Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

THE AMBIVALENCE OF CITIZENSHIP

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 41; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14672710802631137

1472-6033

Anupama Roy, Ujjwal Kumar Singh,

Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

Abstract The code of citizenship marks out the "other," continually reproducing and re-inscribing it through legal and judicial pronouncement in a relationship of contradictory cohabitation. The relationship is, however, not one of exclusion or simple opposition, but rather that of forclusion, where the outsider is present discursively and constitutively in delineations of citizenship. This article examines the manner in which the process of forclusion unfolded in the delineation of citizenship in Assam, in northeastern India, in particular in the contests around the Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunal Act [IMDT] of 1983, and the complex reconfiguration of political forces and power relations between the Center and the state of Assam on the question of definition and identification of illegal migrants. The authors examine the contests over the IMDT Act, in the context of the elections in Assam in Citation1983, the Assam Accord of 1985, and the Supreme Court Judgment in August 2005 striking it down. They show how the illegality/alien-ness of the migrant became central to the construction of the Assamese identity in the 1980s and how the illegal migrant and the IMDT Act figured in precarious relationships of consensus and antagonism depending on the nature of political/electoral contests between the Center and state governments. Notes 1. Etienne Balibar has pointed out two significant aspects of citizenship: (1) its association with politics and the state and the principle of public sovereignty, and (2) its association with the exercise of the principle of individual "capacity" to participate in political decisions (Balibar Citation1988, 723–24). 2. Chantal Mouffe Citation2000, 12–13. 3. The idea that the colonized subjects had no "capacity" to be autonomous political subjects was central to the colonial project and practices of rule, justifying the deferral or postponement of self-rule and democracy in the colonies (Chatterjee Citation1994, 82). For Dipesh Chakravarty deferral or "not yet" was internal to the very logic of capital (Chakravarty Citation1993; Citation2000, 65). 4. Research into the extension of political rights in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries has shown that women, slaves, workers, and the colonized were considered incompetent and lacking the rational capacity to exercise the rights of citizenship. Debates surrounding the 1864 Reforms Act, which gave political rights to 35 to 40 percent of adult, male workers in Britain, concurred that the inclusion of women would subvert women's "natural" roles. Through much of the nineteenth century, the debate over the franchise for women and the working class in Britain saw the vote being defined increasingly in national imperialist, class, and gender terms. Opponents of universal franchise compared the working class to colonial "natives," both requiring firm, unflinching, and unsentimental control The constant reiteration of this authority was important for continued subjection of these sections of the population by the white, propertied male (Hall Citation1992, 285). 5. While discussing global constitutionalism Ferrajoli suggests that human rights were proclaimed universal, "when the distinction between man and citizen did not create any problem, it being neither likely nor foreseeable that the men and women of the third world would arrive in Europe and these statements of principle might be taken literally" (1996, 151–54). 6. Balibar 2003, 38–39, cited in Mezzadra Citation2006, 32. 7. Mezzadra Citation2006, 32–33. In postcolonial theory, the relationship between the self and the other is not one of an opposition or exclusion. As the Lacanian term "forclusion" used by Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak (Citation1999) and other postcolonial theorists conveys, it is a relationship of constant comparison so that the other is constantly implied in the identity and unity of the self. 8. The Assam movement refers to the prolonged struggle in the state of Assam in the 1980s that had at its core the issue of outsiders in Assam, in particular the government's policy of admission and enfranchisement of "foreigners" or "illegal aliens" from East Pakistan and later Bangladesh . The inflow of people into Assam from the adjoining areas of East Bengal took place