India: two million citizens, mostly Muslims, stripped of their nationality

A file that aims to fight against illegal immigration

A total of 31.1 million inhabitants of Assam have been registered in the National Register of Citizens (NRC), created at the initiative of the Hindu nationalist government. Another 1.9 million were not included, according to an official statement. At the time of publication of this list, security had been strongly reinforced in Assam, for fear of overflowing. No incidents were reported. This file officially aims to fight against illegal immigration and asks every inhabitant of the region to prove his Indian citizenship. To be registered there, one had to be able to prove that his presence or that of his family was prior to 1971, when millions of people had fled to that state from Bangladesh, in the midst of the war of independence. Murdered for decades by religious and ethnic tensions, Assam witnessed the death of 2,000 people in 1983 during violent racial riots.

Expel Termites

If the inhabitants wanted this census to put an end to the conflicts, some accuse Hindu nationalists of wanting to use it to persecute minorities, especially Muslims. In January, India granted citizenship to people who left Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan for India, provided they were not Muslim. Interior Minister Amit Shah had even called for the expulsion of Termites and "Lead a national campaign to return the infiltrators".

The 1.9 million people excluded from the NRC have 120 days to appeal to special courts. Those who have exhausted all legal remedies will be declared aliens and potentially placed in one of the six detention centers with a view to possible expulsion.