC, involving 5 years hard work for 50,000 people and costing Rs 12.8 billion, has been pitifully insignificant. And now everyone, including the BJP in Assam , finds the final results unacceptable !
Given this backdrop, the idea of an NRC all over India will not find favour with India’s ruling establishment, at least for some years. India’s economy surely cannot stand the strain of losing another Rs 12 billion in a wild goose chase or another harebrained head-counting exercise. No wonder Prime Minister Narendra Modi has put the NRC issue on a backburner by speaking on the matter at a public rally. In effect he has overruled Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who has gone relatively quiet on the subject.
Most observers feel that over time not much will be heard about a nation-wide NRC or even its repeat in Assam. Fittingly, there is also silence about the 10 new detention centres proposed for Assam earlier by Sonowal.