[AA. <<A pilot project conceived by the Vajpayee government in 2003 to test the issuing of Multi-purpose National Identity Cards (MNICs) to Indian citizens, analogous to the exercise of creating a National Register of Citizens (NRC), was closed in 2009 after it had been able to establish citizenship of less than half the residents who participated in the pilot project. It brought home the lesson that “determination of citizenship was a complicated and involved issue” and the “document base is weak, especially in rural areas”.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. I. below.)
The exercise nationwide is bound to trigger a humongous chaos, much larger and way more serious than the one caused by demonetisation. For most of India, the CAA would be of little help, even to followers of the six religions listed in the CAA. Given that fact, the regime, in all likelihood, make lists of "doubtful citizens" based on the NPR data collected. Only those on that list would be served notices to "prove" their "citizenship" in terms of, yet unspecified, (difficult to produce) "documents". It's also highly likely that the regime would try its utmost not to specify the parameters and leave the things to the whims and fancies of the (manipulable) concerned government officials, thereby. also opening the floodgate for an extortion regime. But, things are quite unlikely to stop at that. Those affected, in particular, would demand non-discriminatory and uniform criteria. How much the courts can help the regime? Masses would be on the streets. BB. <<The government’s attempt to catch Bangladeshi infiltrators through an all-India National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has created communal poison. Social harmony, vital for economic progress has been bashed. An unexpected consequence will be a black hole in India’s statistics, making all decision-making guesswork. ... A minimal level of trust between citizens and governments is essential for decent governance but is fast disappearing. At Shaheen Bagh in Delhi, Muslim women protesting peacefully against the CAA and NRC wear headbands saying, “I love India,” wave national flags and sing the national anthem, pledging to protect the equality guaranteed by the Constitution against those in power wrecking it. Yet BJP stalwarts are calling the protesters terrorists, anti-nationals, pro-Pakstanis, and “tukde tukde” gangs wanting to break India up. Such communal falsehoods can only destroy what little trust remains between citizens and the state, wrecking justice, the economy and the statistical system. ... The BJP seeks votes by promising to throw out Muslim “termites” and “ghuspetiyas” from Bangladesh. In Assam, the NRC asked people to produce documents proving they were Indian. A whopping 1.9 million failed to produce documents, of whom 1.2 million were Hindus, 0.6 million were Muslims and 0.1 million were tribals. Clearly the exercise uncovered only the undocumented, not the illegals.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. II. below.) The essence is that the process is going to be draconian, "pointless" and bound to prove highly damaging for the national economy and all that. That from a strident, and high-profile, proponent of economic neoliberalism. Not from a habitual critic.] I/II. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/once-upon-a-time-a-national-id-project-found-complicated-to-prove-citizenship-6258291/?fbclid=IwAR0321PZO-k9w5x_67aWXDSxsrmsb2ZA8nsdWu1Q_5B-20qYIpyWwHmlwQs Once upon a time, a national ID project found: Complicated to prove citizenship Documentation base weak, especially in rural areas: MNIC pilot project lesson Written by Sushant Singh | New Delhi | Updated: February 9, 2020 12:15:40 pm The clarification comes amid protests against the new citizenship law that the government has passed recently. A pilot project conceived by the Vajpayee government in 2003 to test the issuing of Multi-purpose National Identity Cards (MNICs) to Indian citizens, analogous to the exercise of creating a National Register of Citizens (NRC), was closed in 2009 after it had been able to establish citizenship of less than half the residents who participated in the pilot project. It brought home the lesson that “determination of citizenship was a complicated and involved issue” and the “document base is weak, especially in rural areas”. The MNIC pilot project, covering a population of approximately 30.95 lakh in selected areas of 13 districts in 12 states and one Union Territory, was approved in November 2003 and formally launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs in October 2006. The pilot project was officially completed on March 31, 2008. More than 12 lakh MNIC cards — broadly reflecting the number of residents established as Indian citizens as part of the project — were issued, starting from May 2007 till it was finally closed on March 31, 2009. A member of the committee of secretaries that monitored the pilot project told The Sunday Express that it