'Married before 18, didn't attend school'-NRC may put many women at risk That Shorbhanu's identity got entwined with that of her husband of 30 years is not good enough now, at least not to be a part of the final draft NRC
Sipping tea between mouthfuls of muri (puffed rice), Hussain Ahmad Madani prodded his mother to respond to my queries. She interjected with “What more do I say? What is there to say?”Some silence, a faint smile – and then she mumbled to me, “We can only wait till July 30 and see what happens.”July 30 is an important day not just for Hussain’s mother Shorbhanu Nessa, but for many other women from the poorest and most disadvantaged sections of Assam, particularly those belonging to the Bengali Muslim community. On that day, the 1951 National Register of Citizens (NRC), which is being updated in the state since 2015 following a Supreme Court order, will have its final draft ready.
The NRC is being updated by the Registrar General of India as per the citizenship cutoff date of March 25, 1971, exclusive to the state, agreed by the Centre in its Accord with the students’ body All Assam Students Union to end a six-year-long antiimmigration agitation in 1985.These women are in a peculiar situation. They are rather a reflection of the position that a large section of poor women in not just Assam but in many parts of the country find themselves in, thanks to the social injustice and inequality handed out to them by a patriarchal society.Shorbhanu, mother of five grownup children, never went to school, never owned any property, never had a bank account; she was married off before she turned 18. “Everything is with my husband,” she said.That her identity got entwined with that of her husband of 30 years is not good enough now, at least not to be a part of the final draft NRC. “Because she never voted in her maiden home, she had no way to prove now that she was her father’s daughter. Her father’s legacy data is there, but she has no document to establish her linkage to him. There is no school certificate which would have mentioned his name. Her family settled in this char (a sand bar by a river in Assamese) when she was one-and-a-half years old after their char (Majarlega Char) was swallowed by the Brahmaputra. She was married off to my father in this same char. Though her father passed away, everyone in the neighbourhood knew whose daughter she was; trouble began when documentary evidence was sought by the NRC authorities to prove who her father was,” said Hussain, a sparkly young man, the first and the only one from his family to have a bachelor’s degree from a local college in Goalpara town, a few kilometres from Baladmari Char.Sitting close to Shorbhanu was her neighbour Ahatun Nessa with a tense face and fidgety fingers. She studied till Class IX in her maiden home in Sopatola in West Goalpara before she was married off in Baladmari Char. “I felt good that I could study till Class IX, unlike some women in our village but I have now realised that it is of no use as the minimum education that the NRC authorities accept is the Class X Board exam which has the date of birth and the father’s name. I don’t have it,” she related.Ahatun wanted to study further but her parents decided to marry her off, as is widely the norm in her community. Hussain added, “In her time, the voting right was granted at the age of 21, not 18 as it is now (it was lowered in 1988). In most of our families, forget 21, if a daughter is not married off before 18, she is considered old. Even today, our community has a huge problem of child marriage. So, most of the Bengali Muslim women had never voted before marriage and are now finding it very difficult to prove their maiden identity based on documents.”Among the 14 documents that the NRC sought from the state’s 3.29 crore applicants, married women like Shorbhanu and Ahatun could present only one – a certificate from the general secretary of the village panchayat identifying whose daughters they were. These certificates are countersigned by the local circle officer or the Block Development Officer (BDO). As per news reports, there are over 29 lakh such women.
ARTICLE SOURCE- BUSINESS STANDARD.