Millions of Indians find they may not be Indian after all
After an expensive, multi-year process, the National Register of Citizens has excluded nearly 2-million people the government claims are illegal immigrants
India’s far north-east is beautiful, friendly and one of the most ethnically, religiously and linguistically diverse places on earth. Multiple, distinct ethnic groups share the hills, dales and great valley of the Brahmaputra River with indigenous tribes, tea-garden workers originally from central India, ethnic Nepalese, and Bengalis — both Hindu and Muslim — from the Gangetic delta.
As in other heterogenous parts of the world — think of the Balkans — old grievances have festered and new ones have been found over the years, leading to a sad succession of separatist movements, “anti-outsider” agitations, and ethnic massacres. Now, the Indian government has decided that almost 2-million residents of the north-eastern state of Assam may not be Indian citizens, and the state, region and India itself confront a crisis of their own making...
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