'Married before 18, didn't attend school': NRC may put many women at risk

Sipping tea between mouthfuls of muri (puffed rice), Hussain Ahmad Madani prodded his mother to respond to my queries. She interjected with “What more do I say? What is there to say?”

Some silence, a faint smile – and then she mumbled to me, “We can only wait till July 30 and see what happens.”

July 30 is an important day not just for Hussain’s mother Shorbhanu Nessa, but for many other women from the poorest and most disadvantaged sections of Assam, particularly those belonging to the Bengali Muslim community. On that day, the 1951 National Register of Citizens (NRC), which is being updated in the state since 2015 following a Supreme Court order, will have its final draft ready. The NRC is being updated by the Registrar General of India as per the citizenship cut-off date of March 25, 1971, exclusive to the state, agreed by the Centre in its Accord with the students’ body All Assam Students Union to end a six-year-long anti-immigration agitation in 1985.