The pan-India NRC that is being mooted today traces its origins to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2003.
The National Register of Citizens is a record of all Indian citizens. It was first created in 1951 for the state of Assam. In 2013, two writ petitions were filed by Assam Public Works and Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha & Ors before the Supreme Court to delete the names of illegal immigrants form the voters list. The Supreme Court in 2014, under Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, ordered that the NRC of Assam be updated in accordance with the Citizenship Act 1955 and Citizenship Rules 2003. The process started in 2015 and was monitored directly by the Supreme Court. The updated final NRC was published on August 31, 2019. As of now, the NRC exists only for the state of Assam. However, in November 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah mentioned in the Rajya Sabha that NRC would be carried out across the country. The pan-India NRC that is being mooted today traces its origins to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2003.
Legal Provisions for NRC
Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 provides for a National Register of India Citizens (NRC) by stating that the Central Government may compulsorily register every citizen of India and issue a national identity card. It states that the “Central Government may maintain a National Register of Indian Citizens and establish a National Registration Authority who shall function as the Registrar General of Citizen Registration”. This provision was inserted through the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2003.
Prior to the passing of the Act, the Central Government on 10th December 2003, published in the Gazette, The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules 2003 by exercising its powers conferred by Section 18 of the Citizenship Act 1955. These rules lay down the guidelines for the preparation of a nation wide NRC and a separate provision for NRC in Assam.
Report of the Standing Committee on CAB 2003
The Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs under the chairmanship of Pranab Mukherjee presented its report on the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2003 to the Rajya Sabha on December 12, 2003 and was also laid on the table of the Lok Sabha on the same day. The committee had members comprising of all major political parties – Kapil Sibal (INC), MOH Farook (INC), Hansraj Bhardwaj (INC), Motilal Vora (INC), PH Pandian (AIADMK), Subodh Roy (CPI M), Iqbal Ahmed Saradgi (INC), Abdul Rashid Shaheen (J&K NC), Lalu Prasad (RJD), LM Singhvi (BJP), V Maitreyan (AIADMK), Ambika Soni (INC), Pramod Mahajan (BJP) and legal experts like Ram Jethmalani to name a few.
Interestingly, the committee deliberated on the issue of granting citizenship to religiously persecuted minorities from Bangladesh and Pakistan. The members did not prefer granting them citizenship and mentioned that the problem be tackled as per international law and convention. The committee advocated a two pronged strategy – extend humanitarian assistance and apply pressure on countries from where the refugees were coming. They believed that it would be extremely difficult for India to accommodate such refugees considering that its own citizens were confronting the challenges of growing population, poverty and unemployment. They were of the view that the “commitment made by the national leaders at the time of partition to facilitate the entry of Hindus fleeing due to religious persecution from Pakistan which declared itself as a theocratic nation, was not an unending or open-ended one.” However, the committee expressed that illegal immigrants entering India for economic reasons need to be sternly dealt with as per the law of the land.
Replying to the Committee’s views, the then Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani mentioned that citizenship to refugees who entered India on or after 25 March 1971 would not be granted keeping in view the economic and population reasons. He mentioned that those who came to India on or after the said date due to religious and political reasons would be dealt under the relevant provisions of the Foreigners Act 1946. However, he allayed fears of people who fled to India due to civil and political disturbances in the neighbouring countries. He assured that they would not be forcibly sent to their homeland and that in this context each case or a group of cases would be considered on merit.
That apart, the clause that sought to introduce NRC and national identity cards was adopted by the committee after the government proposed changes to enable automatic grant of national identity card as the draft bill made it mandatory for a person to make an application for the same. Thus, the Parliamentary Standing Committee comprising members of both houses belonging to different parties gave a go ahead for the NRC to be implemented across the country.
Discussion and Passing of CAB 2003
In contrast to the views expressed by the committee over the issue of granting citizenship to religiously persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries, Dr. Manmohan Singh made a notable intervention in the Rajya Sabha. On 18 December 2003, when the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2003 was discussed, Dr. Singh said
“…Madam, I would like to say something, about the treatment of refugees. After the partition of our country, the minorities in countries like Bangladesh, have faced persecution, and it is our moral obligation that if circumstances force people, these unfortunate people, to seek refuge in our country, our approach to granting citizenship to these unfortunate persons should be more liberal. I sincerely hope that the hon. Deputy Prime Minister will bear this in mind in charting out the future course of action with regard to the Citizenship Act.”
Najma Heptullah, who was the Deputy Chairman, told Advani that the minorities in Pakistan were also suffering and that they need to be taken care too. To this, Advani replied that he fully endorsed that view. Shankar Roy Chowdhury, the former Chief of Army Staff and a member of the house also urged the government to consider giving citizenship to minorities fleeing Bangladesh to which the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister agreed.
Despite the committee members not being in favour of granting citizenship to religiously persecuted minorities, a few members of the house like Dr. Singh and Shankar Roy Chowdhury expressed that they should be given citizenship. It is interesting to see that though the bill did not contain any provision regarding granting of citizenship to religiously persecuted minorities from Pakistan and Bangladesh, it saw a detailed discussion on the same. The provision that sought to introduce a major citizenship project, the NRC, did not face any objection.The bill was passed unanimously by the Rajya Sabha and passed without any acrimony or disruption in the Lok Sabha. It received the President’s assent on January 7, 2004 and came into effect from December 3, 2004.
Who is murdering democracy?
Today, it is both amusing and confusing to see the parties mindlessly opposing both the CAA 2019 and NRC. People who flung papers at the Speaker and apparently ‘resigned’ from their seat in the Parliament over the issue of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh are now positioning themselves as staunch critics of CAA and NRC. Those who requested that religiously persecuted minorities be granted citizenship are now writing editorials about India slipping from being a liberal democracy and becoming a majoritarian state. The amendment to bring in a pan-India NRC which got the nod from all parties in the Parliament under a coalition government is now being portrayed as a threat to Indian democracy.
If this how they make a joke out of the sacrosanct process of law making, if this is how national interests are sabotaged for want of political mileage, if this is how they change their positions based on their whims and fancies and resort to minority appeasement by instigating them, then it is these parties who pose a larger threat to this democracy.
