Month: August 2019

‘Jinxed’ Hari Niwas, Which Most J&K CMs Avoided, Now Plays Home to Omar Abdullah

The former chief minister’s detainment at the palace for 27 days does ironical disservice to the superstition that the careers of politicians who take up residence at the palace tend to suffer.

Srinagar: Imprisoned at the infamous Hari Niwas Palace for the past 27 days, former chief minister Omar Abdullah can do litte now other than workout, read books and eat home-cooked food.

Omar has grown a beard, and for most part of the day, he restricts himself to the four walls of the palace that has been declared a sub-jail.

The night before the Centre stripped J&K of its special status, which gave the state a separate flag and constitution, Omar, in one of his last tweets said he had been put under house arrest.


The next morning, on August 5, as security forces launched the process of imposing a massive clampdown in the Valley, arresting politicians, lawyers, traders and Kashmiri youth, Omar was shifted to Hari Niwas.

Since then he remains imprisoned there in what is largely a kind of solitary confinement.

According to a senior official, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, the usually tech-friendly Omar is “totally cut off from the outside world”.

“He has no access to news or any other source of information,” the official said.

Omar Abdullah. Photo: Reuters

Built in the lap of Zabarwan hills, with a scenic view of Dal Lake in the foreground, Hari Niwas has sprawling lawns spread over nine hectares of land. The palace has three presidential suites, a VVIP guest house and many bedrooms.

A security official, who was on duty at the main entrance to the palace, spoke about Omar’s routine since he was detained there.

“He (Omar) hardly comes out during the day except in the morning when he goes for a run around the palace for around two hours. That is the only time during the entire day we get to see him,” the official said.

The view from the palace’s lawn. Photo: j&ktourguide.com

While jogging around, Omar exchanges greetings and smiles with the security men on guard. For the rest of the day he is in the building, said the official. “I have heard that he remains engrossed in books,” the official said.

A doctor and a magistrate-level officer remains in attendance for Omar around-the-clock, the security official said, adding after every three to four days both are changed.

The official said Additional Director General of Police (Law and Security) Muneer Khan and government spokesperson Rohit Kansal have both visited Omar separately a few times since he was shifted there.

According to the official, Omar gets home-cooked lunch and dinner from his residence, which is located a little distance awat, at Gupkar Road.

Another detainee, another locale

While Omar is the lone inmate at the high-profile jail at present, another security official said the Peoples Democratic Party chief and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti was also detained at the sub-jail for a day. “She was then shifted out of here,” he said.

Mehbooba has been since jailed in the scenic Cheshma Shahi area, in one of the huts owned by the state’s Tourism department, said another official.

Also read | Exclusive: ‘The Arrest Is an Attempt to Break Her Spirit,’ Says Mehbooba’s Daughter

The area, in the midst of a forest, is less than a kilometre from Hari Niwas. The security forces including CRPF and J&K Police have set up a barricade on the road that goes up to the huts, near the Botanical Garden.

Neither media nor civilians are allowed beyond the barricades set up by the CRPF.

“We have strict directions not to allow anybody except employees from the Tourism department and those from a private milk plant which is located in the area,” said the official.

On Friday, Mehbooba’s mother and his sister were allowed to meet her. But there was no information available about the PDP chief’s routine.

The ‘jinxed’ palace

Maharaja Hari Singh. Photo: hariniwaspalace.in

For long, executive heads of the restive state have stayed away from the palace. From Maharaja Hari Singh to former Congress chief minister of J&K, Ghulam Nabi Azad, legends have linked the fall of many a politician to the “haunted” palace.

In 2008, when Omar took over the reigns of J&K, he even chose not to shift to Hari Niwas which had been refurbished by his predecessor Ghulam Nabi Azad and designated as the official residence of the state’s chief minister.

Azad is the only J&K chief minister in the post-Partition era who stayed there for some time. He also got it renovated.

But his stay at the palace was short as he was forced by his ally PDP to resign on July 7, 2008, following a row over the transfer of forest land to the Amarnath shrine board.

A legend goes around in the Valley that Maharaja Hari Singh was suggested by his advisors not to build the palace at its existing location as it was “inauspicious”.

The maharaja ignored the warning and went ahead. Then came the year of 1947, which forced the Dogra ruler to pack his belongings and leave. His dream of living in the palace was never fulfilled.

Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, who became the J&K chief minister in 2015, too decided against moving into the palace and instead continued to live at his Fairview residence at Gupkar.

Interrogation centre

Sayeed had mooted a proposal to convert the palace into a ‘wedding destination’. But the idea found few takers. Sayeed’s daughter and his successor also chose not to shift to Hari Niwas, which was ultimately turned into the “state guest house”.

The building was the designated interrogation centre, nicknamed ‘Papa 2’, during the height of militancy in Kashmir, in the mid 90s. The palace was converted into a “detention center” and many who have been jailed there have narrated horrifying tales about their experience.

During Farooq Abdullah’s tenure as J&K chief minister (1996-2002), a proposal was mooted to convert the building into a museum. This too did not materialise.

Now that the palace is serving as a sub-jail, yet another proposal to make it into a Tehzeeb Mahal which can highlight the culture of Jammu and Kashmir currently gathers dust.

Watch | Are Conditions of the Service Corrupting Good People in the IAS?

Why is it so easy for corruption to seep into administration?

Karan Thapar, in conversation with former IAS officer N.C. Saxena on his new book, What Ails The IAS and Why It Fails To Deliver brings up the essential questions of what make an IAS officer. Thapar and Saxena talk about the conditions of the Service, the reason why corruption seeps into administrations, in a free-ranging discussion peppered with anecdotes from Saxena’s tenure in the Service and more.

