NRC Backlash

Amit Shah used to say there  are 40 lakh illegal immigrants in Assam. Now where are these illegal foreigners? The final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) seems to have left out 1.9 million people only. Right now that is not the point. The point at issue before the Seema Jagran Manch, an affiliate of RSS, is of 19 million people Hindus are mostly left out while muslims have rightly or wrongly made their way. The saffron brigade is now doubly embarassed and perturbed because of the hindu backlash factor. It doesn't matter whether refugees or not but they are surely game-changers in Assam's demography in favour hindus.

In Assam at least 3 districts are predominantly of Muslim majority population. Their all permutations and combinations will fail despite bias and dubious exercise by NRC.

Immediately after publication of final NRC list over 200 delegates of 35 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliates reviewd the post-NRC scenario. Big shots like J P Nanda, general secretary (organisation), B L Santosh and general secretary Ram Madhab attended the post-NRC review meet to safeguard genuine citizens. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ultimately criticised the final list and would like to bring in a fresh legislation to protect original citizens. In other words the final NRC list is not going to be implemented any time soon. Or it may not be implemented in letter and spirit. 'Hindus must be retained, not Muslims'.

Interestingly, Prafull Goradia, a former member of parliament, has revealed a bitter truth but unique in nature. No hindu can think of how partition has worked in his favour. Maybe, it is a puzzle. Maybe not.

As per Goradia's analysis, Hindus seem have made an ulterior gain, albeit most of them are yet to realise how this reverse swing has taken place. "The total Muslim population of an undivided India today would be about 40 percent, if they vote as a block they would elect a sultan for Delhi every time." Partition has decapacitated the hindus, no doubt, but it has in the end helped RSS to execute its hindu majority Indian nation. It is not know they would now desis from championing the idea of "Akhand Bharat"—undivided India.

Blaming it on Jinnah for partition all the time wakes not sense. B R Ambedkar supported Pakistan Resolution adopted by Muslim League in its plenary session held in Lahore in March 1940. In reality it was Sir Sayeed Ahmad Khan who was a member of the Viceroy Council and the founder of Aligarh Muslim University, floated the idea of two-nation theory, implying Hindus and Muslims are separate nations. And the word Pakistan, the most nasty word to most Indians was coined by Rahmat Ali, a scholar at Cambridge University.

Rajendra Prasad, India's first President, in his immensely thought-provoking book India Divided, proposed in addition to Jinnah's proposal of partition-released problem, that those who stayed put should live as aliens with visas (green cards?) issued by the respective central governments. No, that didn't happen. Gandhi and Nehru declined to honour these proposals and blood-baths—monostrous riots—followed.

Prasad's India Divided is a classic. It was commissioned by the then Congress Working Committee to write the book, depicting inter-relationship between hindu and muslim communities and their cultural affinities. The book is more like Arther Kostler's Darkness at Noon, to be finished at one go. But the Congress party didn't popularise Prasad's book for reasons best known to them.

Demography, being a coerceive tool, is a powerful mechanism to subjugate aggrieved people. In Tripura, demography has outnumbered local population making the state a Bengali-speaking region. Tibetans are feeling the pinch that they are already minority in their homeland because of the Chinese Han domination and the deliberate policy of Beijing to make Tibet a Han majorty state.

It remains to be seen how the saffron club succeeds in squaring the Assam imbroglio and resolve the demographic imbalance in favour of hindus and save Assam from being swamped the muslim majority.

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Frontier
Vol. 52, No. 12, Sep 22 - 28, 2019