The ongoing debate about an Indian passport not being a solid document to claim citizenship has inherently highlighted the necessity of a countrywide citizenship screening exercise. Legally, Indian citizenship is administered by the 1955 Citizenship Act and the passports are issued under the 1967 Passports Act. Even though a passport is still recognized as the most trustworthy piece for claiming citizenship in India, the Passports Act permits the central government to grant a passport to a non- citizen (under specific circumstances) and hence every Indian passport holder may not be a citizen of the country. The government has already clarified that Aadhaar- PAN-driving licence-voter identity cards cannot be accepted as a competent proof of Indian citizenship. So New Delhi is anticipated to create a particular document that will be endorsed by the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for claiming citizenship. But the NRC updating process in Assam (between 2015 and 2019) embraced controversy from financial scam to inclusion of illegal Bangladeshi Muslim migrants in the list as original inhabitants of Assam. So if a similar process needs to be rolled out across the country, New Delhi should learn from the disaster in Assam.
The 1951 NRC for Assam was updated following the direction of the Supreme Court of India with an aim to detect all illegal citizens with the cut-off date 25 March 1971. It engaged over 50,000 government employees and around 6000 part-time workers which cost New Delhi Rs 16 billion. Prateek Hajela, IAS, was appointed as the coordinator in 2019. The debate broke out when Hajela’s immediate successor in the office of State NRC coordinator, Hitesh Devsarma raised the issue of mishandling the process by tampered software with an aim to entertain a large number of illegal migrants. According to Devsarma, also an IAS, an important verification mechanism (Family Tree Matching) was also compromised by Hajela and hence he demanded a high level probe against Hajela and his associates. Later the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) also pointed out a financial mismanagement to the tune of Rs 260 crore during the NRC updating process. Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also admitted that the said NRC was faulty. Stating that Hajela prepared a flawed NRC, Sarma asserted it could jeopardise national security and also harm the indigenous people.
Another unpleasant error, detected by the CAG, had taken place during the tedious process where the temporary workers, employed as data entry operators (DEOs) were deprived of legally valid salaries. Those DEOs were offered Rs 5,500 to 9,100 per month per person (which is below the country’s minimum legal wages), but contrary to it Wipro received Rs 14,500 per month per DEO. The total volume of siphoned money (even after deducting the reasonable commission to the system integrator) is estimated to be over Rs 1 billion, which should be in the pockets of Wipro or sub-contractor Integrated System & Services. Nonetheless, the DEOs must get their dues irrespective of the fate of Assam NRC (whether it is accepted, re-verified or even rejected). Leaving aside a few exceptions, Assam media remains shy of reporting the financial malpractices taking place in the process. Some media persons even spread misinformation that the NRC supplementary list was the final one and there was no need for reverification. A Guwahati-based television host shamelessly lobbied for accepting it without verification. Later he was named and shamed on social media as a beneficiary of NRC updation scam, but he maintains a stoic silence till date. He even authored a book praising Hajela’s job as unparalleled. It’s assumed that a genuine probe would unearth all misdeeds and identify guilty individuals, who wanted to cheat the nation for their selfish gains during the NRC updating exercise.
Inviting NRC updation across India
