In his Independence Day speech last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned the nation of a “grave concern and challenge”, which he explained “is part of a deliberate conspiracy” to alter the demography of the country. Obviously, he was referring to the issue of illegal immigrants. “Seeds of a new crisis are being sown. These infiltrators are snatching the livelihoods of our youth. These infiltrators are targeting our sisters and daughters. This will not be tolerated.” To tackle this “new crisis” in the making, the PM announced the launch of a “high-powered demography” mission but did not clarify how the mission would work. However, it is not difficult to figure out its modus operandi from past events, recent developments, and disparate actions already underway in parts of the country against “suspected infiltrators”.
The question of “infiltrators” is a highly emotive and contentious issue that keeps echoing in a play-pause-play repeat cycle every now and then, particularly during elections. While it is a problem that needs to be tackled in accordance with the law, the alarmist claims made by right-wing politicians about India becoming a home of alleged Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators are not backed by government data. Although the incentive to promote the infiltrators’ narrative suits the majoritarian discourse, there is a perceptible rise in the harassment, humiliation, and curtailment of the basic rights to life and livelihood of Bengali-speaking migrant labour working in some of the BJP-ruled states.
The hounding and dubbing of Bengali-speaking individuals as “Bangladeshis” and “illegal immigrants” implies that they are not citizens of India. Their struggle to look for documents that might protect their vote and existence as Indians is upending many lives and tearing apart families. Finding their citizenship challenged, their quest for an identity and nationality is a pillar-to-post nightmare. As many of them face the prospects of being reduced to second-class citizens or stripped of citizenship altogether, some of the current battles over citizenship have reached the courts. However, if recent court observations are anything to go by, the very documents these people are trying to collect to prove their citizenship may be of limited or of no use. The Bihar SIR, for example, makes it obvious.
Take the case of Babu Abdul Rauf Sardar, a man accused of illegally entering India from Bangladesh and forging documents to claim citizenship. The Bombay High Court’s recent ruling in his case is loud and clear: “Merely having documents such as an Aadhaar card, PAN card or Voter ID does not, by itself, make someone a citizen of India.” These documents, Justice Amit Borkar said, are for identification or accessing services, not for establishing nationality under the Citizenship Act, 1955. On the same day, the Supreme Court also backed the Election Commission of India (ECI) in the Bihar SIR case, stating, “Aadhaar cannot be accepted as ‘conclusive proof of citizenship’ and must be independently verified.”
Babu Abdul Rauf’s case is one among the many of suspected immigrants living in slums, facing eviction, and getting desperate to prove they are Indians. Courts may be justified in invoking stringent conditions on infiltrators, but government agencies or constitutional institutions like the ECI are imposing those conditions on all ordinary Indians. This raises an important question: what documents are needed to prove citizenship? Since to be a voter, one needs to be a citizen, where does one find evidence about one’s Indian citizenship? The government has so far not specified what documents will be accepted to prove citizenship. This makes millions of poor and disadvantaged people face the citizenship test, which many may not pass.
In a reply to a question by a Lok Sabha MP on August 5 relating to identity cards needed as “admissible proof” for citizenship, the government’s response was: “The Citizenship Act, 1955, as amended in 2004, provides that the central government may compulsorily register every citizen of India and issue a national identity card to him. The procedure for the same has been laid down in the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Card) Rules, 2003.” A week later, another Lok Sabha member asked the government to specify the documents required to prove Indian citizenship. The government refrained from specifying valid IDs for citizenship, saying, “The citizenship of India is governed under the provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955, and the rules made thereunder.”
Leave aside the alleged illegal immigrants’ issue for a moment. If the state suspects you are not a citizen and the law places the burden on you to prove otherwise, what is the gold standard of citizenship proof if one does not have a birth certificate? When the government does not accept its own identity documents like Aadhaar, PAN and Voter ID, and the National Identity Card that it spoke about in Parliament does not exist, it is surprising that the government has not clarified what makes a citizen. The government has not created a single, secure ID that proves citizenship but still demands evidence that it knows many Indians cannot provide. It is a surprise that after 78 years, India is still undecided on how to define its own citizens.
Aadhar was supposed to be the key to everything and is mandatory for practically a lot of things—from opening a bank account and renting or buying a house to filing the income tax. The same government that pushed Aadhar as proof of existence and defended hard in the SC for sustaining the “unique identity” system is now saying it is not proof of citizenship. Then there is the Voter ID that has been the heartbeat of India’s electoral process for decades but now is not good enough to get you on the voter list. The same goes for the PAN card. Only 2.5 per cent of Indians have passports, just 14.7 per cent have matriculation certificates, and it is difficult to guess how many Indians have birth certificates. The ECI’s own data, presented in the court, shows that most Indians lack these documents. This means millions out of the 95 crore voters face uncertainty over their national identity.
In the light of Bihar development, whenever the process of SIR is carried out in other states, there is a potential risk of many Indians losing their voting rights.
The writer is a senior independent Mumbai-based journalist. He tweets at @ali_chougule
