Harka asks civil society to oppose NRC

SNS, Siliguri, 17 November 2019: The All-India Jana Andolan Party president. Dr Harka Bahadur Chettri, has said that the civil society should come forward and raise its voice "more strongly" against the National Register of Citizens (NRC). While highlighting the 'anomalies' in the entire process, Dr Chettri said that the role of the civil society was not that much visible and that it should have been in the forefront. He was addressing a mass convention against the NRC organised by the CPI (M-L) Provisional Central Committee (PCC) and CPI (M-L) New Democracy, here today.

The organisation called for joint movements against the exercise, Citizenship(Amendment) Bill and the National Population Register (NPR). "Civil society could have played a significant role in raising a strong voice to build up opinion on the NRC like it had taken a stand on other relevant issues earlier. But such role is not visible this time," Dr Chettri said. He pointed out what he called were flaws in the NRC process."The exercise has proved there were anomalies in the whole process. People are being harassed to prove their citizenship. Why is there so much hurry? There should have been proper study on this issue first." he added. According to him, rules were framed as per the cut-off date of the midnight of 24 March 1971, set by the Assam Accord for detection and deportation of foreigners. Giving an example of people's problems, Dr Chettri said the first hospital of Kalimpong was established in 1972."Does it mean that the people there were not born before that? If the first hospital came up in 1972, how can they manage their birth certificates before that? At many places in Kalimpong district, there has been no primary school, and people face a lot of problems to reach the panchayat offices because of their locations," he said.

Meanwhile, both the CP1 (M-L) PCC and the CPI (M-L) New Democracy called for a joint movement with all democratic and secular forces, parties, and mass organizations, except the BJP against the NRC and the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. The CPI (ML), PCC leaders from Assam, however, said the roles of the CPI -M and CPI in the state were not in favour of the citizens as far as those issues were concerned.

"We have given a call from the mass convention for a joint movement against the undemocratic, inhuman moves of the BJP-led Centre," said state secretary of the CPI (M-L) PCC, Sailen Bhattacharya.

Secretary of the Assam unit of the organization, Arup Basu, said many people who had come to the state before 1971 were also excluded from the NRC final list. Mr Basu said after 1971 there was no major influx in the state from Bangladesh. "The role of the Communist parties like the CPI-M and CPI on this issue appears to be not in favour of the citizens of Assam," he said.State secretary of the CPI (M-L) New Democracy Susanta Jha, and Darjeeling district CPI-M secretary Jibesh Sarkar were among those present in the convention today.