found that “citizenship was a very complex and complicated issue”. The committee found that the pilot raised problems of a “weak document base” for determining citizenship status of individuals in rural areas, especially for agricultural labourers, landless labourers, married females and individuals not present at their place of residence at the time of enumeration. EXPLAINED Why this pilot still matters The outcome of the pilot project is significant as the process of conducting a nationwide NRC is directly linked to the issue of MNIC, as per 2003 Citizenship Rules. NPR will be a list of usual residents in India and only those residents who figure in the NRC would be deemed as Indian citizens and issued the MNIC. An amount of Rs 44.36 crore was sanctioned for the MNIC pilot project, which was abandoned without making public any results or data on its efficacy. The success rate of the pilot project, sources said, would still be less than 45%, even if certain residents who were not issued the MNICs, were included in the results. A “Compendium of mission mode projects under NeGP” (National e-Governance Plan) said that one of the major learnings from the MNIC pilot project was that “determination of citizenship was a complicated and involved issue and may be tackled in a phased manner”. The UPA government had also tacitly acknowledged the outcome of the pilot project in 2011 when the then Minister of State (Home) Gurudas Kamat told Parliament that “the experience of the pilot project has revealed that the process of determination of citizenship is cumbersome, time-consuming and complex in nature. Document base is weak, especially in rural areas”. In July 2014, the NDA government told Parliament it “has decided to create National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) by verifying citizenship status of all persons in the National Population Register (NPR) and issue National Identity Cards to all the Citizens of India”. Referring to the pilot project, it said that “Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 have already laid down the guidelines to be followed for determination of Citizenship status and which have been tested during the pilot project on Multi-purpose National Identity Card (MNIC).” However, last Monday, it told Parliament that no decision had been taken so far to conduct an all-India NRC. “We have seen the chaos caused by the NRC in Assam, which was mandated by the Supreme Court and required under the Assam Accord. The rules for citizenship in the MNIC pilot were different from what were given by the court in Assam, they were far more lenient in many ways, and still the results were not very encouraging,” a retired bureaucrat who monitored the MNIC pilot told The Sunday Express. The results of the MNIC pilot project, sources said, were seen to be behind the UPA government’s decision to place plans for an all-India rollout of MNIC and NRC on a lower priority. NPR of all the ‘usual residents’ in the country was created in 2010, but no nationwide NRC was conducted. The NPR database was updated during 2015-16 all over India, except Assam and Meghalaya, to make a comprehensive resident database. The electronic database of more than 119 crore usual residents of the country has been created so far, which will be updated this year, with additional information. The pilot project for MNIC and NRC was conceived after the Citizenship Act was amended in 2003 under the Vajpayee government, following the report of the L K Advani-led Group of Ministers on National Security after the Kargil War. The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 had laid down the guidelines to be followed for determination of citizenship status, which were tested during the pilot project on MNIC. The pilot project covered 24 sub-districts spread over Medak district in Andhra Pradesh, Karimganj in Assam, North West Delhi, North Goa, Kachchh in Gujarat, Kathua in J&K, Karaikal in Puducherry, Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, West Tripura in Tripura, Maharajganj in Uttar Pradesh, Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand, Ramanathapuram in Tamil Nadu and Murshidabad in West Bengal. Many of these areas were selected as they fell in the border areas and would test the efficacy of the MNIC project. In the MNIC pilot project, after conducting a base-line survey for enumeration of population in the project area, integration of photographs and finger biometrics was done with personal data of persons above the age of 18. This was followed by verification and determination of citizenship status, either by production of certain documents or sworn affidavits by two citizens, which led to the issue of MNIC. The MNIC was issued free of cost to the citizens. II. