Assam wants JPC to defer report on citizenship bill

GUWAHATI: The Assam government wants the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which is visiting the state to hold public hearings, to defer submission of its report in Parliament until the state publishes the final draft of the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC).
"It will be conveyed to the JPC that it should put the submission of its report on hold till the publication of the NRC. The committee should gauge the situation after the NRC is published, when we will know how many illegal migrants from each religious community are living in Assam," a source in the government said. The source added, "The state government would also want to wait for the NRC before taking its stand."

The JPC is supposed to submit its report in the monsoon session of the Parliament that starts from July, but may seek an extension if the work is not completed.

The NRC draft is scheduled to be published in the next 39 days, within the timeframe fixed by the Supreme Court - which is supervising the mega exercise to enlist Indian citizens living in the state. The exercise, which was launched in 2016, will bring out the names of illegal foreigners living in the state.

The alliance government of BJP, AGP and BPF has come under sharp criticism for not coming out with a clear stand on the bill after a similar alliance government with BJP as a constituent member in Meghalaya on Wednesday took a cabinet decision to oppose the amendment bill.

The bill proposes citizenship to members of non-Muslim minority communities, particularly Hindu, who have fled Bangladesh and entered Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and West Bengal following religious persecution after liberation of Bangladesh. It was introduced in Parliament in 2016 but was sent to a JPC for taking views of all stakeholders.

The JPC's hearings brought out the clear division between the Bengali-majority Barak Valley and the Brahmaputra Valley. Headed by BJP MP Rajendra Agarwal, the JPC in its three-day public hearing in Guwahati and Silchar met a mixed response. While majority in Bengali-majority Barak valley are in favour of the bill, it is the other way round in rest of the state where people see the bill as a death knell to the future of the identity, language and culture of the greater Assamese community that encompasses different tribal groups and a host of religious and linguistic communities.

After winding up the hearing in the state, Agarwal said, "The committee as well as officials of the ministry of home affairs heard the submissions of several organizations. There are some issues like NRC update and Assam Accord that are unique to Assam only. If the committee decides, one more round of hearing could be taken up in Assam."

The state government believes that the NRC will bring out the true picture of illegal migrants currently living in the state, following which it will be easier to take the next step. The updated NRC will not distinguish foreigners on religious lines but a major chunk of them are expected to be post-1971 Bengali-speaking Hindu infiltrators from Bangladesh as victims of religious persecution and the BJP wants to label this section as Indians and the Muslim infiltrators as foreigners.