in the early decades of the twentieth century as Muslim peasants from Mymensingh, Pabna, Bogra, and Rangapur came to Assam and settled in Goalpara, Nowgong, Kamrup (then Barpeta district), and Darrang, and later to North Lakhimpur district, occupying most of the wasteland. After independence and the setting up of the two nation-states, the influx into Assam of what now became East Pakistani immigrants continued across what remained a fluid border. In 1971 in the course of the liberation war in Bangladesh, several lakhs of Hindu and Muslim refugees fled to Assam. Within Assam, the presence of large numbers of "foreigners" instilled a sense of insecurity at the change in the demography, language, access to resources, primarily land, and employment. Closely allied to the foreigners issue was the growing dis-gruntlement with unemployment and poverty, which persisted despite the state being rich in natural resources, including oil, because of what the people of Assam believed to be an exploitative relationship of dependency within the Indian Union. 9. The Assam Accord, signed on 15 August 1985 between Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the leaders of the Assam movement, was a broad settlement that included significant cultural and economic development concerns, promising "constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards … to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people" and "all round economic development" of the state. 10. Baruah Citation2005, 4–5. 11. First used by Krzysztof Pomian (Citation1977), "chronosophy" refers to the assumptions we make about the relationship between the past, present, and future (Wallerstein Citation1991, 178). Social sciences have been dominated by the linear chronosophy suggested in the theory of progress, depicting an inevitable and irreversible ascending curve. Wallerstein suggests an alternative chronosophy, which he calls the theory of possible progress, where historical systems marked by cyclical rhythms and secular trends are interspersed with successive moments in which major historical choices have occurred. In this work, we use the word "chronosophy" in Wallerstein's sense to look at the trajectory of citizenship in terms of a historical relationship where transitions are not part of continuous historical process, but moments of historical choice. 12. Dasgupta Citation1998, 190. 13. Baruah Citation2005, Citation1999, Citation1986; Barbora Citation2002; Dasgupta Citation1990, Citation1998; Guha Citation2002; Hazarika Citation1994; Misra Citation2000, Citation1988; Misra and Misra Citation1996. 14. Dasgupta (Citation1998) writes about different stages in the collective expression of Assamese identity, coinciding with the various phases of "boundary shuffling" (ibid., 190). Till 1874, Assam perceived itself as an appendage to Bengal, and the continuation of the power and influence of the Bengali population, even after the redrawing of state boundaries in 1906 and 1912, was resented by the Hindu Assamiya speakers (Hazarika Citation1994, 45). Independence and the incorporation of Muslim-majority district of Sylhet into East Pakistan reduced the Bengali Muslim factor in Assamese politics and made way for an ethno-linguistic Assamese exclusivism (Dasgupta Citation1998, 192), which was secured through economic and social mobility, and the enforcement of Assamese language in the jobs in the public sector. The leadership for Assamese autonomy came not from the ruling parties — the Congress and the Janata (Dasgupta Citation1990, 68) — but (in the late 1970s) from the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and a coalition of eleven groups called the All Assam Gana Parishad (AAGSP) (Dutta Citation1988, 29–49) and the famous literary authors represented by the Asom Sahitya Sabha (Assam Literary Association). Beginning in 1979, AASU and AAGSP leaders concentrated on the issue of "foreigners," in particular the Muslim immigrants from East Pakistan and later Bangladesh, and the inflation of electoral rolls. The issue evinced substantial popular support from Assamiya speakers, including the earlier Muslim settlers, and led to the formation of a new political party, called the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which won an impressive victory in the general election of December 1985 (Dasgupta Citation1998, 192–93). 15. In the late 1980s, the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) described India's relationship with Assam as colonial and demanded that multinational and Indian-owned tea companies do more for the development of the state (Baruah Citation2005, 125). 