Thinking Radically On A Nation-Wide NRC

Any country, and not just a democratic one, should have a National Register of Citizens (NRC). This is nothing but an exhaustive list of its legal and bonafide citizens, as opposed to those who are not. This is so that various rights (e.g., voting) and government-provided services (e.g., healthcare benefits) are provided deservingly and knowledgeably.

Ordinarily, no one should have a problem with this most basic and fundamental duties of a nation-state. Not being able to control the ingress of illegal immigrants is a problem being faced across the world and in all continents, as millions of refugees pour across open borders, triggered by war, inadequate economic opportunities, ethnic/religious persecution, etc.

The problem gets further vitiated in poorer countries, where borders are not fenced, border security forces can be bribed, and more so if neighbouring populations are racially similar, and hence difficult to segregate and identify.

India’s recent tryst with NRC in Assam, as necessitated by the Assam Accord of 1985, under a process developed and monitored by the Courts (both Supreme Court of India and Assam High Court), left a lot to be desired. Anecdotally, a very large number of people were left unhappy. It is believed by all sides that they were unfairly treated, and that the “other” side got away easy.

The legitimate objective of a nation-state wanting to accurately document and identify its citizens cannot be denied. However, glitches and inaccuracies in the process have “delegitimized” this process, which is unfortunate and needs to be addressed. An alternative process for rolling out a nation-wide NRC is proposed herein, but first we need to understand the reasons why the Assam NRC “failed”, in order to test whether the new process will be able to address these causes of failure.

1. Reasons of failure for Assam NRC
   1. The process which was supposed to have been kicked-off immediately after the Assam Accord was left unaddressed, and caused severe angst within indigenous Assamese, who were anyway feeling the impact of demographic changes in their region/state, from across the border. The resultant politicization meant that governments refused to touch it until forced to do so by the Courts. The process too was dictated and designed by the Courts, and not the state government.
   2. There was no sense of ownership within the state government, although the state’s resources were being used to conduct the exercise. Hence the obvious practical difficulties, which would be better known to the bureaucrats only, were not pointed out early enough.
   3. The ostensible objective became to identify and deport illegal immigrants rather than identify and document legal citizens of the country. This led to a fear-psychosis where people went to any length to avoid being identified as illegal, including submitting false documentation.
   4. The pressure to cover everyone within a limited timeframe caused a huge backlog wherein proper checks could not be conducted on documents submitted, leading to the innumerable errors in the list.
   5. There was no negative consequence on people who submitted false documents, and/or falsely identified people (as witnesses). There was no legal finality to the documents submitted, thereby encouraging reckless behaviour within citizens.
   6. Irresponsible statements on throwing people out and housing them in detention centres further accentuated this fear, driving people to try and make it into the list at any cost.
2. Proposed Alternative Process
   1. Prerequisites:
      1. A 10-year timeline should be declared for completing the Nationwide NRC (NNRC) process.
      2. The primary and over-riding objective of NNRC will be to identify and document legal citizens of India, and not to throw anyone out.
      3. There should be some positive benefit for the people who get identified as legal citizens under the NNRC (e.g. facility for online e-voting in elections, facility for Aadhaar-based identity verification at polling booths, etc.).
      4. A formal NNRC number and card should be given to each legal citizen of India. This then should become the only common national identity card needed for any citizen-to-government interaction. The existing Aadhaar number can also be repurposed for this.
      5. There should also be some negative impact on those who have not been able to prove themselves as legal citizens, but more on this later.
   2. Process:
      1. Identify a “seed-list” of people to kick-off the process. An indicative list of the categories of people who could be included in this “seed-list” is given in Annexure I.
      2. Each of these people will receive a formal letter from the Government of India (GOI), and asked to file a mandatory Affidavit in any District Court (with physical presence), which will include the following:
         1. Declare full-name, and assert that they are who they say they are
         2. Declare their date and place of birth
         3. Declare the full-names (and provide Aadhaar numbers) of their immediate family members, which will only include parents, spouse (including ex-spouses, if any), siblings (real siblings only from at least one common parent), and children, if any
         4. Attach self-certified copies of ALL documents available with them, from a list of pre-declared documents (see proposed list in Annexure II). If they do not have any document (e.g. birth certificate), they will need to declare this in the Affidavit. There will be no impact of lack of documentation on the veracity of the Affidavit, except if incorrect information has been provided (e.g., if despite having a birth certificate, one declares that one doesn’t have it).
         5. Attach the GOI letter which allowed them to file their affidavit.
      3. Upon filing the Affidavit, they will receive a unique Affidavit number, which they will get in form of a receipt confirming that they have filed their Affidavit.
      4. Post filing the Affidavit, they need to give a certified-true copy of the affidavit to each of their family members only (as declared within)
      5. Each of the family members, upon receiving a copy of the Affidavit filed, will now in turn be able to file their own Affidavit (same process as above). They will also need to quote the Affidavit number and attach a copy of (only) the immediately preceding Affidavit (instead of the GOI letter), which allowed them to file their own Affidavit.
      6. Once each of these family members have filed their own Affidavits, the family members that they have identified will in turn be able to file theirs, and so on.
   3. Residual group:
      1. This process will continue and logically be able to cover a vast majority of the people in the country, until only a small residual group is left, who due to some quirk of fate would not have anyone in their immediate family who is linked through the long chain to someone from the “Seed-list”, thereby not allowing them to file their affidavit. Let’s say that this cut-off position is reached in 8 years’ time.
      2. This residual group, will need to go to a Court, seek prior permission to file their affidavit, and only then be able to do so, and thereby also allow their family members in turn to be able to file their own affidavits, subsequently.
      3. Before this, and in order to seek permission to file an Affidavit, they will need to get Witness Affidavits from at least three NNRC-registered citizens, who need to declare that they know this person, and assert their belief that the person is who he says he is. They will need to attach these three Affidavits along with theirs.
   4. Consequences of mis-declaration:
      1. The responsibility of proving mis-declarations will be of the state (e.g., the Police), and not the concerned individual or any other private citizen, and will have to be done in a court of law. An individual citizen will have the authority to file a Police complaint against another, if he suspects (with basis) that a person has misrepresented himself in the Affidavit.
      2. Once mis-declaration has been proved, severe consequences will need to be visited upon the individual, indicatively this could include:
         1. Punishment for committing perjury in a court of law (which is seven years imprisonment)
         2. Disenfranchisement (until the person is able to prove and get Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Act)
         3. Opening up of formal investigation for mis-declaration for those individual family members who have relied on this person’s Affidavit in order to be eligible to file theirs. The responsibility for proving mis-declaration however, will continue to be that of the state.
         4. Suspension of citizenship and reversion of all benefits of citizenship like passport, PDS, voting rights, etc., until the person is able to get citizenship back again. However, such persons can be given legal residency status minus voting rights (a separate process will need to be defined for this).
   5. Continuous process:
      1. Although the major bulk of this should be completed within say 10 years, there will be a need to keep this as an ongoing process to account for new births, naturalizations, etc.
      2. The process for getting an NNRC card and being declared a citizen should basically remain the same, that a person needs to file an Affidavit triggered by a family member filing an Affidavit with name of that family member.
3. Benefits and short-comings:
   1. There are many benefits of this proposed process and a few shortcomings also.
   2. Benefits:
      1. Since this is a slow-and-continuous process, designed towards “opting-in”, it will not create a fear-psychosis in people driven to comply somehow in time for an artificial deadline.
      2. It is based on trust, wherein the system believes that people will not lie in a sworn Affidavit submitted in a court of law, but will take precipitate action with severe negative consequences, if the state is able to prove that the person has committed perjury.
      3. It starts with a group of people (seed-list), in which it is highly likely that the system has vetted the background of such people and verified their credentials. This is the best possible place to start the process.
      4. The process also assumes that through the process of marital and filial linkages, a vast majority of the people in the country would get covered. This then only leaves the residual list of people to be dealt with, for whom also a proviso for coverage has been proposed.
   3. Short-comings:
      1. This is an extremely slow process which will take time to implement, and hence no “quick-fix” is possible for the problem of illegal immigration and demographic change in population.
      2. This will further overload the court system, which is already overloaded. An alternative/additional juridical infrastructure will need to be created for the process of filing and accepting Affidavits.
4. Conclusion
   1. There is no perfect solution for doing something like the NRC and inveterate critics will criticize any process that is proposed, including this one.
   2. Not having a valid and robust citizens database and allowing illegal immigrants to be treated as legal citizens is a fundamental failure of a nation-state. Therefore, not doing this is not an option.
   3. The process proposed above is not perfect, but does offer a path of least resistance and a calm and controlled process for achieving this objective over a period of time.

