By extension: NRC for Tripura
An NRC for Tripura will risk creating new fault lines in the State
Just three months after the final draft of the National Register of Citizens for Assam was released, the Supreme Court has tagged a petition(याचिका/अर्जी) seeking a similar process for Tripura. The petition now tagged to the Assam case was heard by a bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, on Monday. The petitioners, a group of activists from Tripura, sought a process to identify illegal(अवैध) migrants(प्रवासियों) and deport(निकाल देना/निर्वासित) them from the State. They maintained that the influx(प्रवेश/प्रवाह) amounted to “external aggression(आक्रामकता/आक्रमण)” and that they have turned the tribal(जनजातीय/आदिवासी) people into a minority in their own native land. Much of the migration into Tripura occurred(घटित हुआ/प्रयुक्त) before the creation of Bangladesh. The petition takes recourse(सहारा/आश्रय/साधन) to the 1993 tripartite accord signed by the Government of India with the All Tripura Tribal Force that asked for the repatriation(प्रत्यावर्तन/स्वदेश में आगमन) of all Bangladeshi nationals who had come to Tripura after March 25, 1971 and are not in possession of valid documents authorising their presence(उपस्थिति) in the State. In fact, the petitioners go even further than the terms of the accord to demand that the cut-off date for the recognition of migrants should be July 1949, based on Article 6 of the Constitution. These demands must be contextualised(संदर्भित) in the light of the developments in Tripura over the last four decades. As early as in 1979, after years of struggle, the tribal people of the State had gained special autonomy provisions(प्रावधानों), the institution of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council and recognition of their spoken language, among other assurances. Since then, the empowerment of the council(समिति/परिषद) and the protection of tribal rights have steadily(तेजी से/बराबर या व्यवस्थित रुप से) eroded(नष्ट करना) the significant tribal versus non-tribal differences that once existed in the State.
Over the last three decades(दशकों), multiple insurgent groups have ended violent struggles — either quelled by force of law or as a result of conceding(स्वीकार करना/दिए) vital demands for preserving (संरक्षित करना)the gains made by earlier tribal struggles(संघर्ष). The judicial-bureaucratic(सत्तावाद/नौकरशाही) process of hearing a petition to seek the deportation(देशान्तरण/निर्वासन) of long-settled migrants is fraught with problems, not dissimilar(भिन्न/मुख़्तलिफ़) to those already being faced in Assam. The question of what awaits the four million people whose names did not figure in the final NRC draft, and have been given a second chance to prove their antecedents(पूर्ववृत्त/पिछला जीवन)still hangs in the balance. Notwithstanding the fact that the NRC process in Assam has an overall popular legitimacy(वैधता/सच्चाई) across most political parties, there is no answer to how the deportation process could (or should) proceed. Embarking on any such bureaucratic exercise without considering its deep humanitarian(मानवीय) impact(प्रभाव)असर) will only create new fault lines — especially in a State like Tripura where there is no such unanimity of views on the NRC process. It will undo years of work to bring about a reconciliation(सुलह/मिलाप)between Bengali-speaking and tribal people. The Supreme Court should be cognisant(जानकार/परिचित) of this while hearing the petition.
Important Vocabulary
1.Deport(निकाल देना/निर्वासित)
Synonyms: dismiss, displace, exile, expatriate, expel
Antonyms: allow, hold, keep, take in, welcome
2.Tribal(जनजातीय/आदिवासी)
Synonyms: genetic, national, tribal, ancestral, ethnological
3.Repatriation(प्रत्यावर्तन/स्वदेश में आगमन)
Synonyms: reconstruction, recovery, refurbishment, rehabilitation, reinstatement
Antonyms: destruction, disease, penalty, abolition, neglect
4.Occurred(घटित हुआ/प्रयुक्त
Synonyms: appear, arise, crop up, develop, ensue
Antonyms: hide, precede, stop
5.Steadily(तेजी से/बराबर या व्यवस्थित रुप से)
Synonyms: regularly, fixedly, immovably, undeviatingly, unwaveringly
6.Eroded(नष्ट करना)
Synonyms: corrode, destroy, abrade, bite, consume
Antonyms: build, ignore, neglect, preserve, construct
7.Dissimilar(भिन्न/मुख़्तलिफ़)
Synonyms: antithetical, contradictory, disparate, divergent, diverse
Antonyms: agreeing, alike, like, similar, same
8.cognizant(जानकार/परिचित)
Synonyms: apprehensive, conscious, informed, judicious, knowledgeable
Antonyms: ignorant, indifferent, senseless, thoughtless, unaware
9.Recourse(सहारा/आश्रय/साधन)
Synonyms: remedy, aid, appeal, choice, expediency
Antonyms: blockage, hindrance, injury, obstruction, permanent
