asianage

A searing portrait of how NRC has Assam locked in a time warp

This new book on Assam is perfectly timed. Without beating about the bush, or indulging in the usual pleasantries and sweeping generalisations, Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty goes to the core of the major issues before her home state. This is an ambitious book.
While the timing could not have been better as far as trying to understand the controversial and very messy National Register of Citizens, the ‘final list’ of August 31 has put mud on everyone’s face.
Some 19 lakh people are ‘out’ of the system but that figure is several times less than the expected number which the Bharatiya Janata Party, its leaders at the national and state levels, the Asom Gana Parishad and the perpetual agitators and students from the All Assam Students Union (AASU), assiduously sought to promote over decades.
Now the parties are stuck with a list they do not accept.
One is the state’s chief minister, others are ministers, a few are members of the Opposition; Samujjal Bhattacharyya, once general secretary of AASU, continues to be its seemingly perpetual adviser.

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