The entire process was conducted by Prateek Hajela,[7] an IAS, who has been designated as the State Coordinator of National Registration, Assam.
The liberal colonial authorities encouraged the migration of peasants from Bengal to Assam in search of fertile lands.
Mullan, the Census Superintendent in his census report stated: Probably the most important event in the province during the last 25 years- an event, moreover, which seems likely to alter permanently the whole feature of Assam and to destroy the whole structure of Assamese culture and civilization has been the invasion of a vast horde of land-hungry immigrant, mostly Muslims, from the districts of East Bengal.
[19] To identify illegal immigrants, the National Register of Citizens was prepared for the first time in Assam during the conduct of 1951 Census.
[20] It was carried out under a directive of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) by recording particulars of every single person enumerated during that Census.
The issue of illegal infiltration was becoming formidable problem in the state of Assam as migrants enjoyed political patronage.
[24] They cited unexplained surge of electors in the voter lists for the assembly constituencies in certain pockets of the state, specially in those under then undivided Darrang District of Assam & elsewhere in the districts of lower & central Assam, for which they suspected large scale entry of names of foreigners or illegal migrants in those lists.
[25] The movement culminated in the signing of a landmark Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) - the Assam Accord, between the agitating parties & the Union of India on 15 August 1985,[26] at the behest of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in New Delhi.
Further it had a negotiated defect which called for 1 January 1966 to be the precise date based on which the detection illegal immigrants in Assam would take place and thus ironically allowing Indian citizenship for all persons coming to the territorial limits of the present-day state of Assam from "Specified Territory" (East Pakistan, presently Bangladesh since 1971) prior to that date.
The first attempt of systematically detecting foreigners by updating the National Register in Assam was through a Pilot Project which was started in 2 circles (referred to as Tehsil in some states), one in Kamrup district and another in Barpeta district in the year 2010, which had to be aborted within 4 weeks amidst a huge law and order problem involving a mob attack on the Office of the IAS Commissioner, Barpeta that resulted in police firing killing 4 persons.
[29] For a long time, since the bitter experience in the pilot project, NRC update was considered almost an impossible task by the government agencies.
[32][33] Since then, the Supreme Court of India has been closely monitoring the process and holding regular hearings on representations made to it by various interested parties and stakeholders.
To make the process of NRC update smooth, the Supreme Court in its order dated 21 July 2015 passed the following directions: We expect all authorities to act faithfully and diligently to carry out their assigned tasks to ensure smooth preparation of NRC and publication thereof within the schedule fixed by us.
It is not necessary for us to emphasise that any person found to be creating any obstruction or hindrance, in any manner, in the preparation of the NRC would be subjected to such orders as this Court would pass in such eventualities.The mechanism adopted to update the NRC 1951 has been developed from scratch because there is no precedence of such a mammoth task ever undertaken in India or elsewhere that involved identification of genuine citizens and detection of illegal immigrants using technology since it involved data of over 3 crore people and over 6.6 crore documents.
As soon as the final NRC was published on 31 August 2019 at 10 AM on completion of the updating the NRC,1951 at all the local, tehsil & district level offices created for the purpose, controversy regarding its correctness set in and even some lawmakers openly came out criticizing the document.
A sitting M.L.A of Assam belonging to the political party All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) representing the Scheduled Caste-reserved constituency of Abhayapuri South in lower Assam, having found himself out of the NRC, reportedly expressed that thousands of genuine Indians, especially Bengali Hindus, have been left out of final NRC, and as many illegal foreigners have made into the final list.
As per the two statutes, the eligibility status would be ascertained based on the NRC, 1951, Electoral Rolls up to 1971 and in their absence the admissible documents up to 24 March (midnight) 1971.
Once the Registrar General of India appointed Prateek Hajela as the State Coordinator for the project: Two sets of documents had to be furnished by the applicants for inclusion in the updated NRC.
In total 1148 SAHAJ Arunoday Kendras have been rolled out so far in the State of Assam, out of mandated 2833 Centres to July 2009), Cyber Cafes, any friend or internet access point for uploading photos and supporting documents.
It is an opportunity to ensure the Legacy of each genuine citizen is protected from being misused by any unauthorized person to wrongfully enter NRC.
The names of remaining applicants will be included in the Final Draft NRC if found eligible after the entire verification process is completed.
The process of submitting Claims and Objections began from 25 September 2018 and continued till 31 December 2018 as per the Supreme Court's order.
For active public participation, a one-stop Grievance Redressal System was developed and implemented through which the complaints/grievances related to NRC can be addressed.
[39] Following the Amendment, the provincial Government of Assam has initiated the process of establishing 400 additional Foreigners' Tribunals out of which 200 are made functional since beginning of September 2019.
The first such new exclusive detention camp is under construction in the district of Goalpara in lower Assam at cost of around Rs 460 million and a capacity to hold 3000 persons.
[42] The government should also consider ways to scrutinise the names left out in the draft NRC but included in the final one because of human error".
The National Family Health Survey data reveals that in char dominated districts of Assam, nearly half of the women get married before the age of eighteen.
In absence of other documents like educational certificates and marksheets (due to illiteracy), it removes any legal link to their parental home.