The nowhere people: Assam and the looming citizenship register
A narrow, muddy lane in South Tokrer Chora village in Assam's westernmost district, Dhubri, bordering Bangladesh, leading to a railway overbridge, the other end of which opens into a local market. Standing on the bridge, one can see the Indo-Bangladesh border fencing, just over a kilometre away. Close by, on the ground, staring at the setting sun behind his bamboo hut overlooking a paddy field, Mohammad Hajer Ali, a 69-year-old farmer, ignores the pestering of his grandchildren to take them to the market. His mind is full of thoughts of that border fence. Will he be forced across it after July 30? He doesn't know anyone on the other side. What will he do there? Ali says he was born in 1950 in India and has documentary evidence to support his claim. Yet he is a suspected Bangladeshi, or D-voter (doubtful voter), according to the electoral rolls.
Around 10 kilometres away, in Sonakhuli district, Kabita Roy, 35, is increasingly losing patience with her husband, assistant sub-inspector Ramesh Chandra Roy, 43. For the past 15 years, the mother of two has been barred from voting because she is a suspected foreigner. The anger and frustration is writ large on her face, her husband is in the police force and she belongs to the Koch Rajboghshi community, a people indigenous to the region. Yet she has to live in constant fear of being declared a foreigner and jailed or, heaven forbid, even deported to Bangladesh.
Far in the east, around 400 km away, in middle Assam's Moirabari, a Muslim majority village in Morigaon district, 50-year-old Durga Prasad Kanu, a daily wage earner, received a notice from the local police on June 7, asking his entire family to
