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    Millions In India Face Uncertain Future After Being Left Off Citizenship List

    The northeastern state of Assam left some 4 million people, mostly Muslims, off its citizenship register last year. At the same time, India is seeking to offer citizenship to non-Muslim foreigners.
    by Lauren Frayer May 10, 2019 6 minutes
    Tobiron Nessa, 45, is the only member of her immediate family whom the Indian government recognizes as a citizen. Her husband and five children have all been left off the National Register of Citizens even though she says all have Indian birth certificates.

    Tobiron Nessa has lived in the same impoverished village in northeast India all her life. So has her husband. They married young and raised five children, and now, at age 45, Nessa is about to become a grandmother.

    But she has suddenly found herself in an unexpected predicament: Nessa is now the only one in her immediate family whom the Indian government recognizes as a citizen. Her husband and five children have all been left off the National Register of Citizens.

    The NRC is like a census, but it has only ever been conducted in one Indian state, Assam, which borders Bangladesh and has long received immigrants from there. The NRC process began back in 1951, when Bangladesh was known as East Pakistan.

    Ever since, Indian authorities have been trying to figure out who was born in India, whose family has been living in India for generations and who might be an undocumented migrant from what is now Bangladesh.

    Indian citizenship is generally granted according to parentage rather than location of have become more stringent over the decades.

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