Nearly 2 million face statelessness in India’s Assam as controversial citizenship list published

A total of 31.1 million people in Assam were included in a final National Register of Citizens, but 1.9 million were deemed ineligible

Only those who can demonstrate that they or their forebears were in India before 1971 could be included in the list

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A National Register of Citizens officer takes a photograph of the eyes of a boy at an NRC centre in Gauhati. Photo: AP

Published: 2:25pm, 31 Aug 2019Updated: 6:36pm, 2 Sep 2019

Almost two million people in northeast India were left facing statelessness on Saturday after the state of Assam published 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 final National Register of Citizens (NRC), but 1.9 million were deemed ineligible, according to a statement from the Assam government. Most of those excluded were expected to be Muslim.

Assam, an impoverished isolated state of 33 million, 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.

This has led to pressure from those who see themselves as genuine Assamese for a lasting solution – which they hope will come from the NRC released on Saturday.

Only those who can demonstrate that they or their forebears were in India before 1971 could be included in the list.

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