One minute read. Written by a grade 5 student

NRC stands for, The National Register of Citizens (NRC). Think of it like your school register which has all the names of the students (yes, this one is waaaayy bigger, but you get the idea). It contains names of all Indian citizens.

As of now, only the state of Assam has such a register, which has a list of Indian citizens in that state. The updating of this register began in 2013. There are about 33 million people in Assam and they have to now prove that they are Indian citizens. The final list came out on
31st August. In this about 2 million people did not find their names.

You might ask – how do people prove that they have been living there? Especially if they are poor and have no papers. The government laid out a few ways, but the main way was to prove that their names were in the first NRC (which was made in 1951), or to have been on any voter list in Assam up to March 24, 1971.

The other ways were things like showing some documents – like such as refugee registration certificate, birth certificate, LIC policy, land and tenancy records, citizenship certificate, passport, government issued licence or certificate, bank/post office accounts, permanent residential certificate, government employment certificate etc.

A quick history about the NRC – it was created in 1951 with the idea of identifying Indian citizens in Assam because there were many people coming to India from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Apart from Assam, Manipur and Tripura were also supposed to create their own NRCs, but that never happened.

There are now talks of creating an NRC in other states too. The government is planning to create a National Population Register (NPR), which will contain demographic and biometric details of all Indian citizens.

WORDS TO KNOW:

Biometric: The measurement and statistical analysis of people’s unique physical and behavioral characteristics. The technology is mainly used for identification (like when they take your finger print during making the Adhaar)