Amrita Pritam at 100: Political, Progressive and a True Pioneer

Full of spring, the writer adorned and refined our lives with her prose and poetry throughout the 20th century.

‘There was a pain
Which I consume silently
Like a cigarette
There are some poems
Which I have shaken off like ashes
From the cigarette’

Amrita Pritam, who was born 100 years ago in Gujranwala (now in modern-day Pakistan) was one of those brightest personalities of the Progressive Writers Movement, of whom we can justifiably be proud.

She was a true pioneer of our age. She suffered the cultural and political ambiences, springs and autumns of this unfortunate century, meaning all its pleasures and pains, upon herself and deeming its ashes to be sindoor, dressed and preened the parting of her hair. Even after being burnt in the fire of our hellish society, this woman full of spring, youth and dignity did not get scorched or wither away; but emerged before us, clean and pure like the finest gold. As some poet said, ‘The eternal fragrance of our garden of beauty and love.’

Also read: A Hundred Years of Amrita Pritam

This poetess full of spring adorned and refined our lives with her prose and poetry throughout the 20th century – levelled our rocky paths and gave us a lesson and a knack for living life, gave us love.     

Amrita Pritam, of course, found fame as a poetess of the Punjabi language. And the circle of her poetry’s fame is as wide as that of the Punjabi language itself. It is a reality that till the Independence of India and formation of Pakistan, she did not have the popularity and fame which she achieved after moving to India. In Pakistan, her self and poetry became famous after the appearance of her legendary poem Aj Aaakhan Waris Shah Nu (‘I say to Waris Shah today’). This poem – rightly acclaimed as the dirge for Punjab –  was written as a natural reaction to the division of Punjab and the riots and bloodshed which occurred here. This poem greatly affected the people and it became Pritam’s identity in the 20th century:

‘I say to Waris Shah today, speak out from your tomb
And let a fresh page unfurl from the Book of Love’s womb.
Just one daughter of Punjab’s woes caused your laments to flow
Today a million daughters weep, and thee they do implore
Arise you chronicler of pain and witness your Punjab
Where corpses sprout in the fields and blood flows down the Chenab.’

However, nearly 14 years after Pritam’s death, it can be said that the circle of her poetry’s fame would have been even greater on the condition that the mutual relations between Punjabi and Urdu were more cordial. Till the time that the relations between these two languages are not cordial, a poet of one language cannot attain the popularity in the circle of another language to which he or she is entitled. One should hope that as the veils will gradually be lifted, it would become easier to be acquainted with each other.

It is true that while Amrita Pritam was alive, on a few occasions, a reflection of her poetry would indeed appear on the screen of Urdu journalism; but poetry is nevertheless poetry.

To transfer it into the words of another language – as a few individuals like the great Urdu poetess Fahmida Riaz had also attempted with Pritam’s poetry – is first of all, itself very difficult; but even were it possible to do so, the most we would say would be that the words of one language were transferred to the words of another language – the real is meaning; to transfer the meaning from one language to the other in a way which renders the entire sense perceptions of the poet is realistically impossible.

In the presence of this matter in fact, even if the mutual relations of Urdu and Punjabi became cordial, indeed it is difficult for all the qualities of Pritam’s poetry to be unveiled before the readers of Urdu. The matter is even more suspect in English, I am raising the matter of translation of Amrita Pritam’s works into Urdu (and by extension, English) because not only am I a translator myself, but overtly dependent on extant translations of her work into non-Hindi and non-Punjabi languages like Urdu for the writing of this humble centenary tribute, not being a native reader of Gurmukhi Hindi or Punjabi despite living in Punjab for the greater part of four decades now.

Amrita Pritam’s ‘Paper and Canvas’

In addition, there is the necessity also of translating her selected work into English for this tribute, for the humblest attempt to introduce her work to a global audience not familiar with this great writer of the 20th century, however woefully inadequate it might be.

But the dilemma I discussed above is only limited to poetry. Prose is to a great extent – if not totally – free of this grasp. A writer of a language can present his or her prose perfections indeed in another language. Just hard work and method is needed or those ordinary resources, to attain which is not difficult.

Very few Urdu aficionados know that Pritam was not just a poet, but an accepted author and short story writer of the Punjabi language. In the backgrounds of the facts above, if her poetry cannot be transferred into Urdu and English, so much the better, since translations of her short stories have endeavoured to compensate for this necessary compulsion.

The literature of every age is affected by the intellectual, moral, economic and political tendencies of its time. Time is an ocean, and moral and social values are the waves of this ocean. There are very few writers who can determine an independent direction for their boat. They surrender themselves to these waves; in reality this should not happen. Writers are not lowly straws flowing with the support of waves; they are brave sailors leading their caravan by shattering the waves to bits.

Alas, very few writers have estimated their power and responsibility; countless writers lose their track. They do not lead the people, but follow them. A true writer cannot become a follower of popular passions, indeed he will be a leader.

The present time is a delicate one for authors and short story writers. The demands of the people are very low; moral values have fallen very greatly. ‘Progressive literature’ – which it is more suitably called ‘regressive literature’ now – has spoiled their taste. Third-rate films, short stories and novels have created extremely cheap tastes among them. A class of so-called short-story writers and authors, taking advantage of this mentality among the people, is creating an inferior-quality literature. They have adopted a criminal carelessness towards their responsibilities.

