STATELESSNESS AND MARGINALISATION IN ASSAM THE CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT BILL AND THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF CITIZENS REPORT OF THE PUBLIC HEARING OF FEBRUARY, 2019 AT GUWAHATI, ASSAM Panel: Justice Gopala Gowda (Chairperson), Prof. Monirul Hussain (Co-Chairperson), Harsh Mander, Sanjoy Hazarika, Colin Gonsalves May 2019 1 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Panel would like to acknowledge the support of the Association for Citizens' Rights, Brahmaputra Valley Civil Society, Justice Forum Assam, ShahojogiKabi Mancha, ShaikhikJagaran Mancha, JagaranEkAbirata Yatra and Society for Sustainability and Rural Development and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in organising the Public Hearing on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 and National Register of Citizens at Guwahati, Assam. The aim of the Public Hearing was to look at the issues relating to the updating of the National Register of Citizens in the state of Assam from the perspective of the people, keeping into account all the different positions and trying to bring them in contact. This would not have been possible without the voices of those who have been adversely impacted by this process. For this reason, the Panel was very grateful for the heroic efforts taken by those excluded from the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens to travel long distances and attend this Public Hearing. The Panel is grateful to the Association for Citizens' Rights and other organisations for the efforts taken to mobilise persons from the different districts of the state and prompt them to come to Guwahati and give their depositions before the panel. The panel is equally grateful to the many persons, men and women, young and old, who agreed to share the very personal and often tragic histories of exclusion, that are published in the present report. Our expert speakers have also been similarly crucial, for their presentations and statements put the testimonies in perspective and shed light on the relevant background and the applicable principles. All this would not have been possible without our panellists, who contributed their time and energy to the success of this project. A special word of thanks to Dr. Joshua Castellino, Executive Director at Minority Rights Group International, as well as Dr. Matteo Zamboni who edited this report along with Fazal Abdali. Without them, this report would not be possible. A special word of thanks to Advocate Fazal Abdali and Advocate Tariq Adeeb for coordinating and managing the Public Hearing. Finally, the panel is grateful to the Don Bosco Institute of Management of Guwahati, Assam, for making the conference facilities and food available and for the kindness shown to the participants. 3 4 PROFILE OF THE PANELLISTS AND THE EXPERT SPEAKERS Justice Gopala Gowda Justice Gopala Gowda, the Chairperson of the Panel, is a former Justice of the Supreme Court of India and a former Chief Justice of Orissa High Court. Harsh Mander Harsh Mander is an activist, who works with survivors of mass violence and hunger, as well as homeless persons and street children. He is the Director of the Centre for Equity Studies and a Special Commissioner to the Supreme Court of India in the Right to Food case. He is associated with various social causes and movements and writes and speaks regularly on issues of communal harmony, tribal, Dalit and disabled persons' rights, the right to information, custodial justice, homelessness and bonded labour. Professor Monirul Hussain Professor Monirul Hussain, the co-Chairperson of the PANEL, has been a Visiting Fellow at the Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford and Visiting Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. At present, he is Professor at the Department of Political Science, Gauhati University. He has written extensively on the society and politics in North East India. His book The Assam Movement: Class, Ideology and Identity (1993) is regarded as an indispensable source for understanding Assam‘s colonial and post-colonial society and politics. Sanjoy Hazarika Sanjoy Hazarika is the Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI). He is the founder and Managing Trustee of a trust which works actively in the NER, the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research. He holds the Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew Chair and is the director of Centre for North East Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Colin Gonsalves Colin Gonsalves is the Founder of Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), India‘s leading public interest law group. Upon attaining his law degree in 1983, Mr. Gonsalves co-founded the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) and developed it into a national organization bringing together over 200 lawyers and paralegals operating out of 28 offices spread throughout India. Mr. Gonsalves transitioned his practice from the Labour Courts to the Bombay High Court in 1984 and was designated as Senior Advocate, before moving onto the Supreme Court of India in 2000. He