10 GROUPS JOIN HANDS AGAINST NRC UDPATE PROCESS

Jorhat, June 26: Tea gardens across Assam will remain closed for two hours tomorrow when the workers hit the streets in protest against the NRC update process.

The workers fear many of them would be left out of the process, as they have no valid documents or the legacy data code to prove their citizenship.

"Tea community people in the Brahmaputra and Barak Valleys have decided to stage road blockades for two hours tomorrow in protest against the NRC update process," Dhiraj Gowala, the assistant general secretary of the Assam Tea Tribes Students Association (ATTSA), told The Telegraph.

He said 10 organisations of the tea and ex-tea communities have joined hands and workers from all the tea estates in the state as well as ex-tea community would join the rally.

The students' association leaders said effigies of chief minister Tarun Gogoi, MPs from the tea community and NRC officials would also be burnt during the protest.

The union has been spearheading the demand that there should not be any official demand for submission of documents for the people of the tea or ex-tea communities to include their names in the NRC update process.

Legacy data of a person - finding the names of his/her ancestors in the 1951 NRC list or voter lists till 1971 - is necessary to fill up the NRC application form.

There are more than 800 tea estates in the state with over 20 lakh workers.

In a recent letter to the Assam state co-ordinator of NRC, the association's president Prahlad Gowala had said though the people of the community had come to Assam from 1859 onwards, many of them were not included in the NRC of 1951.

"The community does not have other supporting documents in their hand as most of them are employed in tea gardens and they settled on government-donated land after retirement," Gowala had said in the letter.

Moreover, the letter had said most of the people were illiterate and were engaged in the unorganised sector and they preferred moving from one place to another. Thus, it was difficult to enlist them in the electoral rolls.

Gowala today said that even if the tea workers manage to procure some documents from the tea estate authorities they are engaged with, it would be impossible for ex-tea tribes' people who have settled on government-donated land and are engaged in other jobs.

"These ex-tea community people have no documents to prove their citizenship," he said.

There are nearly 80 lakh tea community people in the state.

Gowala said it was unfortunate that no organisations in the state have come up to support the tea community at this crucial issue. "Although we are very much Indian, we are being treated like illegal migrants in this particular issue. Why do we need documents to prove our citizenship?" he asked.

He also said the NRC update process has created panic among the common people of the state as it "has become very complicated for the common man to understand".

Absu sit-in

The All Bodo Students Union (Absu) today staged a two-hour demonstration in the district and sub-divisional offices throughout the state, demanding publishing of NRC forms in Bodo.

The union urged the government to publish and circulate the fresh forms in all the Bodo-dominated districts of Assam so that the people can fill up the form in their own language. It also demanded that the distribution of NRC application forms in these districts be kept on hold till then.

A memorandum was submitted to the Union home minister Rajnath Singh, demanding that the application forms for citizens' registration be made available in Bodo. It also sought publishing of the next electoral rolls in Bodo and the dates for the closure of submission of the NRC application forms be extended beyond July-end as notified.

Absu general secretary Lawrence Islary said, "According to Article 351 of the Constitution, it is the duty of the Centre and the state to promote and spread the languages specified in the Eighth Schedule. The speakers and users of this language in the country have the full right to use it at all levels and as a medium in letter and spirit."

The student leader said a large group of Bodos would be deprived of the fair process of citizens' registration in their own mother tongue. "Such a denial would not only be a great injustice to the Bodo people but also dishonour the Constitution of the largest democratic country in the world," he said.

The union leaders said if the demands were not fulfilled by end of June, they would begin an indefinite hunger strike from July 1 and may later call an Assam strike.

The Bodo Sahitya Sabha had urged the NRC state co-ordinator to ensure publication of the forms in Bodo.

Additional reporting by Preetam B. Choudhury in Kokrajhar