Senseless: On nationwide NRC (The Hindu)

• Mains Paper 2: Polity 
• Prelims level : National Register of Citizens
• Mains level : Drawbacks of Citizenship Amendment Bill

Context:

• The proposal for a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) is worrisome on several counts. The government, he said, would also re-introduce the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in Parliament that envisages the grant of Indian citizenship to all refugees from minority communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Provisions of the CAB:

• The Bill effectively denies benefit to Muslim minorities from other neighbouring countries, including Myanmar where Rohingya Muslims face persecution. 
• Home Minister announced that the NRC process would “naturally” be conducted in Assam again with the rest of the country.
• The Assam proposal will be in defiance of the Supreme Court, which directed the entire NRC registration specific to Assam through all its tortuous details. 

Drawbacks of the CAB:

• There is still no clarity on what the end results mean for the 19 lakh plus people who find themselves outside the NRC, potentially stateless and at risk of “deportation” to Bangladesh, which refuses to acknowledge, let alone accept, them. 
• The NRC process in Assam was rooted in the specificities of the 1985 Assam Accord, and as the government never tires of saying, a court-mandated process, extending it to the entire country is both illogical and bizarre. 
• It might have been flawed, but the NRC exercise, overseen by the Supreme Court, involved the active participation of the Central and State governments. 

Way ahead:

• The government to repeat the exercise merely because the numbers thrown up are politically inconvenient for the ruling BJP, makes no sense at all.
• If there is a lesson from Assam, it is that there is no right way of going through a process such as the NRC. 
• It pointedly discriminates against Muslims, and is loaded against the right to equality and equal protection before the law as enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution, there are genuine fears that a nationwide NRC will target Muslims. 
• Details of how such an exercise will be carried out are, of course, not yet known. In the case of Assam, there was a cut-off date — March 25, 1971 — after which all foreigners as per the Assam Accord were to be “detected, deleted and expelled in accordance with law”. 
• The Centre will come out with a cut-off for the nationwide NRC, but it will be an arbitrary one.

Conclusion:

• Given the dangers that lurk within such exercises, the government would do well to abandon the nationwide NRC-CAB combination. Indians can certainly be spared this pain.

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions: 

Q.1) With reference to the Cyclone Bulbul, consider the following statements:

1. It is an active tropical cyclone which struck the Indian state of West Bengal at Category 2 hurricane-equivalent intensity. 
2. It is first tropical cyclone ever recorded to regenerate over the Andaman Sea, having crossed Southeast Asia overland.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

A. 1 only
B. 2 only
C. Both 1 and 2
D. Neither 1 nor 2
Answer: A

Mains Questions:
Q.1) What is the Citizenship amendment bill? What are the limitations of the bill?