Relevance of NRC in the Indian COVID-19 Migrant Crisis

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has left no part or group of the world unscathed. It has made countries wary of issues unknown to most. One such issue in India would be inter-state migration. Even though, everyone was aware of the notion, no one imagined it to be huge enough to turn into a potential crisis at any point of time in the relevant future. By the imposition of the country-wide lockdown and evaporation of work for the majority of migrants from a lower socio-economical background, a ‘back to home’ atmosphere has enveloped the country. We see this movement is categorized by a sudden infliction of thousands of migrants clattering to go home and no arrangements to facilitate it since transportation services like trains and buses are under a lockdown notification.

There has been a general disposition that calls for criticism but again what plagues these critics is who should take the blame for the apparent crisis with governments, oppositions and state governments bouncing it off amongst themselves. With un-coordinated bus services, payment flaws and railway incompetency, the debate and discussions in high quarters has brought little to no relief to migrants.

With experts and researchers working on ways to get things in order, a lot of theories are heading way as to what could have been done differently to enable a proper functioning and working to circumvent any difficulties around the crisis. One such theory had been the implementation of a mechanism that had caused widespread revolt around the nation some weeks preceding the breakdown of the system due to the COVID-19 outbreak- the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The recent crisis with thousands of migrants stranded in states not their native, the relevance of the idea pitched regarding the NRC was brought to light.

What is the NRC?

The National Register of Citizens, as introduced in Assam, is a registration of citizens for the purpose of identifying illegal migrants and their subsequent deportation. Assam being a border state with a historic illegal immigration problem, the 1951 census was accompanied by a NRC which was to differentiate between citizens and migrants. With no proper follow up the parliament passed the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983 which was, however, struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in 2005. Later on, in 2013, the Supreme Court started monitoring the newly ordered NRC exercise which in 2019 published its report.

Following which the BJP-led government called for another nationwide NRC including it in their manifesto and promulgating similar statements in the Rajya Sabha. According to the Citizenship Rules, 2003, the central government can issue an order to prepare the National Population Register (NPR) and create the NRC based on the data gathered in it. The 2003 amendment further states that the local officials would then decide if the person’s name will be added to the NRC or not, thereby deciding his citizenship status. No new rules or laws are needed to conduct this exercise in the whole of India.

Had NRC been implemented?

A question scathing the activists related to the field is whether the implementation of such an exercise would have helped the migrant crisis or for that matter worsen it? Although, the question seems to be a hypothetical analysis of a fictional circumstance, what the aim of this is the questioning of the NRC process in its entirely by subverting it through an example.

A school of experts believe that since an NRC allows for accounting of citizens in a state, a proper record of such data would help government mobilise the facilities and coordinate with states where the migrants are native to. In spite of its well-crafted  designs, it is, still, an utopian idea. The reason for that would be a misnomer of citizen. To understand that, focus must be paid to the recent attempt in Assam. A process meticulously started in 2013 closely monitored by the Supreme Court with the help of over 50,000 NRC workers resulted in a Register which left out almost nineteen lakh applicants declaring them stateless for the time being. The government admitted that this evaluation could be flawed and called for another exercise. Now, when the same process if repeated for the entire country with less specific dates, constant migration, ill-maintained documents and emigration as well would result in a catastrophic crest in the count of d-voters.

With no state claiming a huge amount of migrants, imminent loss of work- a plethora of hunger and poverty issues are bound to arise creating a ripple effect of insecure practises. This is strengthened by examples from Assam(since it’s the only example of the exercise) where after Supreme Court’s order to release detainees in order to decongest detention centres for preventing the spread of COVID-19 a majority of people released have no work, no savings and no one to rely on for elevating themselves from the pangs of hunger and poverty.

Conclusion

While the governments try to provide for basic human rights to the people low in the social and economic order in times of this pandemic distress, it is to be remembered that how potential decisions or ventures could have been the devil’s bell for more people than it already is.