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/Swaminomics/nrc-caa-move-likely-to-stoke-a-statistical-collapse/?fbclid=IwAR2NeM2rpHHuc5-XyWFb-xu_UMCmCYqv2UyDDTLTB3tTUfLUmK2jUDQPMhA NRC-CAA move likely to stoke a statistical collapse February 9, 2020, 6:00 AM IST SA Aiyar in Swaminomics | India | TOI The government’s attempt to catch Bangladeshi infiltrators through an all-India National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has created communal poison. Social harmony, vital for economic progress has been bashed. An unexpected consequence will be a black hole in India’s statistics, making all decision-making guesswork. Statistics are dry but vital to reveal where we are, how we got here, and how to progress. If a statistical fog renders all data dubious, we cannot identify what’s going right or wrong, or correct failures. Protests against the NRC and CAA have suddenly made all data collection impossible in some states. The 2021 Census could become a fiasco, along with the NRC and National Population Register (NPR). The Census house-listing exercise is being done simultaneously with the NPR. This was never a problem earlier. But today, for fear of losing citizenship, many Indians refuse to answer questions, and even beat up surveyors. While the CAA and NRC are controversial, the census should not be. But citizens cannot easily distinguish between surveys, and so suspect all. In Andhra Pradesh, officials of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) asking questions on social issues were attacked by villagers fearing this was linked in some way with the NRC. In West Bengal, NSSO enumerators are struggling to collect data on education, sanitation and employment. Harassment by villagers is rising so fast that the entire survey may be called off, for the first time since independence. The growing web of mistrust and acrimony means that the NSSO needs police protection. Even if this is given, citizens can lie or refuse to answer questions, rendering the surveys useless. A minimal level of trust between citizens and governments is essential for decent governance but is fast disappearing. At Shaheen Bagh in Delhi, Muslim women protesting peacefully against the CAA and NRC wear headbands saying, “I love India,” wave national flags and sing the national anthem, pledging to protect the equality guaranteed by the Constitution against those in power wrecking it. Yet BJP stalwarts are calling the protesters terrorists, anti-nationals, pro-Pakstanis, and “tukde tukde” gangs wanting to break India up. Such communal falsehoods can only destroy what little trust remains between citizens and the state, wrecking justice, the economy and the statistical system. Critics say NSSO surveyors do not visit villages, and instead fill up questionnaires sitting in coffee shops. This will worsen dramatically if surveyors are beaten up by suspicious crowds. Several states — Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana — have refused to implement one or all among the CAA, NRC and NPR. The BJP has offered to drop some questions (such as birthplace of parents) to assuage people’s fears and says an all-India NRC has not yet been decided on. But since Amit Shah has vowed to hold one, many are sure it will come, and are determined to sabotage that. The BJP seeks votes by promising to throw out Muslim “termites” and “ghuspetiyas” from Bangladesh. In Assam, the NRC asked people to produce documents proving they were Indian. A whopping 1.9 million failed to produce documents, of whom 1.2 million were Hindus, 0.6 million were Muslims and 0.1 million were tribals. Clearly the exercise uncovered only the undocumented, not the illegals. The CAA offers fast-track naturalisation to all non-Muslims. Only Muslims will be rendered stateless and put in detention camps. Projecting Assam’s experience, a national NRC would cost Rs 50,000 crore and trap 80 million people, including 10 million Muslims. Putting them in detention camps would be a human rights scandal ten times worse than China’s detention of one million Uighurs. India’s name will be mud and it will face global sanctions. Collateral damage will include statistical wreckage. Recently Indian statistics have been slated for implausibility and fudging. Former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian thinks GDP is being overstated by maybe 2.5 percentage points. The latest Periodic Labour Force Survey showed unemployment tripling to 6.1%, but the government’s delayed the report and dismissed it as flawed. Then an NSSO survey showed a catastrophic fall in consumption per capita, implying a sharp rise in poverty despite miracle GDP growth. This too was suppressed and dismissed as flawed. To restore credibility and accuracy, a new Statistical Committee under respected economist Pronab Sen has been asked to revamp the entire statistical system. But if communal polarisation means that surveyors will be beaten up, citizens will stop answering questions and state governments will refuse to implement surveys, Sen will be helpless. Hopefully the Supreme Court will strike down the CAA, ending this sorry chapter in history. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/greenyouth/CACEsOZgkSSy2x4NLvebTdE2TF1Zxn8N_tsk0zGboeH0fw0Kziw%40mail.gmail.com.
