Am I Unnecessarily Fearing the Worst From Assam NRC?

On 1 January 2018, I was in for a surprise when me and my family’s names were not on the first NRC list.

Too caught up to read? Listen to the story:

On 27 December, I had written about how my wife’s name may not figure in the first list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam because of the lack of a proper legacy record.

I was pretty sure that my name, along with my mother’s and daughter’s, would feature in the first draft of NRC.

But on 1 January, 2018 when the list was released, I was in for a surprise – none of our names were there, even though we had all provided valid legacy documents. My father’s name was there in the 1966 voters’ list.

Here’s a recap of how the first day of 2018 went for me.

I was one among the 3.29 crore people who had to prove their Indian citizenship, so right from the morning I was trying to log onto the various government websites where the NRC list could be viewed. These are – www.assam.gov.in, www.nrcassam.nic.in and www.assam.mygov.in.

But guess what – till 8pm on 1 January, I couldn’t view the list. The sites just couldn't deal with the traffic they were getting, and kept crashing.

I find it astonishing that the people manning these sites were so ill-prepared for the big day, what were they expecting? That every applicant would walk in to the Government NRC Sewa Kendra?

Even the SMS service to check the status didn’t work. Finally at 8 pm when I was able to access the website and entered the Application Receipt Number (ARN), I was in for a shock. None of our names were there, and it said that our application and documents were still under verification.

Despite providing all the valid documents, I was not one of the 1.9 crore residents of Assam whose name had featured. But this didn’t mean that my application had been rejected or that I hadn't been identified as an Indian citizen.

I belonged to the other 1.39 crore residents who were anxious, uncertain and a bit scared. Having the name in the first list would have been a huge relief. For now, all we can do is wait.

There have been instances where under the same ARN, with the same legacy, within the same family, some members have made it to the list while others have been left out.

It seems one of the major reasons for this is the long and cumbersome verification process.

Almost 6 crore documents have been submitted by applications – birth certificates, educational board certificates, LIC premium receipts, bank/post office passbooks, among others.

Each of these documents need to be verified, sometimes by the original issuing source. And this is where it is taking so much time; apparently, unlike Assam’s NRC authorities, the other states, educational boards and departments are not expeditiously verifying the documents.

So can I find solace in this bureaucratic lethargy? Maybe yes!

After all, the National Register of Citizens Assam coordinator Prateek Hajela’s name is also missing from the first draft of NRC.

So when the big boss of NRC says we should not panic, perhaps we can trust him for now.

(Disclaimer: Tridip K Mandal is a creative director with The Quint and he has written this blog in his personal capacity as a resident of Assam, and not as a journalistic piece.)