Friday, July 12, 2024, was the day the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in a crucial legal battle that lasted over a decade. On this day, Rahim Ali from Kasimpur village in Assam's Nalbari district was posthumously honoured with citizenship. Rahim Ali's legal battle began when the Foreigners Tribunal ruled that he was an immigrant from Bangladesh. As a rural farmer, Rahim was forced to approach the Supreme Court after the GauhatiHigh Court branded him an 'intruder'. Otherwise, he would have faced either exile or spending the rest of his life in prison. He spent seven years in the Supreme Court to prove his citizenship. After lengthy arguments and a thorough review of documents, Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah unanimously declared that Rahim was undeniably a first-class citizen of India. Rahim was not in court when the judgment was pronounced; his advocate, Kaushik Chaudhary, received the judgment copy. In fact, apart from a few meetings with Rahim during the early days of the case, Kaushik never saw him again. Naturally, those who gathered around the lawyer from the media searched for Rahim, who had been declared an Indian citizen. Some of the media workers in the group returned to Kasimpur. when they searched the village. It was only after that search that they learned of Rahim's death on December 28, 2021. The group presented a copy of the Supreme Court's historic verdict to Rahim's widow, Hajara Beavi, and his son, Mujeeburahman. The news of Rahim receiving citizenship appeared in national media in the following days.
Rahim Ali is only one of the lakhs of people who waged a legal battle for survival in a country where religion became a criterion for citizenship. The second draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam, released on July 30, 2018, branded 40 lakh people as "illegal" immigrants. Even after considering appeals the following year, around 20 lakh people were left out. Like Rahim, they had to knock on the doors of Foreign Tribunals and other courts, fighting legal battles till their death to prove their citizenship. It was this very "model" from Assam that sparked nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) from the moment it was introduced in Parliament. The government, which tried to suppress these protests, always justified its actions on official platforms by asserting that no one with proper documents should worry about "losing citizenship." However, a preliminary assessment of the NRC processes being implemented in Assam would disprove this assertion. Citizenship had to be granted to those who resided in Assam before the formation of Bangladesh (1971) based on the electoral rolls prepared in connection with the first census of India after independence (1951). Accordingly, Rahim Ali, born in 1966 in Kasimpur, is an Indian citizen. However, in 2004, police raided his house, expressing doubts about his citizenship. Even after submitting documents, including school records, he was not spared. The tribunal declared him an infiltrator, citing discrepancies in his name being recorded in two different ways in two documents; the Assam High Court upheld it. Later, the case reached the Supreme Court following the intervention of some human rights organizations. The man who lived in constant fear of being caught and deported died during the COVID-19 period. Maulana Muhammad Amiruddin was the first Deputy Speaker of the Assam Legislative Council. An independent MLA, he held this position from 1937 to 1946. Imprisoned for his participation in the freedom struggle, Maulana played a crucial role in keeping Assam a part of India after partition. His house can still be seen in the small village of Kalijhari in Assam's Morigaon district. However, the descendants living near that historic house are considered illegal immigrants in the government's eyes. They are also wandering in search of citizenship like Rahim. It is against this backdrop that Rahim's citizenship verdict becomes historic. The court observed in the verdict that Rahim faced a terrible denial of justice. Democrats should reiterate the question of the apex court: what is the point of one getting citizenship posthumously, as has now been granted to those like Rahim?
To be read together with this are the constant, hateful statements by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma regarding citizenship. A strong proponent of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), he often portrays Muslims in the state as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Recently, he said that the Hindu religious people of Assam, who were excluded from the NRC, will be given relaxation under the CAA. This implies that only Muslims will remain in the NRC. He also repeats another theory that by 2041, Muslims will become the majority in the state. In Assam, which is becoming a laboratory of Hindutva in Northeast India, some have seen this court verdict as an important step against Himanta's ongoing ethnic cleansing. There is no doubt that the court's observation that no doubt can be cast on the citizenship of anyone due to minor errors in documents, is bound to bring relief to lakhs of people who are waiting for citizenship. Therefore, this verdict deserves applause indeed!