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‘Foreigners’, friends: Lost narratives from Assam’s several citizenship determination processes

In Assam’s several citizenship determination processes, some narratives are lost — like that of the Gorkhas, despite a notification declaring them as Indians. And like that of Tara and Maya, now forever bound by two months together at a detention centre

citizenship bill, assam, assam news, gorkhas, citizenship bill protest, detention centre, indian express Meeting the first time after jail, Tara and Maya realised they lived an hour away from each other. (Express Photo: Tora Agarwala)

It was on a July morning, outside the Foreigners’ Tribunal (FT) housed in a pleasant-looking Assam-type cottage in Golaghat, that they first met. Maya, the younger of the two, was short and fair. Tara was almost a foot taller, and frail. Maya was talkative; Tara quiet. Maya liked to sing; Tara liked to cook. But the two women had one thing in common —both had stepped out of their respective villages in Assam’s Golaghat district only once in their lives: as gabhoru (pubescent) girls to visit the Kamakhya temple in Guwahati. And, as they discovered that morning in July 2017, both were suspected foreigners, ‘D-Voters’ or ‘doubtful voters’, living illegally in India, in the eye of the law.

Weeks passed and the two would meet whenever a ‘taarikh’ or a ‘date’ with the FT got them together. Tara would be often accompanied by husband Bipul, a ‘D-Voter’ himself. Maya’s husband never came. Then, one day, Tara recalls, Maya didn’t turn up. “I thought I would never see her again,” says Tara.

A month later, the two met in jail.

citizenship bill, assam, assam news, gorkhas, citizenship bill protest, detention centre, indian express Tara and Maya (above, below) at Maya’s home in Sitalmari in Golaghat. (Express Photo: Tora Agarwala)

Like the five other detention centres in Assam meant for foreigners, or those who had “illegally entered after 1971”, the womens’ wing in Jorhat District Jail too was packed with detainees — toddlers with nursing mothers, middle-aged women and some so old they couldn’t stand up straight.

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The first night, Tara remembers crying herself to sleep, on a blanket on the floor, near a toilet. The next morning, among the hundreds of unfamiliar faces, she recognised one. “It was Maya from the FT,” says Tara. Maya, who had been in the jail for almost a month, showed her around: where to wash up, how to get to the toilets the quickest, and most importantly, whom not to anger. “The women would fight, about space, soap, beds, buckets, whatnot,” says Maya.

As Tara and she talked, often the conversation veered around to their families. “Maya would tell me about her husband who had left her, about how she sent her seven-year-old to school that morning, not knowing she would be picked up hours later,” says Tara. “And I would speak about my sons — how one had dropped out of school, how worried I was about home.”

Festive offer

Other days would pass in complete silence. “I would cry, she would console me. Then, she would cry, and I would console her,” says Maya. On several occasions, other suspected foreigners would pick on the meek Tara, 47, who would often fall ill. And Maya, 10 years younger, would come to the rescue. “When Maya gets angry she shouts, when I get angry, I cry,” says Tara. Soon, they became best friends, inseparable through the day, parting only at night to go sleep in their respective halls.

But what the two women — neither of whom has ever gone to school — could never figure out was why they were in jail at all. On Tara’s first night, someone told her it was because she was a “Bangladeshi”. She had never heard of the word. Neither had Maya.

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Masti Maya Limbu and Tara Devi Chettri are both Gorkhas — a Nepali-origin community who first came to India in the early 1800s to serve as soldiers in the British Army. Their descendants, largely concentrated in West Bengal and Sikkim, were deemed legal citizens of India through a notification by the Home Ministry on August 23, 1988.

Assam has about 20-22 lakh Gorkhas as per their apex body, the Assam Gorkha Sammelan. In July 2018, the community, greatly affected by the National Register of Citizens (NRC) updation process — around 1.5 lakh Gorkhas are estimated to have been excluded from the first NRC draft, out of whom around 50,000 were marked ‘D’ voters — sent a representation of the All Assam Gorkha Students’ Union (AAGSU) to Home Minister Rajnath Singh. On September 24, the Home Ministry issued a notification that no Gorkhas in Assam can be treated as illegal migrants, neither could they be referred to FTs.

Yet, in the five months that have followed, the situation remains the same on the ground. “Gorkhas are still being served notices from FTs — three as recently as January 24,” says AAGSU vice-president Prem Newar.

He regrets that it is smaller communities like theirs whose narratives get lost in the whole citizenship tangle in Assam. Apart from the Gorkhas, many Hindi-speaking communities are also affected by Assam’s various citizenship determination processes.

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“It is sad. The Gorkhas of Assam are often referred to as India’s pride,” says Newar. “Despite that, we are considered suspects.”

The AAGSU’s legal advisor, who didn’t want to be named, says, “Firstly the Home Ministry notification itself is a little defective. It should have been kept simple and stated that Gorkhas/Nepalis from a specified territory (Bangladesh) don’t fall under the ambit of the citizenship tests. Instead it is long-winded and goes into explaining who is a Gorkha and who a Nepali. Also, following the notification, the state government should have filed an affidavit and made this clear.”

He claims that a person called Dilip Chettri has been lodged in the Goalpara Detention Centre since 2016. “Not many people are even aware of him.”

The Sunday Express reached out to officials on the issue, but all declined comment.

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Newar talks about 48-year-old Tanka Maya Newar of Samrang village, who was declared a ‘foreigner’ by an FT in Udalguri in November. “Someone like her, who is currently on the run, probably does not even know which latitudes Bangladesh lies in,” he says.

Tara and Maya too, till date, think Bangladeshi is a word for “someone who does not have documents”. Both remain unaware that Bangladesh is a country, not very far away, sharing a border with their own.

In August 2018, after two months in jail, Tara was released on bail. “One gets to leave jail as suddenly as one enters it — without warning,” says Tara, sitting on the porch outside her home in her village Basapather in Golaghat. Her husband Bipul — declared Indian the same day she was declared foreigner — is working in the fields at a distance, where the Doyang river flows.

Her elder son now works as a security guard in Bengaluru, while the younger one, after dropping out of school, helps out in their farm.

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Once she returned home, Tara says, she often rued that she did not get to say goodbye to Maya. “But I knew she had to be alright. She’s a Limbu (a line of Gorkhas known to be especially courageous). She can fight anyone.”

Maya too missed her friend in jail. “After Tara left, I had no one to share my pain with. No one to exchange my milk for my red tea. I kept waiting, thinking maybe she would visit me one day,” says Maya. But Tara never came.

Last month, on January 25, Maya was released on bail too, courtesy the September notification from the Home Ministry.

In February, Tara and Maya met again, at the latter’s home in Sitalmari. Their villages, they realised, were just an hour away from each other’s, the same Doyang flowing metres from their front doors. “For people like us, that is still a long distance to cover,” says Tara, who teared up on seeing Maya.

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“I was angry because I thought she had forgotten me,” says Maya. “But after seeing her, how could I be angry?”

Maya filled in Tara about those who had got out of jail, and those who remained.

Tara says they also realised their lives would never be the same again. Tara doesn’t like to cook anymore, and says Maya looked very different from when she first met her. “She was so healthy and beautiful then.”

As per their bail orders, Tara and Maya have to appear before the authorities at Golaghat on fixed dates till they are officially declared Indians. They compared their next taarikh. It was the same: February 10.

They smiled. It was a date.

First uploaded on: 17-02-2019 at 00:44 IST
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