Beware of the NPR

For the common Indian and particularly the Muslim community, the war of obfuscation on NPR, NRC and CAA continues. The PM and HM have issued contradictory statements on the controversial law and its implementation. Critics say NPR, alongside the NRC and CAA, will lead to the mass exclusion of Indians, particularly Muslim citizens. In December ‘19, PM Modi had said his government had never considered implementing nation-wide NRC. But the NRC was part of President’s address in Parliament in June last year and was promised by the HM several times in Parliament and outside. They go further saying there was no proposal to compile NRC ‘as of now’, but are unable to give any assurance about its future or a categorical no about its implementation.

The first step in this exercise was taken last year itself, when the government had issued a notification in the official gazette on July 31, 2019, setting the ball rolling for the NPR. Barring Assam, the notification called for the preparation of NPR in the entire country between April 2020 and September 2020.  In accordance with the Centre’s notification, all states and UTs re-notified preparation of NPR. This was done by them much before the government brought the Citizenship Amendment Act in December.

This NPR is slated to start from April 1, along with the Census. While all states have re-notified NPR, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Ladakh and Puducherry are yet to convey the dates to the Registrar General of India (RGI) to collect NPR data. According to rules, NPR is to be conducted in 45 days between April and September 2020 but states and UTs have to notify the dates to RGI by March.

The governments of West Bengal and Kerala, which have said they won’t allow NPR in their state citing its linkage with NRC, wrote to the district census commissioner, who forwarded the request to the Registrar General of India, saying data collection for updating NPR should be halted on account of maintenance of ‘public order’. The chief ministers of both West Bengal and Kerala have been vehemently opposing the NPR exercise, which according to Citizenship Rules 2003 and several other statements given by the Centre in Parliament, is the first step towards conducting NRC.

The NPR data was first collected in the country by the former UPA government back in 2010. The process is to be carried out once in every 10 years. Though no one is against the NPR, the main point of consternation is the inclusion of many new questions added to the list of questions, to be asked by the enumerators in 2020. Apart from issues relating to the Data Security, the safety of data collected by the government, many critics question the need for including questions which need not be there such as your mobile number, email address, PAN and Aadhar numbers. The fear is that the information sought under NPR is much wider in scope and could potentially be used to target a particular section of the society.

The confusion resulting out of the real intention and declared statements has led to disorientation and consternation amongst common citizens who oppose the CAA-NRC-NPR trio. As critics have noted, the NPR and then the NRC, in tandem with the Citizenship Amendment Act passed in December, could be used to render many Indian Muslims stateless. We should be very clear about the ‘chronology’, first, NPR with added information sought will be carried out all over the country, it will be followed by the NRC and then CAA provisions will be implemented against people who have been identified with the help of data collected under the NPR and NRC.

In reality, far from pushing the NRC onto the backburner, the Union government, by announcing an NPR, which includes newly added questions about one’s parents’ details, heralds an NRC even more dangerous than the Assam NRC. Though the Assam NRC was not a communal one, everyone was asked to prove their citizenship, yet it resulted in a wide spread harassment of the common man, both in terms of life and money.

We should understand that an NRC which is built on the NPR will give exclusive rights to the petty bureaucrats and local politicians to cast aspersion on any Indian citizen. This will result in placing India’s Muslim first – and a multitude of other most disadvantaged people, including homeless, physically handicapped, transgenders, nomadic and denotified tribes, persons with disability, orphaned and abandoned children, circular migrants and millions of others, later – into years of dread and uncertainty about if, when and how they might be deprived of their citizenship and sent to detention centres, which the government claims with impunity, do not exist, though there are proofs that they do exist.

A day is not far off, and dreadfully within 2020, Muslims across India will be seen conveying to each other that he himself or so and so has been marked as a ‘doubtful citizen’, and then the unending fight to prove that he indeed is an Indian citizen, will start for every Indian Muslim, before detention and deportation to God knows where?

In the current scenario, it would be prudent if the protestors across India along with demanding abrogation of CAA, also start demanding a court stay over the NPR roll out in its present form. They can also refuse to give information to the enumerators but in that case probability of them being marked as ‘doubtful citizen’ is very high. So a new road map to counter the NPR should be drawn up by the Muslim individuals themselves, as they have seen that the clergy and the so-called leaders are also not going to be of any help or guidance.

The burden of leading the fight against the NPR-NRC-CAA trio falls on the Muslims, as they’ll be the first to be targeted for exclusion and other communities will follow them later on. One should be very clear that the government’s plan under RSS’s diktat is to declare India a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ and it is not going to budge even an inch from the plan and is ready to face all consequences without any remorse.

The piloting of the NPR has already begun in Karnataka from January 1. It is due to commence across the country from April 1. At the political front, unless all non-BJP governments refuse to implement the NPR, they will be acting in the same way as the political actors of Germany acted under Nazi Germany culminating in the Holocaust. And like them history will find it hard to forgive the Indian actors too.

Asad Mirza is a Sr journalist based in New Delhi.

In his career spanning more than 20 years, he was also associated with BBC Urdu Service and Khaleej Times of Dubai.

He writes on Muslims, educational and international affairs issues.

Email: asad.mirza.nd@gmail.com