has brought numerous precedent-setting cases to the Supreme Court and the High Courts of various states. Amongst these cases was the ―Right to Food‖ case in the Supreme Court of India which ordered subsidized grain to be given to 700 million poor persons. Mr. Gonsalves has written, edited and co-edited a number of articles and books on a range of human rights law issues. He was presented with the ―International Human Rights Award‖ by the American Bar Association in 2005. In 2010, he was conferred a Doctorate of the University, honoris causa, by the University of Middlesex, UK. He was 5 given the ―Mother Teresa Memorial Award‖ for Social Justice ―in recognition of remarkable contribution in legal services addressing human rights‖ in 2010 and an Award of the Centre for Reproductive Rights, New York, 2015—for Pioneering and Exemplary Leadership in Advancing Women‘s Reproductive Rights and Social Justice in India. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award 2017. Abdul Mannan Abdul Mannan is the current Leader of the Opposition belonging to Indian National Congress in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. Amrapali Basumatary Amrapali Basumataryis Nodal teacher Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi and also a prominent activist articulating the rights of the tribals. Hiren Gohain Hiren Gohain is an eminent intellectual, literary critic, poet and social scientist from the Indian state of Assam. Abdul BatinKhandakar Abdul BatinKhandakar is the president of the Association for Citizens‘ Rights (ACR). H.R.A. Choudhury H.R.A. Choudhury is Sr. Advocate at the Gauhati High Court. Amal De Chickera Amal De Chickera is the co-director of the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting an integrated, human rights- based response to the injustice of statelessness and exclusion. Joshua Castellino Dr. Joshua Castellino is Executive Director at Minority Rights Group International in London and Professor of Law at the Middlesex University. 6 CONCEPT NOTE At the request of individuals and groups from the state of Assam a public hearing was held in Guwahati on February 2 and 3, 2019, on the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). During the two days, the panel heard the testimonies given by those who had been excluded from the final draft of the NRC and their advocates from the districts of Biswanath, Daring, Goalpara, Golaghat, Kamrup, Morigaon, Nagaon, Sonitpur andUdalguri. The panel also heard presentations and received statements from expert speakers. The proceedings before the panel, its findings and recommendations are the subject of the present report. The report approaches the social, political and legal issues facing the state of Assam and its people with caution and humility. Clearly, these issues are very complex, and the rest of the country is somewhat unaware of the historical background and the point of view of the various sections of Assamese society. As originally envisaged, the project of updating the National Register of Citizens was perceived by the people of Assam as a reasonable solution to the vexed issue of migration. As decades have passed by, however, it became more and more obvious that a fair project of updating the NRC was sabotaged by the willful negligence of the Government, at both state and union levels. No implementation took place, creating a difficult situation for the people of Assam and particularly the tribals who found themselves demographically marginalized and their lands usurped by wealthy communities. Such a betrayal of the promises of the NRC, as originally envisaged, led to the current situation of potential chaos. Indeed, because of a hasty and arbitrarily implementation of the NRC, the Government created tension among the different communities in the state of Assam, thus continuing to play politics to the detriment, rather than benefit, of the people. After decades of residence, marriage, procreation, employment and agricultural work, approximately 4 million persons consisting of Hindus, Muslims and other communities find themselves stigmatized as non-citizens of India. Many have been threatened with expulsions. Thousands have been incarcerated in detention camps where conditions are appalling. Threats of punitive actions abound. Said by the State to be Bangladeshis, they find themselves as stateless persons since Bangladesh has categorically refused to accept them as its citizens. Against this backdrop, the central Government‘s announcement of the intention to implement the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) compounded the politics of exacerbating, rather than solving, conflicts. The Assamese society, from the members of the communities excluded from the NRC to the tribal organizations and the intellectuals of the state, have only one way forward: Coming together to share their perspectives and seek a practicable solution. Their very survival is at stake. The efforts of the Assamese society as a whole are reflected in the present report which sums up the presentations, testimonies and discussions that have been presented before the Panel. The report is divided into three main Parts.