How Not to Count Indians

Sometime in February 2011, our doorbell rang. A woman in her thirties stood outside, carrying a sheaf of papers and a pen. She spoke politely, asked the name of my father, the number of people in our family, confirmed our mother tongue. The interview lasted for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. She thanked us and left. In the whole process she didn’t ask for a single document.

India has conducted the census exercise for nearly 150 years, starting in 1872. It happens every ten years. The 2011 census covered all 8000 towns and more than 600,000 villages. A total of 2.7 million officials, such as the young lady who visited our house, successfully counted India’s 1.21 billion (121 crore) people. Like India’s democratic elections, census data collection is the pride of India. The next census will be concluded on 1 March 2021 for most of the country.

The discussion about CAA/NPR/NRC has left many people confused. Will India count its people two, three, four times? And why? To remove the confusion, I will clarify four concepts. (a) Census (b) National Population Register (NPR) (c) National Register of Citizens (NRC) and (d) Aadhar card.

Census

Census is the largest single official source that collects statistical information on different characteristics of India’s people. It happens in two phases: house-listing that focuses on things such as the presence or absence of toilets, drinking water, electricity, television, vehicles. The second phase is people count. This pertains to questions about age, gender, religion, language, employment. Census offers a macro picture that helps the government in the planning process. No single individual is a focus of the census, no documents are asked for. People could lie if they wish to, but there is no real reason for people to lie or hide any information.

*****

National Population Register (NPR)

NPR is the register of the usual residents of India. Usual residents are defined as those living in India for at least the past six months, as well as those who intend to live in India for at least the next six months. The objective is to create a comprehensive identity database of residents, including their demographic and biometric details. If census is “Macro”, NPR is “Micro”. NPR includes citizens as well as foreigners, both legal and illegal. All of them will be included as long as they are “usual residents” as per the definition. 

*****

National Register of Citizens (NRC) or National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC)

If NPR is merely about a person’s identity, NRC looks at the legality of that identity. Residing in India’s geography is enough to be part of the NPR. To be part of the NRC, the Indian government needs to confirm you are a legal citizen. NRC also includes Indian citizens living outside India.

NRC= NPR plus Indian citizens abroad minus legal foreigners resident in India minus doubtful and illegal residents.

*****

Aadhar card

When NRC was conceived, so was a “National Identity card”. The Indian government successfully managed to create that card, called it Aadhar. Aadhar is now the world’s biggest biometric database with more than 1.2 billion entries. But the government blundered, and Aadhar became an NPR card (residence), rather than an NRC card (citizenship) as it was supposed to be. In other words, foreigners, legal or illegal, usually residing in India can get Aadhar, whereas Indian citizens abroad are prohibited from applying for it.  That is one reason Amit Shah, India’s home minister, repeatedly says Aadhar is not valid for citizenship claims. He is upset about two things. First, the Supreme Court repeatedly struck down the government’s attempts to make Aadhar mandatory. Secondly, for Shah, the most upsetting aspect of Aadhar is that it doesn’t mention religion.

*****

National Citizenship Register (NRC) in black and white

It is claimed people are protesting the NRC prematurely. Only the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has been published, there is nothing about the NRC yet. PM Modi said NRC was never discussed. These claims are incorrect.

Detailed information on NRC has existed in black & white for 16 years. On 10 December 2003, India’s Home Ministry issued the NRC rules. The current Home Ministry has referred to those rules at least on two occasions in its notifications, in 2015 and 2019.

The background for NRC was twofold. One was the mass migration from war-torn Bangladesh to Assam, and the demographic change that followed it. But the 2003 rules were mainly triggered by the India-Pakistan Kargil war in 1999. Pakistani operatives had infiltrated part of Ladakh pretending to be Kashmiri militants. The BJP was in power, and the home ministry was in the hands of L.K.Advani, an incendiary politician. The 9/11 attack in the USA reinforced the paranoia about the damage Muslim illegals can cause. Possibly as a result of Kargil followed by 11 September, L.K. Advani, the demolition architect of Babri Mosque, issued the NRC rules in December 2003. The rules were never enforced because within five months the BJP government lost power (2004 elections). It may be wise for Modi and Shah to reflect on that sequence of events.

The amended NRC equation

It is also claimed that there is no connection between CAA and NRC. I will now show mathematically how they are connected.

We saw above that

NRC= NPR plus Indian citizens abroad minus doubtful and illegal residents.

I will now break the formula further.

NRC= NPR plus Indian citizens abroad minus doubtful and illegal non-Muslim residents minus doubtful and illegal Muslim residents.

By offering amnesty and citizenship to non-Muslims from three countries, CAA has altered the equation.

NRC= NPR plus Indian citizens abroad minus doubtful and illegal non-Muslim residents minus doubtful and illegal Muslim residents.

NRC is now a weapon directed exclusively at suspecting and scrutinizing India’s Muslim residents. 

