Indians or not Indians? | Inside Story

Published on 1 Sep 2019

Imagine living in a country all your life, and then being told you're not a citizen there. That's what nearly two million people are suddenly facing today in India. They've been excluded from a list of citizens in the northeastern state of Assam, in a process the government says will "weed out" illegal immigrants. Critics say it's an attempt to deport millions of Muslims who make up a third of the state's population. Those excluded now have three months to prove they're not foreigners, or face detention. The National Register of Citizens was first created in 1951 to determine who came to the state, before neighbouring Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan. So is it a means of cracking down on illegal migrants? Or just a ploy to target Muslims? And how much, is just playing politics? Presenter: Hazem Sika Guests: Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty, Deputy Editor of the the Wire. Desh Ratan Nigam, legal political analyst. Ronan Lee, Visiting scholar at Queen Mary University of London's International State Crime Initiative. Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglish Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera Check our website: http://www.aljazeera.com/ #Aljazeeraenglish #News #InsideStory #India