Annexure I - List of categories of people to be included in “Seed-list”

1. President(s) of India
2. Vice President(s) of India
3. Prime Minister(s) of India (incl. Deputy Prime Ministers)
4. Cabinet Minister(s) in Government of India
5. All Members of Parliament from Rajya Sabha & Lok Sabha
6. Governor(s) of all States of India
7. Chief Minister(s) of all States of India (incl. Deputy Chief Ministers)
8. Lieutenant Governor(s) of all Union Territories of India
9. Speaker(s) of the Lok Sabha
10. Speaker(s) of all Vidhan Sabhas of all States of India
11. Chief Justice(s) of India (the Supreme Court of India)
12. Chief Justice(s) of all High Courts of India
13. Chiefs of all three Defence forces of India (Army, Navy & Air Force)
14. Cabinet Secretary(ies) to the Government of India
15. Chief Secretary(ies) to State Governments of all States of India
16. Director(s) General of Police of all States of India
17. Chiefs of all Constitutional bodies of India (e.g. CAG, EC, CVC, etc.)
18. Chief(s) of all para-military forces of India (Coast Guard, NSG, BSF, CRPF, CISF, etc)
19. Chief(s) of all Intelligence Agencies of India (IB, RAW, etc.)
20. Chiefs of all Defence / Scientific Research organizations of India (DRDO, BARC, OFB, CSIR, etc.)
21. Mayor(s) of all Municipal Corporations of India
22. Sportspersons who have won Medals in International Sports meets (Olympics, Asian Games, etc.)
23. All Captains and Vice Captains of the Indian Cricket team
24. All Padma awardees
25. All winners of National Film Awards

Annexure II - List of Documents to be submitted

1. Birth Certificate
2. Aadhaar Card
3. PAN Card
4. Ration Card
5. Passport
6. Electricity Bill
7. Driving Licence
8. Board / University Certificates (10th / 12th Standard / Graduation)
9. Voter Identification Card (EPIC)
10. Marriage Certificate (if applicable)