https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8782-2474
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ABSTRACT
This paper analyses the historical antecedents, character and implications of Assam’s National Register of Citizens as a socio-legal instrument. It seeks to understand how dominant nationalisms and the state produce volatile paper citizenship regimes, and use law – as a reified transcendental performance of social will – to construct the ‘minority citizen’ through categories of ‘belonging’ and ‘citizenship’. The paper does this by analysing three typologies of the law-society interaction. First, it examines what/who is a citizen from within law. Second, it critiques the mythology of law by giving an account of belonging and suffering of minority citizens without law. Third, it foregrounds peripheral subjectivities by offering an account of minority citizenship beyond law.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 A proposal submitted by the leaders of the Movement dated 23rd September 1981 suggested ‘the NRC of 1951 should be made up-to-date’ (cf. Bhattarcharjee and Goswami Citation1985).
2 ‘Bangladeshi’, an epithet, in Assam includes both Hindus and Muslims. It also refers to nationality of the people of Bangladesh. The term Bengali is a contested one. It means Bangla speakers for some; for others, anyone with East Bengal ancestry is Bengali. Bongal also refers to Bengalis since the mid twentieth century in Assam. Within these definitions, Muslims are referred variously as Muslims of East Bengal origin, Bengali Muslims, Miyas, Bengali origin Muslims, Na-Asamiyas, Charua, etc and are different from Assamese Muslims who are considered ‘indigenous’. There is no consistency of these terms and are claimed differently by various groups, which differ across geography and historical time. We will use Bengali or ‘Bangladeshi’ within brackets to refer to both Hindus and Muslims, and Bengali Muslims/Miya to represent all those Muslim subjectivities in Assam who are seen as foreigners by the state and society.
3 Critical Legal Studies, as a field, has had different contexts, moments of origin and inflection points in different places. For our work, we refer to CLS in India and in the UK.
4 Colonial here, is to signpost the limits of Western thinking in formulating universality and a positivist account of law in text.
5 Gendered is an important emphasis to remind us of the gendered nature of the public space, law’s public facing functions and how modern categories of law and gender are products of coloniality. See generally, Thornton (Citation1991); Bohrer (Citation2020).
6 Ibid.
7 The Accord was signed between the leaders of the Assam Movement (1979–1985), Assam Government and Govt. of India in 1985 bringing a close to the anti-foreigner agitation.
8 Derrida refuting Hannah Arendt argues that language/mother tongue can go mad. See Dufourmentlle and Derrida Of Hospitality (Citation2000).
9 It produced a perfect case of the coloniser’s psyche of the native, what sociologist Syed Hussain Alatas (Citation1977) called the ‘myth of the lazy native’.
10 The Assamese nationalists, including insurgent groups like United Liberation Front of Assam, targeted migrants from Nepal, Bihar etc, but with time the social and official target became limited to migrants from Bangladesh.
11 Citizen-subjects, argues Balibar (Citation2016) as those political beings whose legitimacy is always questioned and are a constant minority.
12 ‘Bangladeshi’ is also used as a slur for illegal migrant in metro cities in India like Delhi, Bangalore etc.
14 The latter primarily because India considers all of Kashmir to fall within its borders.
16 Chatterji (Citation2012).
17 This Act was struck down in 2003.
18 Sections 8,9 of the Foreigners Act.
19 Over 2000 people, mostly women and children, Muslim Bengalis were mercilessly slaughtered.
20 Price (Citation1997).
21 The OIC category was included with amendments in Citizenship Acts in 2003 and 2005. Emotional need and bonding were also given as reasons to introduce this category to fulfil a certain kind of belonging.
22 According to Article 355 of the Indian Constitution it shall be the duty of the Union to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance, among others.
24 APW vs U.O.I.
25 ASM vs U.O.I and others.
26 AAMSU vs U.O.I https://images.assettype.com/barandbench/import/2019/07/AAMSU-Vs-UNION-OF-INDIA-ORS-NRC-2019-Amendment-Order.pdf
27 The use of ‘l’ for law indicates its horizontality as against ‘L’ which refers to understanding law vertically, as something hierarchical and transcendental.
28 For OI category see, The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issues of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 under Clause 3(3) of the Schedule.
29 Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha & Ors vs Union of India & Ors on 17 December, 2014, para 33.
31 See section with the sub-title ‘Illegal Immigrants Infiltration Issue’ in the ASM 2012 petition.
32 It mandates that ‘Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality’.
33 See generally Fitzpatrick (Citation1992), Lefebvre (Citation2008) and Wynter (Citation2003).
34 Recently, Assam’s CM Himanta Biswa Sarma noted that ‘Mission Basundhara is not for migrant Muslims … Landless people can apply and the district administration will give the pattas [land titles] (Zaman Citation2024)’. The migrant muslims are also seen not as ‘indigenous’ to Assam, which also tells us that they are not part of the OI category (Zaman Citation2024).
35 A report by Amnesty International Citation2019.
36 Death by Paperwork (Citation2021).
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
40 Postcolonial states, through the colonial encounter, were compelled to inherit this notion of law and sovereignty, erasing all indigenous forms of being and recreating the colonial power matrix within specific contexts. See generally Anghie (Citation2005) and Chalmers and Pahuja (Citation2021).
41 Published in Mills (Citation1954).
42 Miya poetry is written by people primarily from the Miya community in Assam that describes their life-world, but also is a form of protest/assertion to restore their humanity and a projects their violated human condition.
43 Also see Amnesty International (Citation2019).
44 The Coming Insurrection, The Invisible Committee (Los Angeles: Semioetext(e), 2009), 97.)
45 Loosely translated to culture, land and hearth.