16. Assam Accord 1985. 19. Speech at the Conference of the Chief Electoral Officers of States, held on 24 September 1978, in Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu. Hussain Citation1993, 102. 17. Barpujari Citation2006, 3–4. 18. See Weiner (Citation1983, 282–85) for a discussion on and estimation of the growth in the population of the state in Assam and Baruah (Citation1986) for the difficulty of estimating the number of foreigners/immigrants in Assam. Baruah cites the reasons as the absence of official records, problems with using the census data (no census data for 1981 due to political turmoil as well as misre-porting by respondents on questions of birthplace and language), and estimates from the natural rate of population growth in Assam, which do not make a distinction between immigrants from within and outside India (ibid., 1189–90). 20. Weiner Citation1983, 286–87. 21. The directly elected lower house of the Parliament of India. 22. There was no option Citation1983. 23. Rao Citation1983. 24. Assam 1983, 42–43; Election at bayonet-point Citation1983; Fraud in Assam Citation1983. 25. Refers to the massacre in Nellie, a region along the southern banks of the Brahmaputra and 45 kilometers from Guwahati inhabited by Muslim migrants from Mymensingh, where according to official figures 1,383 men, women, and children were killed. Officials estimated the combined death toll at Nellie and elsewhere at more than 4,000, while almost three lakhs sought shelter in refugee camps (Weiner Citation1983, 281). 27. Preliminary chapter, IMDT Act 1983. 26. Leaders of the Muslim community in Assam believed that the IMDT Act "was necessitated to provide some safeguard to the bonafide citizens belonging to a particular minority community who were being harassed indiscriminately when the anti-foreigners movement spearheaded by the AASU was at its peak from 1979. Even a distinguished personality like Dr. Syed Abdul Malik, who has contributed much to Assamese literature and has been the recipient of the Sahitya Academy Award was not spared. Ultimately, leaders of the community were able to impress upon the Government at the Centre headed by Indira Gandhi the need for some judicial safeguard to these people through a new law." H.R.A. Choudhury, Senior Advocate elaborating on the context in which the IMDT Act came, in an interview with Indrani Barpujari. Cited in Indrani Barpujari's report on the IMDT Act (2006, 7). 28. The process of identifying illegal migrants under the IMDT Act applied only to those persons who had migrated into Indian territory on or after 25 March 1971. 29. Sarbananda Sonowal vs. Union of India, Citation2005, par. 2. 30. Ibid. 31. In paragraph 12 of the counter-affidavit the (NDA) Central government stated that "the basic objection of the petitioner is under consideration of the central government that the IMDT Act and the Rules made thereunder are not effective in comparison to the Foreigners Act, Citation1946, which is applicable to the whole country except the state of Assam. In paragraphs 18 and 19 of the counter-affidavit the central government invoked the figures given by the Assam government as proof of the "extremely dismal" progress in respect of detection/expulsion of illegal migrants (those who entered Assam on or after 25 March 1971 up to 30 April 2000). Total number of enquiries initiated 310759 Total number of enquiries completed 307955 Total number of enquiries referred to screening committees 301986 Total number of enquiries made by the screening committee 298465 Total number of enquiries referred to IM(DT)s 38631 Total number of enquiries disposed of by IMDTs 16599 Total number of persons declared as illegal migrants 10015 Total number of illegal migrants physically expelled 1481 Total number of illegal migrants to whom expulsion order served 5733 Total number of enquiries pending with screening committee 3521 Total number of enquiries pending with the Tribunal 22072 32. Paragraph 8 of the state (AGP) government counter-affidavit gave the "statistical analysis" for the decades of 1951–61, 1961–71, and 1971–91, to show "that Muslim population of Assam has shown a rise of 77.42 percent in 1971–1991, where as Hindu population has risen by nearly 41.89% during the said period." It argued that three districts in particular, having orders with Bangladesh, viz., Karimganj, Cachar, and Dhubri, showed a substantial rise. While the all India percentage of decadal increase in population during 1981–1991 was 23.85 percent, in Karimganj the decadal increase was 42.08 percent, in Cachar district, 47.59 percent, and in Dhubri district, 56.57 percent. 