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Guwahati, Sep 25 : 39-year-old Nur Jahan hailing from Mangaldoi area in Assam’s Darrang district didn’t find her name in the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) published on July 30 last.
Nur Jahan living in Guwahati since past two decades, but she didn’t find her name in the complete draft of NRC.
She is not the only transgender who didn’t find name in the list, there are around 20,000 other transgender in Assam who didn’t make it to the NRC.
Nur Jahan, Mahima Hazarika, Jasmine and many others among the 40 lakh people whose names were not included in the complete draft of NRC.
The complete draft of NRC was published on July 30 by including the names of 2.89 crore people out of 3.29 crore applicants.
While, the process of claims and objections of NRC has been started from today across the state by giving another opportunity to the 40 lakh people to make it, 20,000 transgender of Assam are facing lots of problem for inclusion their names in the NRC.
The 20,000 strong transgender community of Assam had applied for the NRC, but they didn’t able to find their names in the draft NRC.
Nur Jahan is now living with others at South Sarania area in the capital city of Assam, left her home while her family members and other people avoided her.
Nur Jahan said that, they are genuine Indian citizens, not illegal foreigners.
“I came to Guwahati in 1998 and spent 13 years in Delhi. We did not find our names in the draft NRC. We appeal to the government to make it for the transgender. We are not Bangladeshi (illegal foreigner), we are Indian citizen. My father, grandfather was born in Assam,” Nur Jahan said.
Mahima Hazarika, another transgender hailing from upper Assam’s Sivasagar district who didn’t find her name in the draft NRC.
Mahima also appealed the government to take necessary action for inclusion the names of transgender in the NRC.
“We demanded, all transgender names should be included in the NRC. We are also a part of the society. We are not different. We want to live in our society,” Mahima said.
There were three options – male, female and others in the NRC application and the transgenders of Assam applied in the others community.
But the documents like birth certificates that the some transgenders submitted mentioned them as either male or female which created some issues.
Swati Bidhan Baruah, first transgender judge in Assam said that, Assam has a population of 20,000 transgenders and some of them failed to apply in the NRC. Major parts of the transgenders had applied, but they didn’t find their names.
“The principles and criteria set by the NRC authorities for the NRC updation process led the entire community into a paralysis situation. Due to the criteria such as documents before 1971, bank passbook and other family relationship documents, that has created a paralysis situation, because most of transgender has been abandoned by the parents, family members. So they could not go back to their homes,” Swati said.
The transgender community of Assam still hope that, some norms of the NRC will be relaxed for them and they will be included their names in the final NRC.
(By Hemanta Kumar Nath, Guwahati)
