National NRC pressure? Why RSS wants it and why Owaisi calls it ‘100 times worse’ than SIR amid Oppn row-Gyanesh Kumar | Today’s news

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has called for a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC). The Sangh, which is the ideological arm of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said the identification of citizens was necessary to address the “population imbalance” and to protect the “unity, integrity and security of the country”.

“When solutions (of population imbalance) are discussed, it is said that there should be a National Register of Citizens (NRC),” RSS publicity in-charge Sunil Ambekar said while speaking at an event at the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (IGNCA) on Wednesday, March 30.

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Ambedkar, as reported by the Indian Express, said there was a need to identify people who were “wrongly included” in the electoral rolls and provide citizenship to those who came to India from neighboring countries under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

His remarks came amid a massive political row over the functioning of the Election Commission following a report by The Indian Express that said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections at least 14 times in 10 months regarding decisions and procedures related to the Special Intensive Scrutiny exercise.

To support his argument, Ambedkar stated that the partition of India was due to population imbalance. He added that in our neighboring countries which became Islamic states after 1947, there were many people who were left behind, from SC/ST and economically weaker sections and continued to face persecution.

“For those who have returned, it is necessary to ensure their citizenship through CAA. Identification of such people through NRC is necessary. If people have been wrongly included in the electoral roll, they must be identified,” he said.

What is NRC?

The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a government register designed to contain details of people recognized as Indian citizens. The NRC was prepared in 1951 after the census of that year. The exercise was subsequently given special importance in Assam due to concerns over migration and the Assam Accord of 1985.

The NRC did not feature on the political agenda following the nationwide protests against the CAA and the proposed NRC in 2019-20. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in December 2019 that his government had not discussed the NRC since coming to power, while the BJP subsequently dropped the proposal from its 2024 election manifesto.

However, the debate surrounding the NRC has resumed with the ongoing census. The census questionnaire contains several questions that were also part of the National Population Registration (NPR) 2020 plan, including nationality and details of parents, Aadhaar and voter ID. The statutory framework provides for the verification of the Population Register for the preparation of the National Register of Indian Citizens, including the identification of cases where citizenship may be considered doubtful.

The government has not officially announced anything about the nationwide NRC. The NPR exercise, which was scheduled to coincide with the 2021 census, was postponed during the Covid-19 pandemic and was not announced again when the census process resumed.

Why is Assam different?

Assam has a special NRC process under the citizenship rules. The updated NRC Assam used documents and records proving the presence of a person in Assam or their ancestor on or before 24 March 1971. These included the 1951 NRC and electoral rolls to that date along with specific supporting documents.

The RSS has been saying for years that a nationwide NRC should be done. Then in 2019, RSS general secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi said it was the government’s responsibility to prepare the NRC to identify those who are not Indian citizens. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat subsequently said in 2021 that the purpose of the NRC was to determine who the real citizens were and they should not be considered a Hindu-Muslim issue.

AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday alleged that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was a “backdoor to the NRC”, claiming that the exercise would eventually be used as a basis for the implementation of the NRC.

Many opposition leaders, including former Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, have also linked the SIR with the NRC.

Owaisi said the issue of standing “shoulder to shoulder” with other parties would be decided in future, but reiterated his disapproval of the SIR exercise.

“Whether we stand side by side or not is a matter of the future. However, we have been saying from the very beginning that SIR is the ‘back door of NRC’. I repeat that the Home Secretary of the country has set up a committee – headed by a former Supreme Court judge – to look into the demographic changes in the areas where the final NRC Owa list was made; they told the Home Ministry.

‘100 times worse than SIR’

Amid speculation about talks of a nationwide NRC, Owaisi had earlier said that the NRC would be “100 times worse”. The Hyderabad MP alleged that the exercise had already caused immense hardship, especially to minorities, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and migrants.

“NRC will be 100 times worse. We have already seen how disastrous NRC was in Assam. It has caused huge hardship, especially to minorities, SC/STs and migrants,” Owaisi said in a post on X.

Owais said the NRC would make everyone stand in queue to prove their citizenship and asked how people dependent on food rations could find documents and prove their citizenship.

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“The NRC will make everyone stand in line and prove their citizenship. In a country where 80 million people depend on food rations, you want them to find documents and prove their citizenship? What’s the point?” he said.

Owaisi claimed that the government wanted people to be at the mercy of government officials during the process.

\”NRC will be 100 times worse. We have already seen how disastrous NRC was in Assam.” – Asaduddin Owaisi

“Now we are witnessing a tragedy with SIR where ordinary people are forced to attend hearings with documents,” he said.