The Revenue Stamp, Amrita Pritam

Joan Porter has said, “A country’s splendour and greatness according to Johnson is because of its writers. But only when writers are the prophets of reason. If lessons of exemplary conduct are not forthcoming from them, then there should be a collar of curses around their neck instead of a garland.”

How painful is the confession of this fact that the new crop of our ‘progressive’ writers will indeed be deserving of the “collar of curses” according to the future generations.

In this hopeless atmosphere, if some writer or poet keeps a perception of one’s responsibilities and instead of walking behind the people, considers the latter’s leadership to be their right, then undoubtedly he or she is deserving of extraordinary respect and honour. So when we review Amrita Pritam’s poetry and her short-stories from this viewpoint, we necessarily conclude that she had a deep perception of her poetic and literary responsibilities.

She had been least affected by the ‘progressive’ course of her contemporary poets and writers. For this scribe, for example, the earthy image which she has portrayed of the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in her poem Lenin Ke Naam (To Lenin) is far more progressive, therefore preferable than the more bloodless portrayals of the same by her more doctrinaire contemporaries:

‘You, how much of a beautiful character you are of my history
Who coming out of the calendar on my wall, always changes its date
And comes to meet me in the form of a new morning
After coming out of the calendar you go out into the streets
And a sunshine appears
Wherever there is a soft corner, he begins to laugh like a green leaf
Wherever there is a dirty corner, he is indeed ashamed
But what for you is a natural thing, is an un-natural process of history
History takes a breath of comfort
When it becomes really disturbed dwelling in the past
Then it deals with the present
So for the sake of this history indeed
So many times have I imprisoned you in the calendar
And similarly affixed the stamp of my land’s covenant
And have hammered the nails of so many ‘isms’ on it
But you come out of the calendar on my wall, change the date daily
And with new anxiety, new salvation in hand
You – meet me like a new day
Yours – the greatness of a new day
As if a shady corner of my being has heard a couplet of your sunshine
And which is an un-natural process of history
But what is natural for you, has become un-natural for me.’     

Amrita Pritam’s short stories like her poems are rich with the best moral values. There is not a single short story which can be censured from the viewpoint of modesty and morals.

They contain all the elements. Her characters are ordinary human characters. Though she was not the possessor of fame on account of her short stories, but even a bird’s eye view of these short stories will make us conclude that Pritam had gained profit from all the qualities of short story writing.

She could examine, think and narrate her meaning in excellent style with skill and artistry. She did not just make do with the direct observation of events but also made a psychological analysis of every character of her short story. An ‘emotional analysis’ of human life was also prominent in each of her short-stories.

Amrita Pritam kept searching for new topics for short-stories, and was successful to a very great extent. He ideas were unusual; her paths modern. Her ‘ideal’ was constructive, no destructive. Like her poems, in her short-stories too she was seen to be giving a ‘message’ to her readers. Her message was one of life and love.

Her short stories were short in the real sense. Some short stories, like couplets, seemed shorter than was necessary. The reader wishes that they were more detailed.

In this respect, the example of her Choti Kahani (‘Brief Story’) from her collection Chabees Saal Baad (’26 Years Later’), definitely published before 1947 from Lahore by the Lahore Book Shop can be cited here. In a mere four pages, Pritam summarised the whole philosophy of ‘art for life’ and the idea of selfless love with stunning economy of words and minimal dialogue between the two central characters.

The Google Doodle on the occasion of Amrita Pritam’s 100th birthday.

Undoubtedly, if her short stories were not so short, Pritam’s pen had the power to increase their attraction by giving her abridgement a colour of detail. But this is merely the aesthetic demand of this tribute writer, it is not necessary that every reader would totally agree with his opinion. I am sure that a re-reading of Pritam’s short-stories on her birth centenary would establish her at a prominent pedestal in subcontinental literature.

Amrita Pritam was thus the modern spirit of the folk, spiritual, mythological and poetic literature of Punjab in the 20th century. Her Punjabi intonation and style was very close to the Urdu of the Punjab; she dealt with Urdu words exactly in the manner of the people of my native Lahore, and indeed this allowance turned her into the touch of an undivided voice. With her. The description of the truths of life was extremely topical. She painted the internal struggle of Man with such sorcery that the reader could not but be entranced.

Any tribute to Amrita Pritam will not be complete without an anecdote from Lahore, the city she made her home as a teenager after her native town of Gujranwala, and forced to leave after the horrors of the Partition. It involves Rauf Malik, 92 years of age now, one of the last living witnesses to the generation which produced the likes of Pritam and her contemporaries.

He is the younger brother of Pakistan’s legendary communist leader and writer, Abdullah Malik (whose own birth centenary will be celebrated next year); and was the proprietor of the Peoples Publishing House, which played a seminal role in the propagation of progressive and socialist idea in Pakistan, often at some extremely difficult moments in the country’s history.

Malik junior’s autobiography Surkh Siyasat (‘Red Politics’), which is no less of a historical document of its times, was launched in Lahore with much fanfare in 2018 and contains a tribute – among others – to Amrita Pritam. In that chapter, Malik informs us that he was the first proper publisher of Pritam’s collection of poetry in Pakistan, which was titled Naveen Rut (‘New Season’), compiled at the poetess’s behest. This is the sole volume of her poetry ever published in Pakistan with her express permission and consent.

