In January, Ara Kumar Biswas pooled all his savings and borrowed some money to buy a quarter of an acre not too far from where he lived, a ...
In January, Ara Kumar Biswas pooled all his savings and borrowed some money to buy a quarter of an acre not too far from where he lived, a village called Bhari Dhowa in Middle Assam’s Nagaon district. It cost him Rs 3 lakh.
A couple of days later, when the fresh-faced 31-year-old carpenter went to the circle office to get the land registered in his name, he was asked to furnish a host of documents as identity proof. But it was not enough to prove identity. Biswas said he had to also establish that he was Indian: he had to produce a computer print-out bearing his name as having been included in Assam’s National Register of Citizens, published last August.
Biswas had the rest of the documents but his name was not part of the NRC, meant to be a list of Indian citizens living in Assam. This was defined as anyone who came to the state after the midnight of March 24, 1971 and their descendants. Biswas did not make it as the NRC authorities were not convinced that he was the son of Amulya Biswas, the person he had claimed was his father in the application to be included in the...
