Dear Protesters, you could have waited……..
The last week of Feb 2020 saw terrible riots in North-Eastern Delhi which claimed 45 precious lives. Blame games followed in which everybody was trying to blame the other party for the violence. The irreversible damage inflicted on the social fabric of our nation is too much to bear. It will take years to heal these wounds and get back to sanity. In this era of Newtonian action-reaction principle, a silent question lingers in the minds of a lot of ‘neutral’ people — “Isn’t this too high a price to pay for defending our Constitution? Were all those protests really worth it? Couldn’t you have waited a bit…??”
What i want to address here is this exact question. Was there really a need to protest? After all, not even a single person has lost his/her citizenship yet!
There is no easy way to answer this question. What we can attempt to do is to imagine a counterfactual. So let us imagine the following — CAA is passed, NPR is notified and initiated and there are talks about a nation-wide NRC, but not yet officially announced. (This is the exact situation we were in before protests erupted). Now let us assume there are no protests at all…
Government will go about its business of updating NPR in the new format. No opposition from any States and hence the decided process will happen. There are 7 additional data-points which are collected as part of the new NPR process.
The instructions issued by MHO clearly mention that all the additional questions related to Passport No., Mobile No., Voter ID No. and Driving License No. have to be filled if individuals possess these documents. Aadhaar is the only column which can be left blank even if the individual possess it. “Aadhaar number is to be collected if provided by the resident voluntarily” https://cjp.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/NPR-manual.pdf
Once NPR is finished, the next step doesn’t need public participation. It can happen within bureaucracy. The rules are already laid out in an MHA notification dated 10th Dec,2003. “ the particulars collected of every family and individual in the Population Register shall be verified and scrutinized by the Local Registrar, who may be assisted by one or more persons as specified by the Registrar General of Citizen Registration. During the verification process, particulars of such individuals, whose Citizenship is doubtful, shall be entered by the Local Registrar with appropriate remark in the Population Register for further inquiry and in case of doubtful Citizenship, the individual or the family shall be informed in a specified proforma immediately after the verification process is over” http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Act&Rules/notifications/citizenship_rules2003.pdf — Page 3
This list of Doubtful citizens can be easily generated based on the data-points collected during NPR; specifically DOB, Place of Birth, Parents’ place of birth and Govt.IDs.
The next stage will involve hearings, appeals, verification, objection etc. in which those listed as Doubtful will get an opportunity to prove otherwise. If approved, he/she will be part of the National Register of Indian Citizens, else NO http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Act&Rules/notifications/citizenship_rules2003.pdf — Page 4
Those who fail at this stage in getting ‘verified’, will look for next options. CAA will be of help for some. Those who can claim the protection offered by CAA can prevent themselves from getting flagged as ‘illegal’. So those who can claim, will claim it and make themselves safe.
Once that process is also completed, government will finally announce the list of ‘true citizens’ of India. Anybody who couldn’t make it to the list will be deemed as an illegal migrant.
PROCESS COMPLETE….
In the above described counterfactual, what exact stage of the process do you think is the right time to protest? After the completion of NPR? After the release of Doubtful Citizens’ list? After verification process? After the final tagging of a person as illegal migrant??
Let’s assume the answer is — After the final tagging of illegal migrants. We will protest if many are tagged as illegal migrants. Fair enough.. We protested.. What next? Either the government will say “Get Lost” or it will agree to ‘keep it on hold’…. Either way it is useless! Because once your name is part of a government database which flags you as ‘doubtful’ or ‘illegal’, your life won’t be the same…It is like you getting flagged in the HR Employee database as ‘flight risk’!! Big Brother is watching you!!!
I request the reader to imagine this counterfactual and see whether you can identify a better point in time for us to protest than NOW… Let me know what you could find……. Hum Dekhenge…..
References
- http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Documents/NPR%20English.pdf
- http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Act&Rules/notifications/citizenship_rules2003.pdf
- http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Common/IntroductionToNpr.html
- https://cjp.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/NPR-manual.pdf
- https://scroll.in/article/947116/scroll-investigation-amit-shahs-all-india-nrc-has-already-begun-with-the-npr
