Abracadabra! It is not one or two rabbits that came out of the magician’s hat. To be precise – over 40, 07,707. But they are human beings, most of whom are Indian citizens resident in Assam.  Now with a four million genie out (even the hard-core critics of the illegal immigration never expected such a large number) of Prateek  Hajela’s magical hat, the voyeurs were as stunned as the magician himself for Hajela’s magic was wandless. Unlike Harry Potter, he did not have an Ollivander to hand him a magical wand which chooses its master and does his bidding. 

We digressed.  For the ignoramus commoners, Hajela is the Supreme Court appointed Coordinator for the NRC update in Assam and the man who made life miserable for people with his insistence of legacy data. Now let us see what is a legacy data? According to NRC website, legacy data document is the database of that period which would be carrying the names of a very large number of persons together, admissible to prove the claim for inclusion in NRC updated for the state of Assam. One has to adduce the proof of residence in Assam of himself/herself or his/her ancestors prior to midnight of 24th March, 1971 for inclusion in NRC. As such the probability of finding one’s name or that of the ancestors would be very high here. This would be the most commonly used document.

But July 30 proved to be wrong. Four million people found their names not included despite having legacy data, names on the electoral rolls, residential proof, etc. Can the government of Assam provide the NRC 1951 intact? Have the invigilators checked up the genealogy since then. And what about the electoral rolls?  But why Hajela and his officers take so much pain since the onus of proving the citizenship was on the people like the infamous Foreigners Tribunals set up by the Hiteswar Saikia-led Congress government way back in 1983 where again the onus was on the prosecuted to prove that he is not a foreigner. The NRC draft has left much to ponder over.