Given the tensions between India and Pakistan over the recent revocation of Kashmir’s special status by the Indian government, it will be apt to conclude this tribute with Tamghe (‘Medals’), one of her biting polemics about the futility of pseudo-nationalist, flag-waving patriotism, of which I suspect Amrita Pritam was always very suspicious:

‘Brave are the people of my nation
Brave are the people of your nation
They merely know death and assassination
Offering heads as sacrificial libation
That the head is never one’s own
Is a separate conversation
This Man is a corpse
Rare like God’s own corpse
So when in the midst of Man
This piece of God’s own land
Dies
Then its disliked odour
Does not rise ever
There is no lover
And neither is proximity a fear
No danger of pain
Just a border which is bigger domain
It makes them a subject of ridicule
Remove those borders which do not suit the rule
So the entire victory is free of disruption
And the whole feast is free of obstruction
On the lip of time a smile
And fixing on their bosom
Many medals of valour, impotent, unwholesome’

Note: All the translations from the Urdu are the writer’s own.

Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic and award-winning translator and dramatic reader currently based in Lahore, where he is also the President of the Progressive Writers Association. He can be reached at: razanaeem@hotmail.com.

Why Is No One In Assam Happy With the Final NRC?

While local parties which had rallied for an NRC find the number of excluded too few, BJP would rather stick to communicating the idea that it’s not an ‘error-free’ NRC.

New Delhi: Hours after the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) was published by the Registrar General of India in Assam, disappointment and displeasure reigned supreme across the entire political spectrum in the state.

Civil society groups and student bodies closely associated with the decision to revise the citizens’ register and filter Indian citizens residing in the state from immigrants who are supposed to have illegally crossed over from neighbouring Bangladesh, were, simply put, unhappy.

Barely an hour after the NRC authorities uploaded the supplementary list of inclusions and exclusions on August 31 as per a Supreme Court order, the main petitioners in the apex court, Assam Public Works (APW), expressed their unhappiness with it.

‘More exclusions’

Aabhijeet Sarma, president of APW, the Guwahati-based civil society organisation, told The Wire, “In 2009, we approached the Supreme Court to solve this burning problem of Assam. It accepted our case. In the 2006 voter list, there were 41 lakh extra names. We urged the court to help us delete those names so that Indians can vote for Indians in Assam. Then the apex court suggested that the NRC be updated and the process was on since then.”

“On July 30, 2018, the final draft was released. On August 24, 2018, we requested the Supreme Court to do a 10% re-verification of all the districts because we suspected that names of various illegal immigrants had been included in it. We then filed five petitions at the court till August 1, 2019 seeking re-verification of the names in the final draft. But the state coordinator for NRC told the court that there was no need for it because he had done 27% re-verification already. The result of it is in front of us today.” 

Applicants wait to check their names on the final list of the NRC at Buraburi Gaon on August 31. Photo: PTI

Sarma is clearly disappointed with the figure of 19,06,067, the number of people left out of the final NRC. He rolled out figures on the population excluded in the four districts of the state bordering Bangladesh to illustrate why APW would appeal to the court yet again for “100% re-verification” as it strongly felt “it [the list] has anomalies”. 

“In the Cachar district, the state coordinator had done 29% re-verification. As many as 5,464 people were left out of the final NRC because of it. I demand to know that if the rest 71% was re-verified, how much would have been the figure of exclusion in that district? In the Dhubri district, 38% re-verification was done. As many as 4,096 people were excluded. What would have been the figure if 100% re-verification was conducted?” 

In Karimganj district, Sarma said, 25% names were re-verified. “Out of them, 3,980 names were excluded in the district because of the process.” In South Salmara, the re-verification percentage stood at 41. “Due to that, 1,646 people were excluded from the final list.”

Also read: Accidents, Injuries, Panic: Sudden NRC Notices Push Assamese to Brink of Desperation

He said, “We also demand an audit of Rs 1,600 crores that was spent on the entire process.” 

‘Unhappy with number’

Later in the day, facing local media at Swahid Bhavan, the headquarters of the All Assam Students Union (AASU), the entire top leadership of the student body that spearheaded the anti-foreigner agitation between 1979-85, too presented the picture of a dejected lot. 

Samujjal Bhattacharya, advisor to AASU, told this correspondent, “We concede that under the supervision of the Supreme Court, for the first time since the Assam Accord was signed in 1985, a serious effort was made to find illegal immigrants and spell out who is a citizen. But we are unhappy with the number we saw today.”

The AASU presser in Guwahati on August 31. Photo: The Wire

The former AASU general secretary said, “It is not that we were chasing a number. But since the past many years, various governments have been quoting figures of immigrants residing illegally in the state. The number we see today is nowhere near those numbers. But we still have trust in the apex court. So we plan to appeal to the court to give it a re-look.”

AASU too had petitioned the court on the NRC issue and is a party to it. 

  • In May 1997, former Union home minister Inderjit Gupta had told parliament that there were 10 million undocumented immigrants in India.
  • In July 2004, former Union home minister Sriprakash Jaiswal told the Rajya Sabha that their were 12 million such immigrants in the country.
  • In 2016, former Union home minister Kiren Rijiju told the Rajya Sabha that the figure was 20 million.

Bhattacharjee was admittedly referring to these numbers. AASU also often refers to the report of former state governor S.K. Sinha to the government in 1998, in which it is claimed that there are 50 lakh undocumented immigrants residing in the state.

In 2005, it was AASU which entered into a tripartite agreement with the then Tarun Gogoi government in the state and the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre to update the NRC, exclusively prepared for the state in 1951, as per the citizenship cut-off date set for Assam – March 24, 1971 – settled by the Assam Accord.

The Supreme Court, responding to the APW petition in 2009, agreed to use the NRC as the tool for sieving citizens from non-citizens because the process was set in motion already through a tripartite agreement between AASU and the government.  