33. Sonowal vs. Union of India, 2005, par. 5. 34. Ibid., para 6. 35. Ibid. [emphasis added]. 37. Sonowal vs. Union of India, 2005, par. 8 and 9. 36. The affidavit pointed out that whereas since the enforcement of the IMDT Act only 1,494 illegal migrants had been deported from Assam upto 30 June 2001, in contrast 489,046 Bangladeshi nationals had actually been deported under the Foreigners Act Citation1946 from the State of West Bengal between 1983 and November 1998 [emphasis added]. 38. Ibid., paragraph 10 [emphasis added]. 39. The judges were Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti, Justice G.P. Mathur, and Justice P.K. Balasubramanyan. 40. Sonowal vs. Union of India, 2005, par. 38. 41. The judgment goes through an elaborate discussion of the "wide import" and meanings of the word "aggression" through paragraphs 31 to 37, in the dictionary, in Indian laws and laws of other countries, and in international law and covenants, including the Charter of the United Nations. 42. It is interesting that the Supreme Court judgment is available in its entirety on the website esamskriti, with a short prologue by a person named Sanjeev Nayyar. At the end of the text of the judgment, the notation "Long live Sanatan Dharma," inserted by the author, reveals how the judgment has a pronounced anti-Muslim stance. 43. GoM Citation2005, 12. 44. In an affidavit filed in response to petitions of Asom Gana Parishad MP Sarbananda Sonowal and local BJP leader Charan Chandra Deka challenging the 10 February notifications in this regard, the Centre said "the notifications have been issued to address the concerns of the genuine Indian citizens living in Assam … ." Sonowal and Deka sought the quashing of the notification under the Foreigners Act on the grounds that it put the onus on the complainant to prove that a particular person was a foreigner. However, the Centre contended that the notifications did not "in any way" contravene the provisions of Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, Citation1946 on the question of burden of proof as alleged by the petitioner (see Centre Citation2006). 45. The Supreme Court's ruling on the 2006 Executive Order followed the same line of reasoning as in the case of the IMDT Act. The Court found the Order to be unreasonable, arbitrary, and in contravention of Article 14 of the Constitution (equality before law) since it applied only to Assam and not to other states bordering Bangladesh, and violative of the Center's duty to protect the states under Article 355. A more significant indictment was the Court's statement: "It appears that the 2006 order [issued after the Illegal Migrants (determination by Tribunals) Act was declared unconstitutional] has been issued just as a cover-up for non-implementation of the directions of this court." See, for details, Foreigners in Assam Citation2006; Assam Foreigners Order Citation2006, 1; Form tribunals Citation2006, 12. 48. Banerjee Citation2006. 46. Figures from the 2004 Lok Sabha elections from the CSDS database showed that while the Congress support cut across communities, the Bengali-speaking Muslims, followed by Assamese-speaking Muslims, both of whom constitute about 31 percent of the population of Assam, were most likely to vote for it. (See Table below. Source: Yadav and Kumar Citation2006.) TableDownload CSVDisplay Table The Assam United Democratic Front, a party started by Muslim Ulemas and peoples of other communities, with Maulana Badruddin Ajmal as its president, a man who claimed in an interview that the party was for Hindu-Muslim unity. (See AUDF Citation2006.) The AUDF put up sixty-nine candidates out of which ten won. See http://www.eci.gov.in?may 2006/pollupd/ac/states/SO3/ASO3.htm (accessed 8 June 2006). 47. In December 2005, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) B.B.Tandon stated that there were a large number of voters (almost 1.5 lakhs) on the state's electoral rolls who were of "doubtful" nature falling in what was technically designated as the "D" category (D for doubtful). Following the Supreme Court judgment scrapping the IMDT Act, these names had been transferred to the Foreigners' Tribunals for a final settlement. The CEC emphasized, however, that these 1.5 lakhs people would not be allowed to vote in the forthcoming Assembly elections in Assam. The "D" category had been inserted in the state electoral rolls on the direction of the Election Commission of India in the early 1990s and comprised of as many as 3.75 lakhs voters. See Assam voter list Citation2005. 49. Kumar et al. Citation2006. 50. Roy Citation2007; Padhi Citation2007. 51. Section 3C, Citizenship Amendment Act 2003.