'Get an NRC Made, Or Go Back To Bangladesh': This Folk Song From Assam is Brutally Honest

"If you want to stay in Assam, get an NRC made" begins the folk song, which describes the situation in Assam in pretty lay-man terms.

A video which has been trending shows a man singing a folk song about the current Assam NRC situation. Strumming a sitar, this old man sums up the situation in Assam with very appropriate lyrics.

The lyrics go like this:

"Jodi khushi thakte chao,
Jodi Assam thakte chao,
Proman-potro joma diya,
NRC banao"

It roughly translates to:

"If you want to stay happy,
If you want to stay in Assam,
Submit your verified documents,
And get an NRC made."

The song continues,

"Jodi proman-potro na thakile,
Bangladesh-e jao."


"And if you don't have verified documents,
then go back to Bangladesh."



With Assam leaving over 40 lakh people out of the final draft of National Register of Citizens (NRC), the ones not included, at present, are stateless.

The song, which is sung in a dialect of Bengali-Assamese mix, is a man from the lower regions of Assam, or chawr (riverine) villages.

The Assam NRC has not only led to wide-scale debate about the future of these people left out of the list but also a debate as to whether they should be sent back to Bangladesh - as the notion that they are Bangladeshi migrants have also risen.

The song also addresses the hassle people have to face at the hands of legal authorities. For a lot of people in Assam, the reason they don't figure on the NRC could be because of the lack of documents, or "proman-potro" which translates to proof-paper, something that the people left out of the NRC draft will now have to prove.

Watch the entire video below, and follow updates on what happens on the Assam NRC here.