‘Names of genuine citizens missing’

In another part of the city, at the headquarters of the All Assam Minority Students Union (AAMSU), the leaders told local reporters that they too were disappointed with the final NRC. AAMSU, together with AASU and the Assam government, had arrived at a consensus to update the NRC and were consulted by the state government to fix the modalities for its update, which were later approved by the apex court. 

Also read | Backstory: There Is Space Under the Government’s Tent, but Do We Want to Be There?

“Since morning, all the organisations have been talking about how many illegal immigrants were included in the final list. But the NRC was not to find illegal immigrants but to ensure that genuine citizens find their name in the list. We have been getting so many calls and messages from genuine citizens saying that their names are missing. So we are unhappy,” Azizur Rahman, adviser, AAMSU, told The Wire.

He said, “We hear that people are quoting various numbers said by ministers earlier about illegal immigrants residing in India. But those numbers had no scientific basis. Those were mere political statements. If Governor Sinha’s report is quoted, it should also be mentioned that he claimed in his report that everyday, 6,000 persons were crossing over from Bangladesh to Assam alone.”

People queue to check their names on the final list of the NRC outside a Gaon Panchayat office in Pavakati village, Morigoan. Photo: PTI

He added, “Even if we count it from 1998 onwards, the number should have been in crores today. I ask, where are those people whom the NRC couldn’t find? If you look at the total number of Muslims in the state, then you know that he was incorrect.” 

Seated next to him, AAMSU president Rezaul Sarkar, said, “Even my mother’s name is not in the list. How can we accept it? We have been getting calls relentlessly from families living in different parts of the state saying while parents’ names are there, the children’s names are missing. In some cases, the entire family’s names are there but only one son or daughter is out of it. More such cases will come forward in the next few days.” 

Interestingly, political parties too expressed disappointment at the outcome of the final NRC. BJP minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took to Twitter


He also repeated the demand for 20% re-verification of border districts and 10% of the remaining 29 districts. 


However, if we go by the figure stated by Aabhijit Sarma of APW, the NRC authorities had already conducted over 20% re-verification in the four border districts.

Reacting to the NRC list, former chief minister and Congress leader Tarun Gogoi too took the line that many “genuine citizens”, particularly Bengali Hindus, were excluded from the list while several foreigners have been included. He told NDTV, “The BJP has to explain what went wrong with the NRC.” 

Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which was born of the Assam Accord, found the number “ridiculously small.” Party president and state minister Atul Bora told reporters, “The people of Assam had hoped for a free and fair NRC but it now seems that the very existence of the Assamese will be further threatened.” 

People check their names on the NRC final list at a centre in Buraburi Gaon, Morigaon, Assam on Saturday, August 31. Photo: PTI

Senior Guwahati-based journalist Sushanta Talukdar said the decision to update the NRC was a social consensus between various stakeholder communities to solve the issue once and for all. “But the outright rejection of the NRC by the important civil society and student bodies will make it difficult to ensure its social acceptance. With so many numbers already having been circulated by various governments, a perception had been created in the state that there were a lot of undocumented immigrants. So when the number of 19 lakhs came, it looked unbelievable,” he said.

“Also,” he added, “Towards the end of the NRC update, there was increased talk in the media that names of genuine Indian citizens were being left out.”

“Some political parties like the BJP said the names of foreigners had been included but that of citizens had been excluded. It created another perception among people, that this will not be a correct one. The structural problems within the system also helped in creating that perception. So the consensus about having an NRC between different communities was weakened.”   

Talukdar expressed his feeling that nationally, BJP would probably refrain from promoting the figure of the final NRC. This was something it could do with the final draft NRC as the number of people excluded was considerably higher. He admits that in Assam, however, “the growing perception among the people that it is not an error-free NRC will help it politically.” 

Congress Leaders Amp Pressure on Govt Over Economy

The Congress brass took to Twitter to slam the government over the GDP growth slump.

New Delhi: Congress on Saturday attacked the BJP government over the slump in the GDP, with party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra demanding that the Centre clarify who is responsible for “destroying” the economy.

Priyanka on Twitter said the government that trumpeted of bringing achche din (‘good days’) has now “punctured” the economy.


“The GDP growth rate clearly shows that the government trumpeting about ‘achche din’ has punctured the state of the economy. Neither is GDP growth high nor is the rupee strong and jobs are being lost. Now clarify as to whose action has destroyed the economy,” she said in a tweet in Hindi.

Sharp deceleration in manufacturing output and subdued farm sector activity pulled down India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth to over six-year low of 5 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2019-20, according to official data released on Friday.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “Remember the hit movie QSQT – Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak?. Now QSQT is synonymous with Quarter Se Quarter Tak. Two consecutive quarters of low GDP growth sought to be buried by managing headlines.”

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari also hit out at the central government over the low GDP growth.


Senior spokesperson Anand Sharma asked the government not to make boastful claims and instead inform the country about the roadmap for the recovery of the Indian economy, which he said is under a downward spiral “under your watch”.


Party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said India’s GDP growth rate is 5 per cent but even this is according to the new methodology which comes with a “Modi booster”.


The Congress had on Friday said the slump in GDP is a “Modi-made disaster”, and demanded that a financial emergency be declared in the country.

The truth can no longer be hidden despite “headline management” by the ruling dispensation, the opposition party had said.

‘Brink of Crisis’: Amnesty Voices Concern Over NRC, Urges Transparency

There were allegedly instances of foreigners tribunals declaring citizens as irregular foreigners over minor clerical errors.

Bengaluru: One of the first human rights bodies to react to the release of the final National Register of Citizens, Amnesty International India has appealed to the Assam government to ensure that the foreigners tribunals function with utmost transparency.