India-born Muslims

Since 1 July 1987, Indian citizenship, as explained in an earlier chapter, is jus sanguinis (by descent) and not jus soli (by birth). Like asthma, diabetes and obesity, being illegal in India is a hereditary disease. Once a person is illegal, his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren born after 1 July 1987 are all illegal. In the NRC equation, when we talk of doubtful and illegal Muslim residents, their India-born descendants are also included. As to how a Muslim born and raised in India can be called an infiltrator, only the Home Minister knows.

Doubtful citizens

This mortifying term was introduced by the 2003 Home Ministry rules. In Assam thousands of d-voters were robbed of their right to vote.

Now if India were to implement NPR or NRC (NPR minus doubtful Muslims), each Muslim will need to prove legality of himself, his family and ancestors. India introduced the Birth Registration Act in 1969. The related rules were published in 1999. Most Indians above fifty years of age don’t have a birth certificate.

If you read the NRC rules, 2003, you will notice it contains a series of petty bureaucrats empowered to scrutinize a person. Like in Assam, there may be a foreigners’ tribunal, a body to which a doubtful Muslim can appeal before going to jail. In theory, while in jail, he can even go to the High Court and the Supreme Court.

India has the largest number of illiterates in the world. The 350 million (35 crore) illiterates include 56 million (5.6 crore) Muslims. (One could argue that making people literate is the responsibility of the State.) The 56 million Muslims who can’t read or write are now expected to provide documentary evidence proving legality of their own and ancestors’ existence, argue with the petty bureaucrats, defend themselves in the tribunals and courts. No wonder they have intuitively understood the threat and would rather spend months protesting at Shaheen Bagh.

Illiterate population and illiterate minister

Amit Shah wants to conduct the NRC exercise in order to find infiltrators and imprison/deport them. No democratic country on earth has ever managed to do it. If an illegal immigrant decides to hide in the Himalayas, no NPR, NRC or any other exercise is going to find him.

USA, UK and Europe, far more developed than India, and far more attractive for migration, have admitted they have not enough resources to identify illegal immigrants. They try to focus on potential terrorists, and as 9/11 showed, they are not successful at that either. In those countries, visa overstays outnumber those who cross borders illegally. Trump can build a beautiful wall to stop Mexicans, but he can’t stop the thousands who enter USA legally and overstay their visas. That includes Indian illegal immigrants as well. Bangladesh sends the maximum number of tourists to India every year. India has no mechanism to catch those who overstay their visas.

India’s population exceeds the combined population of USA, EU and UK. It is evident that the “security” that is offered as the reason for NRC is impractical. The intent is clearly to target and intimidate Muslims in India.

Much to fear

Modi assures us that no Indian Muslim has anything to fear. This is patently false.

The dates for NPR are announced: 1 April to 30 Sept 2020. As we saw above, this exercise is the basis for NRC (=NPR minus doubtful and illegal Muslims). It can be assumed that the NPR data collection will probe every Muslim to decide whether he/she or his/her ancestors are doubtful or illegal.

The 56 million illiterate Muslims have much to fear. Many of them are unlikely to have credible documents. None of them can defend themselves against the belligerent bureaucracy, expensive tribunals and courts. The illiterate Muslims can be bullied, blackmailed, harassed, threatened and some of them imprisoned.

The India-born young Muslims (under 32) with illegal ancestors have much to fear. They are not even doubtful, they are illegal. The law doesn’t offer them protection. Their families are liable to be imprisoned for three years without bail. Since it is unlikely any country will take back India-born Muslims, their fate after three years’ imprisonment is unclear. They may rot in jail till the end of their life.

*****

India has been counting its people over the past 150 years. This is the first time the government wants to count the population in order to eliminate part of it. 

Ravi

References

(1)   http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Common/NRIC.html : This link gives the NRC (NRIC) Act and rules as well as information about the population register.

(2)  http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Act&Rules/notifications/citizenship_rules2003.pdf : NRC rules issued in December 2003 by L.K.Advani, India’s Home Minister.

(3)http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Act&Rules/notifications/NPR%20Updation.pdf and http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Act&Rules/notifications/NPR%20Updation.pdf : Notifications issued in 2015 and 2019 by the Home Ministry that refer to the 2003 rules.

(4)  https://uidai.gov.in/aadhaar_dashboard/ At the time of posting this article, 1.255 billion people have been issued the Aadhar cards.   

(5)  https://www.orfonline.org/research/literacy-in-india-the-gender-and-age-dimension-57150/ Literacy in India report

(6)  https://cmsny.org/publications/essay-2017-undocumented-and-overstays/ Illegal immigration USA. Visa overstays significantly exceed illegal border crossings.

(7)   https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/01/us/undocumented-visa-overstays.html  Except Mexico, India has the highest illegal immigrants (visa overstay) in the USA.

R.