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The starkness of being nowhere

Updated: September 10, 2015 03:59 IST | Joydeep Biswas

 A riot victim woman whose house was burnt down by the militants takes shelter at a relief camp in Narayanguri village

in Baksa district of Assam. File photo: Ritu Ra !onwar " The #indu

$ery few in mainland %ndia are aware at the moment that a process of citi&ens' registration on the basis of racial

profiling is under way on the eastern fringe of the country. The national media ( both print and electronic (

has not cared even to report the ongoing preparation of the National Register of )iti&ens *NR)+, leave alone

analysing the legal nuances involved in the action and the possible plight of the -deni&ens'.

This eercise, initiated through a ga&ette notification dated /ecember 0, 1234 by the Registrar 5eneral of

%ndia, was initially due to be completed within a time span of three years. But the udgment delivered by a

/ivision Bench of the honourable 6upreme )ourt *)oram 77, R. 5ogoi, R.F. Nariman+, dated 38 /ecember

1239, advanced the due date of publication of the final NR) to 7anuary 3, 123. The whole eercise, set off in

a selective manner only for the 6tate of Assam, is meant for detection, detention and deportation of the illegal

migrants who crossed over to Assam from Bangladesh on or after ;arch 10, 3andabo, the then geography of what is now called

 Assam came under the British rule. And the tract was made a part of the Bengal

?residency which, of course, included the erstwhile @ast Bengal as well.

The first partition of Bengal

%n a different turn of events, )achar, now one of the three districts forming the Barak $alley in southern Assam,

was anneed by the Britishers after the fall of the !achari !ingdom in 3=41, and was also made a part of the

huge Bengal ?residency. 6uch arrangements were made much before the first 5overnment of %ndia Act, 3=0=

through which control over the %ndian territories held by the British @ast %ndia )ompany was vested in the

British ueen.

They effectively meant that people of Bengal and of Assam ( transcending ethnicity, language and culture (

lived within the same administrative urisdiction and under the same political dispensation.

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%n 3=89, by a whimsical decision of the British government, two districts of @ast Bengal ( 6ylhet *along with

)achar+ and 5oalpara ( were separated from the Bengal ?residency, and were oined with Assam to create a

new administrative unit which was placed under a )hief )ommissioner. This was technically the first ?artition of 

Bengal, a development that unfortunately escaped the attention of the mainstream scholarship.

;uch has been written and read about the partition of Bengal in 3

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There was no evidence provided by either the government or the academia about the scale of crossborder

movement of people. /espite that, the enophobic movement launched by the AA6C during the early 3

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citi&enship solely on the basis of their or their ancestors' names appearing on the electoral rolls published up to

10 ;arch 3