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National Register of Citizens for Tripura

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October 15, 2018

Why in news?

The Supreme Court recently tagged the Tripura NRC (National Register of Citizens) plea with Assam NRC case.

What is the case on?

  • It relates to a public interest petition filed by the Tripura People’s Front and some others.
  • The petition asked the Supreme Court to direct the authorities to update the NRC with respect to Tripura.
  • This is in terms of The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.
  • The court has directed the court registry to tag the petition along with petitions in the Assam NRC case.
  • So it would now be heard by a Special Bench monitoring the Assam NRC case.
  • The Supreme Court issued a notice to the centre and the Election Commission of India in regards with the plea.

SC tags Tripura NRC plea with Assam case

What is the rationale?

  • The purpose is to detect and deport the “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh, as is being done in Assam.
  • Much of the migration into Tripura occurred before the creation of Bangladesh.
  • Uncontrolled influx of illegal migrants has caused huge demographic changes in Tripura.
  • Indigenous people who were once the majority have now become a minority in their own land.
  • Resultantly, Tripura, a predominantly tribal State, has now become a non-tribal State.
  • The presence of illegal immigrants violates the political rights of the citizens of Tripura.
  • The petition noted that the “influx” of illegal immigrants amounted to ‘external aggression’ under Art 355 of the Constitution.
  • Given this, the Union is bound to protect the State of Tripura from this.
  • Also, the 1993 tripartite accord signed by the Government of India with the All Tripura Tribal Force was cited.
  • It asked for the repatriation of all Bangladeshi nationals who
  1. had come to Tripura after March 25, 1971 (and)
  2. are not in possession of valid documents authorising their presence in the State
  • The petitioners went further and demanded the cut-off date to be July 19, 1948, as provided for in Article 6 of the Constitution, dealing with citizenship rights.

How has Tripura been in the recent decades?

  • After years of struggle, in 1979, the tribal people of the State had gained special autonomy provisions -
  1. the institution of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council
  2. recognition of their spoken language and other assurances
  • Since then, the council has been empowered and the tribal rights have been ensured protection.
  • These have steadily eroded the tribal versus non-tribal differences that once existed in the State.
  • Resultantly, over the last three decades, multiple insurgent groups have also ended violent struggles.

What is the concern now?

  • The judicial-bureaucratic process in deportation of long-settled migrants is much as already being faced in Assam.
  • Here, the fate of the four million people whose names did not figure in the final NRC draft for Assam remains uncertain.
  • So any bureaucratic exercise without considering its deep humanitarian impact will only create new fault lines.
  • This is especially the case in a State like Tripura where there is no such unanimity of views on the NRC process.
  • So deportation may likely undo the years of work to bring about reconciliation between Bengali-speaking and tribal people.
  • The Supreme Court should take this into consideration while hearing the petition.

 

Source: The Hindu

 

 

 

 

 

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