By Nageshwar Patnaik in Bhubaneswar, September 22, 2029: The Narendra Modi government appears to be on a mission mode. After abrogating Article 370 and bifurcating Jammu and Kashmir to two union territories, it is getting ready to extend the National Citizenship Register (NRC) to the rest of India and reintroduce the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in the parliament.

Union Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notification on July 31, 2019, stating that the Central government has decided to prepare and update the population register in the rest of India other than the state of Assam. This clearly hints that the exercise to update the National Citizenship Register (NRC) in Assam will now be implemented throughout the country.

Most people acquire nationality at birth by being born in a place or by inheriting their parents’ nationality. But going by an estimate by the United Nations, about one crore people are stateless. Many of them live in ethnic populations who are discriminated against or subject to sudden changes in the law. There are an estimated eight lakh Rohingya people living stateless in Myanmar.

The citizenship issue in India first took a violent turn in Assam with a massive movement in the state against illegal immigration, which eventually led to the historic Assam Accord of 1985, signed by Movement leaders and the Rajiv Gandhi government. Accordingly, the 1986 amendment to the Citizenship Act created a special category of citizens in relation to Assam.

The newly inserted Section 6A in the Act laid down that all persons of Indian origin who entered Assam before January 1, 1966 and have been ordinary residents will be deemed Indian citizens. Those who came after 1 January, 1966 but before March 25, 1971, and have been ordinary residents, will get citizenship at the expiry of 10 years from their detection as foreigner. During this interim period, they will not have the right to vote but can get an Indian passport.

Assam already has an NRC, which was published in 1951 on the basis of that year’s Census. The latest citizenship list, published on August 31 this year is part of the government’s effort to identify and weed out what it claims are illegal immigrants in the northeastern state of Assam. Many Muslims whose families originally came from neighboring Bangladesh are not rightful citizens, even though they’ve lived in Assam for decades, according to the government.

About 19 lakh people – most of them Muslims, some of them Hindus of Bengali origin in Assam – now find themselves as stateless, because their names do not appear on NRC. Now the government plans to extend the NRC process in the rest of India. If that happens, it would result in the biggest refugee crisis on the planet.

Muslims form approximately 14 percent of the national population and more than twice that in Assam. In this year’s election, one of Modi’s central campaign promises was that he’d get the NRC in shape and deal with the Muslim migrants in Assam once and for all.

“These infiltrators are eating away at our country like termites,” BJP president and home minister Amit Shah said at an April rally. “The NRC is our means of removing them.” Shah has openly said the goal is to deport those deemed illegal immigrants.

However, Bangladesh has time and again made it clear that it won’t accept the newly stateless people. In that case, these stateless people would be sent to one of the 10 mass detention camps the government is constructing with boundary walls and watchtowers. The first camp, currently under construction, is the size of seven football fields. Even nursing mothers and children will be kept there.

Early this month, India defended its move to compile a National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam before the United Nations Human Rights Council, reiterating it as a “transparent” exercise that’s being taken up in compliance with the country’s laws.

However, human rights activists and opposition parties claim that thousands of genuine citizens were left out of the list. Even several BJP leaders have expressed displeasure over the exclusion of Hindu migrants at a time when the BJP government at the centre is on the verge of pushing through a legislation aimed at expediting citizenship for non-Muslims from other countries.

The BJP has been demanding updation of NRC across the country in line with its vision of redefining Indian nationhood as Hindu. Now that it is in power for the second term with full mandate, the Modi government will sooner than later update the NRC all over the country notwithstanding the opposition from some state governments, prominent being West Bengal.

The Union government is also gearing up to revive the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), which according to experts would dilute the Constitution’s secular ethos. They point out that it is discriminating against the citizenship claims of Muslim immigrants while opening the doors for other religious communities.

The CAB faces vehement opposition in many north-eastern states though Home minister Amit Shah has categorically stated that CAB will not undermine the inner-line permits that are necessary to enter some of these states. He also underscored the “permanent” nature of Article 371 which showers special protections on these states while promising that the fate of Article 370 won’t befall it.

But the exclusion of only Muslim immigrants from CAB undermines the very rationale for the legislation that refugees must be treated in a humanitarian concern. Many refugees from neighbouring countries flocked to India for reasons beyond their control, like civil war, economic distress, religious persecution, and ethnic and social strife.

Modi government’s move may suit his party’s political goals but may turn out to be a body blow to Indian traditions that loudly proclaim “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”. The north-east needs development and connectivity. So also rest of India, not CAB or NRC.