In the state of Assam, 4m people must prove that they deserve citizenship
than Prague. It does not have the Czech capital’s cobbled squares or narrow streets but instead tin-roofed houses and paddies hemmed with palms and mango trees. Yet Franz Kafka would have felt quite at home in Assam. Since 2016 this hilly tea-growing state in India’s north-eastern corner has been compiling a National Register of Citizens .
Not surprisingly, some 93% of those excluded have petitioned for inclusion, presenting evidence that they are Indian-born. But the bureaucratic machinery, primed by Assamese chauvinists aligned with the Bharatiya Janata Party , which rules both the state and the country, has been incentivised to reject as many as possible. Indeed, the national government is preparing to declare the exercise a great success. It wants to extend theand Foreigners’ Tribunals to the rest of the country.
Or listen to Shamas Uddin, 93, an illiterate farmer. He was born in this village when it had just a handful of houses, he says. His name appeared on all thedrafts but then, in March, a certain Debajit Goswami officially objected to his inclusion. Mr Uddin does not know his accuser. No one in the village does, and indeed lawyers with a localNRCPerhaps this is because Mr Goswami’s name appears on hundreds of “objection” letters, demanding the removal of suspected foreigners from the.
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