It should function in line with the fair trial standards guaranteed under national and international laws, Akar Patel, head of Amnesty International India, said in a statement here.

“Several reports have demonstrated how the proceedings before foreigners tribunals are arbitrary, while their orders are biased and discriminatory,” he said.

Also read: Kargil Veteran Sanaullah, AIDUF MLA Left Out of NRC

Patel expressed deep concern over the functioning of the 100 and more foreigners tribunals.

“Although, the Government of India is within its sovereign right to update NRC, it must ensure that it is not depriving a person of his/her nationality on arbitrary or vague grounds, by diminishing procedural due process, or if such deprivation stands to render a person stateless,” he said.

According to the organisation, there were instances of foreigners tribunals declaring citizens as irregular foreigners over clerical errors, such as minor differences in spellings of names or age in electoral rolls, or slight contradictions between answers given in cross-examinations and what is written in the documents, which it termed “appallingly common.”

Patel cited media reports that alleged Assam government was applying “pressure on members to allegedly declare large numbers of people as irregular foreigners.”

Also read: Final NRC Published in Assam; 19.06 Lakh Applicants Left Out

“Assam is on the brink of a crisis which would not only lead to a loss of nationality and liberty of a large group of people but also erosion of their basic rights – severely affecting the lives of generations to come,” the statement added.

The organisation also pointed out what might be instances of unfair prejudice against women. “…the tribunals are heavily weighed against married women. Reasons stemming from deeply rooted patriarchal structures such as child marriage, non-inheritance of property and residence in other states before marriage have caused mass non-verification of their documents,” it said. The statement also highlighted the aftereffects of such discrimination on children.

The updated final NRC, which validates bonafide Indian citizens of Assam, was out on Saturday, with over 19 lakh applicants who failed to make it to the list staring at an uncertain future.

Those who have been excluded from the National Register of Citizens have 120 days to appeal against it at foreigners tribunals.

The Assam government has already ruled out detention of people who do not figure in the list “in any circumstances” till the time foreigners tribunals declare them foreigners.

(With PTI inputs)

NRC: BJP Reacts Tepidly, Congress, CPI(M) Urge Centre to Protect Citizens’ Rights

CPI(M) further urged the Centre to treat those declared ‘foreigners’ justly.

New Delhi: Hours after the final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam was published, opposition parties appealed to the Union government to ensure that legitimate Indian citizens be given enough window to appeal against their wrongful exclusion.

Saturday morning, the revised NRC was published by the Registrar General of India (RGI). More than 19.06 lakh people were excluded from the list, all of whom now risk losing their rights in India. Most parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have expressed doubts over the sanctity of the process. They have alleged that many Indian citizens do not figure in the list.   

CPI(M)’s detailed response

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has said that all such citizens should be included and the government should initiate a transparent process to ensure that. 

The politburo, the highest body of the party, said, “First, the government should spell out what the status and rights of those who have been excluded will be. Till their appeals are heard and the process is completed, the status quo should be maintained with regard to their existing rights and facilities. In Assam, an all-party meeting must be convened to discuss the matter.”

While appealing to the government to not act against the excluded in haste, it also raised questions on the validity of the designated foreigners tribunals that are meant to hear such appeals. “The Foreigners Tribunal is not a judicial body and functions more like an executive one,” the party said in a statement. 

The foreigners tribunals will hear the pleas of the excluded, who can appeal within 120 days now. However, the tribunals also have the freedom to accept or reject the appeals after considering their merit. 

The Left party is of the opinion that the current procedure is inadequate to address the concerns of the excluded people and leaves too much to the discretion of the tribunals’ personnel. 

People stand in a queue to check their names on the final list of the NRC outside a Gaon Panchayat office in Pavakati village, Morigoan. Photo: PTI

Therefore, it has demanded that “the right of appeal” be “processed through a judicial mechanism.”

Citing that most parties agree that the NRC process may have had discrepancies, the party also urged that the system of sending those the tribunal declares as “foreigners” to detention camps should be stopped, as “it is violative of basic human rights.”

“The CPI(M) will extend all necessary help, through various forums, to assist the excluded people in getting legal help for justice,” the politburo said. 

It added that the updating of the NRC in Assam had specific historical and political backdrop, and the BJP-led Union government should stop all efforts to introduce such a process in the rest of India. Multiple leaders of the BJP, including union home minister Amit Shah, have said in their speeches that the government intends to start a NRC process in other states too. 

Also read | NRC: BJP ‘Loses Hope’ in Assam, But Its Delhi, Telangana Leaders Want Similar Exercise

The CPI(M) said, “The BJP government at the Centre intends to use this process for their divisive communal agenda for sharpening polarisation.”

Congress faults process

Similarly, Assam Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi also said that updating the NRC in Assam was an example of “careless implementation” of law.

“Every section of Assam is unhappy with the status of NRC. Even BJP ministers are complaining,” he said, adding that even “genuine India citizens will have to unnecessarily face the courts.”

Senior party leader from Meghalaya Mukul Sangma and Congress Parliamentary Party leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, while saying that their party supports the updation of the NRC in Assam, pointed out that the process was Assam-specific only.

“The stand of our party is very clear that the rights of the real citizen should be safeguarded,” said Sangma. 


“Genuine citizens of the country must be protected and included in the NRC,” said Chowdhury. 

BJP’s U-turn

Over the last few months, saffron party leaders have advocated that a NRC-like process to update the list of Indian citizens should be carried out to drive out illegal immigrants, whom Amit Shah had famously called “ghuspetiyas”. However, days before the final list was published, the BJP changed tack and began to criticise the process in Assam.

