In a growing India, some struggle to prove they are Indian

MURKATA, India (AP) — Krishna Biswas is scared. Unable to prove his Indian citizenship, he risks being sent to a detention center, far from his modest bamboo-wood hut that overlooks lush fields of corn.

Biswas says he was born in the northeastern Indian state of Assam. That’s how his father was, almost 65 years ago. But the government says that to prove he is Indian, he must provide documents dating back to 1971.

For the 37-year-old vegetable vendor, that means looking for a decades-old deed or birth certificate with an ancestor’s name on it.

Biswas has none, and he is not alone. There are almost 2 million people like him, more than 5% of Assam’s population, looking forward to a future where they could be stripped of their citizenship if they cannot prove they are Indian.

Questions about who is Indian have long lingered in Assam, which many believe is overrun by migrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

At a time when India is poised to overtake China as the most populous countryThese concerns are expected to grow as the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to use illegal immigration and fears of demographic change for electoral gains in a nation where nationalist sentiments run deep.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has vowed to roll out a similar citizenship verification program across the country even though the process in Assam was suspended after a federal audit found it flawed and riddled with errors.

However, hundreds of suspected voting immigrants in Assam have been arrested and sent to detention centers the government calls “transit camps.” Fearing arrest, thousands have fled to other Indian states. Some have died by suicide.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of an ongoing series exploring what it means for India’s 1.4 billion people to live in what will be the world’s most populous country.

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Millions of people like Biswas, whose citizenship status is unclear, were born in India to parents who immigrated many decades ago. Many of them have voting cards and other identification, but the state citizenship registry counts only those who can prove, with documentary evidence, that they or their ancestors were Indian citizens before 1971, the year Bangladesh was born. .

Modi’s party, which also rules Assam, argues that registration is essential to identify people who entered the country illegally in a state where ethnic passions run deep and anti-immigrant protests in the 1980s culminated in massacre. of more than 2,000 Muslim immigrants.

“My father and his brother were born here. We were born here. Our children were also born here. We will die here, but we will not leave this place,” Biswas said one recent afternoon at his home in Assam’s Murkata town, near the banks of the Brahmaputra river.

The Biswas family has 11 members, of whom the citizenship of nine is disputed. His wife and his mother have been declared Indian by a foreigners’ court that decides citizenship claims. Others, including his three children, his father and his brother’s family, have been declared “foreigners”.

It makes no sense to Biswas, who wonders why some would be considered to have settled in the country illegally and others not, even though they were all born in the same place.

The family, like many others, has not taken their case to court or higher courts due to lack of money and the arduous paperwork the process requires.

“If we can’t be Indians, just kill us. Let them (the government) kill my whole family,” he said.

The registry was last updated in 2019 and excluded both Hindus and Muslims, but most critics see it as an attempt to deport millions of minority Muslims.

They say the process would become even more exclusive if Modi’s party revives a controversial citizenship bill that grants citizenship to persecuted believers who entered India illegally from neighboring countries, including Hindus, Sikhs and Christians, but not Muslims. . The nationwide citizenship bill was introduced in 2019 but sparked widespread protests across India for targeting Muslims, forcing the government to postpone it.

Supporters of the registration say it is essential to protect the cultural identity of indigenous Assams, arguing that those who entered illegally are taking their jobs and land.

“The influx of illegal aliens from Bangladesh is a threat to the identity of the indigenous people of Assam. We cannot stay as second class citizens under the illegal Bangladeshis. It is a question of our very existence,” said Samujjal Bhattacharya, who has been part of a movement in Assam against illegal immigration.

Fearing a possible loss of citizenship, dozens of people in Assam have committed suicide, leaving a trail of devastation among families.

When Faizul Ali was sent to a detention center after being declared a “foreigner” in late 2015, his relatives feared that they would be next. The prospect of being imprisoned led his son to take her own life. His sister tried to save him but drowned in the process. A year later, Ali’s other son hanged himself.

Ali was released on bail from the detention center in 2019. He died in March, leaving behind his wife, a mentally ill son, two daughters-in-law and their children. They all live in a one-room house made of corrugated tin in the Muslim-majority village of Bahari. All have been declared “foreigners”.

Unable to make ends meet, Ali’s wife, Sabur Bano, has begun begging. She cannot afford firewood for cooking and uses the discarded clothing she collects from the streets as material to burn.

“I am a citizen of this country. I am 60 years old. I was born here, my children grew up here, all my belongings are here. But they made me a foreigner in my own land,” he said, wiping tears from the hem of his white sari.

Others are still waiting for their loved ones after they were arrested.

On a recent morning, Asiya Khatoon boarded a rickshaw and traveled almost 31 kilometers (19 miles) from her home to a detention center in the city of Assam, where her husband has been detained since January.

“They (the police) just came and detained my husband saying he is from Bangladesh,” the 45-year-old said, before hurrying towards the detention center surrounded by a wide perimeter of walls and surveillance towers with surveillance cameras. Security and armed guards.

In his hands was a crumpled plastic bag. She was wearing a green shirt, pants and a cap that she wanted to give to her husband.

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