GUWAHATI: People check their names on the final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) at Buraburi village in Morigaon district of Assam yesterday. - AFP

GUWAHATI: Almost
two million people in northeast India were left facing statelessness yesterday
after they were excluded from a citizenship list aimed at weeding out
"foreign infiltrators", in a process the central government wants to
replicate nationwide.

A total of 31.1
million people were included in a National Register of Citizens (NRC), but 1.9
million were deemed ineligible, according to an official statement. A large
chunk of those excluded were expected to be Muslims. Shahibul Haque Shikdar, a
Muslim college teacher, was distraught after two of his children made it to the
list but he was left out.

"Even my
father's name is there in the final NRC but I have been left out," the
39-year-old told AFP. Assam has long seen large influxes from elsewhere,
including under British colonial rule and around Bangladesh's 1971 war of
independence when millions fled into India.

For decades this
has made Assam a hotbed of inter-religious and ethnic tensions. Sporadic
violence has included the 1983 massacre of around 2,000 people. Security was
beefed up in Assam ahead of the release of the NRC, with some 20,000 extra
personnel brought in and gatherings banned in some locations. There were no
disturbances reported yesterday however.

'Termites'

Anxious residents
had started queueing up since early morning, braving rain and bad weather to
check their names on the list. Only those who can demonstrate they or their
forebears were in India before 1971 could be included in the list. But
navigating the complex process is a huge challenge for many in a flood-prone
poor region of high illiteracy where many lack documentation. Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party runs Assam,
and critics say the NRC process reflects the BJP's goal to serve only its
co-religionists.

In January
India's lower house passed legislation that would grant citizenship to people
who moved to India as recently as six years ago-as long as they are not
Muslims. This has stoked fears among India's 170-million Muslim minority for
their future.

Home Minister
Amit Shah, Modi's right-hand-man, has called for the ejection of
"termites" and said before the BJP's thumping re-election victory in
May that it would "run a countrywide campaign to send back the
infiltrators". Those left off the NRC have 120 days to appeal at special
Foreigners Tribunals, which the government says are being expanded in number.

But activists say
that tribunal members are often underqualified and are subject to
"performance" targets, and that the process has been riddled with
inconsistencies and errors. Instances of people being declared foreigners
because of clerical errors, such as differences in the spelling of names, are
"appallingly common", Amnesty International said yesterday.

Local lawmaker
Ananta Kumar Malo, whose name was missing from the list, said he was appalled
by the process. "There are some problems with the system, otherwise how
can they exclude my name?" he said. The number of mistakes and the fact
that those left off the NRC were expected to include large numbers of
Bengali-speaking Hindus has also turned some in the BJP against the process.
With many "genuine Indians" left off, the party is mulling a
"fresh strategy on how we can drive out the illegal migrants", said
Himanta Biswa Sarma, a local BJP minister.

Camps and
suicides

Those rejected by
the tribunals who have exhausted all other legal avenues can be declared
foreigners and-in theory-be placed in one of six detention centers with a view
to possible deportation, although Bangladesh is yet to signal its cooperation.
Ten new such camps have been announced. One with space for 3,000 is being
constructed in Goalpara, west of Assam's biggest city Guwahati. The camps
currently hold 1,135 people, according to the state government, and have been
operating for years. Nur Mohammad, 65, spent almost 10 years in one such camp
until a Supreme Court order saw him released this month.

"I was born
here and lived in Assam all my life," he said this week. "I don't
know if my name will be in the NRC or not." Media reports say there have
been more than 40 suicides caused by concern over the NRC. Samujjal
Bhattacharya from the All Assam Students' Union (AASU), a key driver behind the
NRC, said the register was necessary to protect Assam's indigenous "sons
of the soil". "We are not ready to live here like a second-class
citizens in our own motherland," he said.-AFP