Assam’s high-profile BJP leaders, including one of the biggest votaries of updating NRC in Assam till a few months ago, Himanta Biswa Sarma said that his party doesn’t “hope (for) anything (to emerge) from the NRC.”

Criticising the way the updating process was conducted by the RGI, he said, “We had given up hope the day the draft list of the NRC excluded only 6% of applicants in districts like Dhubri and South Salmara and 16% in Karbi Anglong district, which has the maximum number of indigenous people. The NRC will not solve our foreigner problem and the Centre and Assam government are mulling new measures to address the issue.”

Also read: In the Idea of an ‘All India NRC’, Echoes of Reich Citizenship Law

“Our only concern now is to maintain law and order in the state after the publication of the NRC list. I want to appeal to people of all religion not to panic even after their names are dropped from the NRC. All those excluded can move the foreigner tribunals and challenge their exclusion within 120 days,” Sarma said, adding that many names of illegal immigrants may have actually been included in the final list because of a faulty process and the manipulation of data. 

He also took to Twitter to express his reservations.


Speaking to NDTV, BJP MLA from Assam, Silditya Dev, expressed worry that a among the 19.06 lakh excluded people, a majority could be Hindus. This, the BJP had not expected, as most of them had targeted Muslims while campaigning against illegal immigration.

Dev alleged that the NRC was part of a “conspiracy to keep Hindus out and help Muslims”. He said that the NRC software was “bugged” and the process of preparing the citizen’s list was steeped in corruption.

“People wanted error-free NRC for protection of right but it didn’t happen… It seems a conspiracy to keep the Hindus out and give legitimacy to Muslim infiltrators,” Dev said.

Hurricane Dorian Swirls Toward Anxious Florida, Packing 140-mph Winds

Hurricane Dorian began on Friday over the Atlantic as a Category 2 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale.

Miami: Hurricane Dorian spun across the Atlantic ocean toward Florida on Friday, becoming an even stronger Category 4 storm as residents and tourists alike hunkered down in one of America’s biggest vacation destinations.

Dorian has the potential to put millions of people at risk, along with holiday attractions such as Walt Disney World, the NASA launchpads along the Space Coast, and even President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center said Dorian was packing maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) as it churned an unpredictable path toward Florida.

“Although fluctuations in intensity are possible early next week, Dorian is expected to remain a powerful hurricane during the next few days,” the NHC said in a statement on Friday.

Also read: Perhaps a Hurricane Could Be Nuked, But Would That Stop It From Making Landfall?

On Florida’s east coast, where Dorian‘s winds are expected to quickly gather speed on Monday morning, residents snapped up bottled water, plywood and other supplies as fast as they could be restocked. Some gas stations had run out of fuel.

“They’re buying everything and anything that applies to a hurricane, flashlights, batteries, generators,” said Amber Hunter, 30, assistant manager at Cape Canaveral’s ACE Handiman hardware store.

In the Bahamas, evacuations were already underway, two days before Dorian is expected to bring a life-threatening storm surge forecast at up to 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters) to the northwest of the islands.

NHC Director Ken Graham saw a worrying, unpredictable situation for Florida, with the hurricane set to hit land somewhere up its east coast and potentially linger over the state, spinning slowly.

“Slow is not our friend, the longer you keep this around the more rain we get,” Graham said in a Facebook Live video.

‘Catastrophic events’

It was unclear where the hurricane would hit land, but the results were expected to be devastating: “Big-time impacts, catastrophic events, for some areas 140 mph winds, not a good situation,” said Graham.

Mindful of that warning, Cocoa Beach Mayor Ben Malik was putting up storm shutters on his Florida home on Friday afternoon and worrying about the flooding Dorian could unleash on his barrier island town.

“It’s slowed down, we’re looking at a multiple-day event, we were hoping it would just barrel through and leave,” Malik said of forecasts that Dorian could sit over Florida for up to two days, dumping up to 18 inches (46 cm) of water.

“I’m really worried about the amount of rain we’ll be getting.”

Also read: Kerala Shows the Risk of Severe Floods Is Still Evolving

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis urged residents to have in reserve at least a week’s worth of food, water and medicine.

President Donald Trump told reporters before leaving for Camp David for the weekend: “We’re thinking about Florida evacuations, but it’s a little bit too soon. We’ll probably make that determination on Sunday.”

But Fort Pierce Mayor Linda Hudson urged its 46,000 residents who planned to evacuate not to delay.

“It’s decision time now. Don’t wait until I-95 north and I-75 north and the turnpike are parking lots,” said Hudson, who experienced two devastating hurricanes in 2004.

Dorian‘s course remains unpredictable. One of Florida’s last major hurricanes, 2017’s Irma, swept up the peninsula, instead of hitting the east coast.

Florida residents like Jamison Weeks, general manager at Conchy Joe’s Seafood in Port St. Lucie, planned on staying put.

“I’m planning on boarding up my house this evening,” said Weeks. “The mood is a little tense, everybody’s a little nervous and just trying to prepare as best as possible.”

In the Bahamas, Freeport’s international airport was set to close on Friday night and not reopen until Sept. 3, amid worries that Dorian will slam tourist hotspots on the archipelago.

Dorian began on Friday over the Atlantic as a Category 2 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale. By Friday night it was moving at nearly 10 mph (16 kph), giving it time to intensify before making landfall.

