Life of a Tuple: National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Reform of Citizen Identification Infrastructure in Assam
We are proud to announce that a research grant from the Azim Premji University has enabled us to initiate a study of the updation process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, and the resultant reform of citizen identification infrastructure in India. The study is being led by Khetrimayum Monish and Ranjit Singh, along with Sumandro Chattapadhyay.
The research focuses on two specific aspects of the NRC update:
- Challenges of legal citizenship: In this context, we will investigate the constitutional acts and provisions for making citizenship claims in India, the historical narratives of identity politics in Assam and its culmination in the exercise of updating the NRC.
- Challenges of procedurally implementing the NRC update: Here, we plan to explore the subsequent design process of updating the register.
- Starting with the first aspect of legally defining Indian citizenship, the project will document and discuss the various legal processes of defining the bureaucratic process of updating NRC that emerge along two sets of concerns at different levels of Indian government. First, at the state level, we will explore the socio-political tensions around illegal immigration from Bangladesh and the history of identity-based politics in Assam. Second, at the level of the central government, we plan to investigate the constitutional and legal rules and provisions that are used to define citizenship in India.
Author
Sumandro Chattapadhyay
As a Director at CIS, I co-lead the researchers@work programme, and engage with academic and policy research on data governance and digital economy. I can be reached at sumandro[at]cis-india[dot]org.
