As per a bulletin published by Assam State Disaster Management Authority, a population, 268 villages in 25 revenue circles of the 12 districts viz. Dhemaji, Darrang, Barpeta, Bishwanath, Sonitpur, Chirang, Kamrup, Morigaon, Nagaon, Dibrugarh, Jorhat and Charaideo – have been affected by floods. On the other hand, the Supreme Court of India has extended the time for the publishing of Assam National Register of Citizens till August 31. According to the NRC list published by the National Register of Citizens of India, 40.07 lakh people were left out of the NRC list. Even the relatives of the fifth President of India Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed were not spared; let alone the citizens.
This year, the floods not only washed away the homes and livelihoods of the citizens but also washed away their identities. Most of the citizens in the state who are struggling to validate their citizenship today fear they will lose their identity. Perhaps, they too could not gauge the ravages that the rains of Assam would bring to their lives.
I was sitting in my room in Delhi, glued to the little real-time updates available online and from my kin in the state. In flood-affected villages comprising the Bengali-speaking population, most households were reluctant to leave their houses because their house was a crucial identity for them. Displacing from that house was similar to displacing from their identity. Even the local administration had to persuade the victims to evacuate. But the victims made sure that they had their papers with them.
This whole incident reminds me of refugees. Remember the sight of those Syrian refugees who got hold of the limited papers they had and then hopped into those boats that ferried them to a whole new place where only those papers could establish their identities. The only difference is that those Syrian citizens need to show those documents to a foreign nation in order to get the ‘refugee’ status. In Assam, the citizens have to show their documents to their very own nation, India, in order to get the ‘citizenship’ status.
Recently, Vice News did a very insightful piece on Foreigners’ Tribunal, a quasi-judicial system that orders the removal of so-called ‘non-Indians’ from the country. Those citizens whose name found no place in the list of NRC fear the same plight- living in a detention camp, which is located within the premises of a jailhouse and rotting there until their last breath.
This detention camp holds no mercy for women, children, elders or pregnant women. All are treated the same. And in such a place, even dignity is a luxury. With floods ravaging their villages and homes, these people who lost their homes and livelihoods are not much concerned about the food and the numerous days of hunger that they have to endure because of this nature’s catastrophe, but their concern is about those documents which will establish their legacy and identity in front of the inhumane system that only acknowledges the identity of a person to his/her documents.