Sailors assigned to Naval Station Mayport lay down mooring lines as the amphibious dock landing ship USS Ft. McHenry is moved in preparation for Hurricane Dorian at Naval Station Mayport, in Jacksonville Florida, U.S. in this August 29, 2019 handout photo. Photo: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Devin Bowser/U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters

Two thousand National Guard troops will have been mobilized for the hurricane by the end of Friday, with 2,000 more joining them on Saturday. Florida officials also were making sure all nursing homes and assisted living facilities had generators.

Only one in five Florida nursing homes plans to rely on deliveries of temporary generators to keep their air conditioners running if Dorianknocks out power, a state agency said on Friday, short of the standard set by a law passed after a dozen people died in a sweltering nursing home after 2017’s Hurricane Irma.

North of Cape Canaveral, the Kennedy Space Center’s 400-foot (122-m) launch tower was dragged inside a towering vehicle assembly building to shelter it from Dorian, a video posted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-owned space launch center showed.

(Reuters)

NRC: BJP ‘Loses Hope’ in Assam, But Its Delhi, Telangana Leaders Want Similar Exercise

The saffron party’s leaders claimed that the exercise needs to be conducted in the two states because of an alleged increase in undocumented immigrants.

New Delhi: Even as the BJP changes its stance on the NRC in Assam, saying ‘genuine Indians’ have been left out of the register, leaders of the party’s Telangana and Delhi units have demanded that the exercise be replicated in their respective states.

The final version of the updated NRC was released on Saturday morning, with more than 19 lakh applicants excluded while 3.11 crore were included. Even before the NRC was released, the BJP began expressing apprehensions that it would not be “error-free”.

Speaking to NDTV on Saturday afternoon, Assam finance and health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the BJP has “lost hope in the present form of the NRC” right after the draft. “When so many genuine Indians are out, then how can you claim that this document is a red-letter for the Assamese society,” he said. He said, “this NRC won’t help us get rid of foreigners”.

Himanta Biswa Sarma. Credit: PTI

Himanta Biswa Sarma. Credit: PTI

“Names of many Indian citizens who migrated from Bangladesh as refugees prior to 1971 have not been included in the NRC because authorities refused to accept refugee certificates. Many names got included because of manipulation of legacy data as alleged by many,” Sarma tweeted.

Also Read: Why Is BJP Changing Tack on NRC in Assam?

As Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty wrote in The Wire recently, the BJP’s stance on the NRC has changed because of the possibility that a significant number of Bengali Hindus could also be excluded. The community is a voter base of the BJP.

However, the BJP seems to be singing a different tune in Delhi and Telangana. Party leaders from both states have claimed that the number of undocumented immigrants has increased and suggested the NRC exercise as a remedy.

In Telangana, party leaders said they intend to brief Amit Shah on the issue of undocumented immigrants in the state. A statement issued by the party also claimed, without any proof, that the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeed (AIMIM), was “using” these immigrants as “illegal voters”.

Undocumented immigrants “are moving into Telangana State from many borderline states, finding the local environment conducive for their survival. Telangana state government in political connivance with AIMIM is looking the other way, with full knowledge of this dangerous trend,” the BJP claimed.

The party said while the police said there were about 5,000 Rohingya refugees in the state, the real numbers were ‘running into several lakhs’. Describing the alleged presence of undocumented immigrants as a “ticking time bomb” that can have “very dangerous consequences for communal harmony, peace and stable law & order in the state”, the party demanded an NRC exercise in the state.

Also Read: In the Idea of an ‘All India NRC’, Echoes of Reich Citizenship Law

Meanwhile, Delhi BJP leader Manoj Tiwari claimed that an NRC is also needed in Delhi as undocumented immigrants who have settled there are “most dangerous”. “National Register of Citizens is needed in Delhi as the situation is becoming dangerous… We will implement the NRC here as well,” he said.

The BJP MP said the party would include the promise in its election manifesto. “NRC will help in eliminating terrorism and prevent crime from illegal immigrants,” he added.

Manoj Tiwari. Credit: Facebook/Manoj Tiwari ‘Mridul’

During the general elections, BJP’s national president Amit Shah also promised to implement the NRC across the country. The Ministry of Home Affairs on July 31 issued a notification to prepare and update the population register across India, apart from Assam. This exercise will lay the foundation of a nation-wide NRC.

Kerala: Man Held For Desecrating Temple to Incite Communal Tension

A Hindu group had reportedly taken out a rally in protest against the temple desecration and shouting communally charged slogans in it.

New Delhi: Days after a Hindu group staged demonstrations in which they reportedly made communally charged allegations over the desecration of a temple near Valanchery in Kerala, police arrested the man responsible on Friday and said he had done it to spark communal tension in the region.

A report by The Hindu quoted police as having said that the man, Ramakrishnan, had thrown human excreta at the Sreedharmasastha Temple and vandalised the Naga statues on the premises on the night of August 26.

Ramakrishnan is reportedly a close associate of the younger brother of Ayapunni, BJP’s local candidate for the panchayat election. The brother, Rajan, was taken in for questioning and released after police was convinced that Ramakrishnan had acted alone, reported The News Minute.

Also read: Twenty-Five Years On, India Has Still to Live Down the Shame of the Babri Masjid’s Demolition

Ramakrishnan has been arrested under sections 153 (provocation with intent to cause riot) and 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or reli­gious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code, reported Dool News.

The Malayali outlet also reported that shortly after the Hindu group, Hindu Aikya Vedi, attempted to incite communal unrest with their protest against the temple desecration, locals had taken out a march for peace in the region.

This temple, like the one in Sabarimala which came at the centre of a longstanding dispute and protests over the entry of women, is a shrine of the deity Ayyappa.