How Assam NRC Made a Woman Break Barriers and Fight for People in Need

Life was running smoothly for Ashraf Ali, who was born in Siwan district of Bihar and had come to Assam with his parents in the 1980s. From his small ration shop at Sona Joli in Paneri Samasti of Udalguri district and a tea and ‘tamul’ (areca nut) garden spread over a bigha (14,400 square feet) of land, he was earning sufficiently for his family comprising his wife and three daughters. But on August 12, 2015, his life was upturned.

He recalls that a police constable came to his house with a piece of paper (probably a court notice or arrest warrant) on the fateful afternoon. He allegedly obtained Ashraf’s thumb impression. The unlettered man was told that he was being cleared off all the charges – in a case which he and his family was complete unaware of.

He was marked as doubtful voter or D-voter in 2006 by the Election Commission of India allegedly without any investigation. Similarly, Kismat Ali, who was born in Kharupetia in Assam’s Darrang district, was also declared a D-voter. His father was a truck driver, who was born in Deoria district of Uttar Pradesh and had migrated to Assam in the 1950s.

Subsequently, both of them were held as “foreigners” by an ex-parte judgement and sent to a detention camp on August 12, 2015.

Also read: How Assam FTs Declare Indians as Foreigners: ‘No Prior Probe, Non-Application of Judicial Mind’

After their writ petition were dismissed by the Gauhati High Court, they approached the Supreme Court. The SC ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) enquiry. The CBI verified all documents of Ashraf and Kismat, and found that they are originally from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh respectively, and all their documents are “genuine”.

The SC remitted the case back to the Foreigners’ Tribunal, which on October 30, 2017, held them as Indian Citizens by birth. They finally walked to freedom after 2 years, 2 months and 17 days in a detention camp.

The horrible incident prompted Ashraf’s wife Tara Khatoon to launch a crusade against the state’s “injustice” of “arbitrarily” declaring genuine Indian citizen as foreigners. She established two organisations – Kalyani Mahila Adhikar Suraksha Samiti and Akhil Bharatiya Hindi Vikas Parishad – to create awareness among women and help them fight for their rights. The organisations also aim to help Hindi-speaking people living in the North-eastern state to prove their citizenship and ensure that they live a dignified life.

“I don’t want people belonging to the Hindi-speaking states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, etc., who are living here for livelihood, to suffer from the persecution and difficulties that we faced. The wrongful detention of my husband shattered our happy family. We have still not been compensated for the losses we suffered. My mother and I had to sell all the jewellery to bear the legal expenses and to sustain the family. I had to mortgage the tea and areca nut garden, which we have not been able to get back yet. Even though I did not beg before people, I had to do whatever I could for survival,” she told NewsClick.

Also read: Assam FT Declared Foreigners Without ‘Reasoned Opinion’: HC

But the incident – she said – completely transformed her into a woman who has taken up the fight for people’s rights as a full time occupation, from a woman who was engaged in taking care of her family.

“We organised hundreds of meetings at village level and helped people in their paper works so that they make it to final list of the NRC (National Register of Citizen), a recently concluded marathon exercise to determine citizenship and prepare a roll of genuine India citizens. Now, we are helping and educating those who were left out of the citizenry register to strongly fight their cases in different tribunals,” she said.

She added that her husband and Kismat’s release was made possible due to the help extended by Colonel (retired) Pavan Nair, Senior Supreme Court Advocate Sanjay Hegde, Advocate Anas Tanwir Siddiqi and the duo’s neighbor Santosh Basumatary.

“The problem,” said Advocate Aman Wadud, a lawyer in the Gauhati High Court, “lies with the so called investigation of the Election commission, which arbitrarily accused Ashraf and Kismat of being ‘doubtful voters’ without any investigation whatsoever.”

“Investigating agencies like Election Commission and the Border Police (a wing of the Assam Police) have its own compulsion. They have to appease the collective conscience of the majority and the government, who believe there are millions of Bangladeshis in Assam. Hence, if they don’t find Bangladeshis, they accuse genuine Indian citizens of being Bangladeshis, grossly violating most valued citizenship rights and make a mockery of fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of India,” he alleged.

“Things have come to such a pass,” he continued, “that retired officers of the defence forces, constable of the state police, gazetted officers, doctors and natives of UP and Bihar have been accused of being infiltrators or illegal immigrants.”

“Crores of tax payers’ money is being used every month to harass our fellow Indian citizens. I am yet to hear about any other civilised nation and a constitutional democracy where the Constitution is reduced to a mere stack of papers. It is such grotesque abuse of the mandate of the Constitution. Those who framed our constitution would be turning in their graves. If unbiased history is written about upholding constitutional rights of citizens, Assam will fare very poorly,” he concluded.

Also read: Assam FT Declared Foreigners Without ‘Reasoned Opinion’: HC

According to an estimate, a total of Rs. 1,600 crore was spent on compilation of such the huge register. Over 19 lakh people were excluded from the final NRC list and over 3 crore have been found eligible for inclusion. Those who were left out of the citizenry register have a long legal battle ahead to get their citizenship validated at different Foreigners’ Tribunals across the state.