On Tuesday evening, Nani Gopal Mahanta picked up his phone and sent a text message to a number provided by the government of Assam, in northeast India. Within three seconds, he received a response—a quick confirmation, Mr Mahanta joked, “that I am not a Bangladeshi.”
Mr Mahanta, a political scientist at Gauhati University in Guwahati, Assam’s biggest city, was checking to see if his name had been included in the state’s Register of Citizens, the first draft of which was released on New Year’s Day.
The draft is intended to identify illegal migrants from Bangladesh—people who crossed the border into Assam without permission after March 25, 1971, as well as their descendants, who have continued to live on in the state.
Descendants of illegal migrants are considered illegal in India. Even the children of legal residents don’t automatically qualify for Indian citizenship.
The 1971 date was fixed by the Assam Accord of 1985; on March 26, 1971, Pakistan had begun a military crackdown in what was then East Pakistan, now called Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis—nearly all of them Muslim—streamed into Assam during the crackdown and in the following years, stoking fear and hostility among the Assamese.
In November 2016, Kiren Rijiju, India’s junior home minister, said that roughly 20 million Bangladeshis live across India without legal residency permits. But there are no reliable estimates for the number of Bangladeshis living illegally in Assam.
By signing the Assam Accord and pledging to turn out illegal migrants, Rajiv Gandhi, then India’s prime minister, thought he was allaying Assamese resentment towards Bangladeshis taking local jobs and resources. But decades went by, and still successive governments failed to compile lists of citizens and legal residents, as promised by the Accord.
In 2014, however, the Supreme Court responded to petitions from the public and instructed the federal and state governments to begin the process of enumeration outlined by the Accord. Roughly 4,200 centres were set up across the state, to which people could bring their “legacy documents”— documentary proof that they or their families lived in Assam before 1971, or that they had come to Assam from elsewhere in India.
Of the 33 million people living in Assam, only 19 million people found their names in the first draft of the Register.
Pratik Haleja, the state’s coordinator for this project, urged people not to panic. His own name was missing from the first draft, he said on Tuesday. “People like us, whose names are not there, don’t have to do anything,” he told journalists. “The names are not there because this is a work in progress. The verification process is still on.”
This draft is only the first of several phases, Mr Mahanta told The National. "There will be more drafts, more phases. After all, this is a gigantic exercise, so it will take time. The final list is likely to come out only by the middle of next year."
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The process was sure to be time-consuming, Mr Mahanta said, in part because of the complicated nature of establishing legal residency. The rich are able to provide land-ownership records; families living in Assam for generations are able to point to old electoral rolls.
But people who have moved to Assam from elsewhere in India and who do not possess key citizenship documents like passports have to show records of their families living elsewhere.
“Some people claim that their parents once lived in Uttar Pradesh or Mumbai, for example,” Mr Mahanta said. “The Assamese government then contacts those state’s authorities to double-check these claims. Many of these authorities have not responded yet.”
But for Kishalay Bhattacharjee, the vast shortfall of names in the first draft of the Register shows how the very process of enrolment and identification is broken.
Mr Bhattacharjee, a national security expert and an associate professor at O. P. Jindal University in Sonipat, near Delhi, had once lived in Assam himself. He even owns a house there, which he purchased a couple of decades ago.
When enrolment into the Register began, he tried to find out, almost as an experiment, if he could get his name into it. “I found out I couldn’t do it. I didn’t fit the criteria that the Register demands,” he said. “So now I’m not even sure what happens to my property rights, given I still own that house.”
The majority of people, not only in Assam but across India, don’t have passports or old deeds to property, Mr Bhattacharjee pointed out. Other methods of establishing “legacy” are also dysfunctional. “They ask you to prove if you or your father voted in Assam before 1971,” he said. “But electoral rolls often miss out names. We know this. It happens all the time. So how on earth will you prove it?”
A further problem, Mr Bhattacharjee said, was the question of what will happen after the Register is completed.
“Say you find out that you have 800,000 or 900,000 people who are Bangladeshis, for example,” he said. “What are you going to do with them? You can’t deport them, because for that Bangladesh has to agree to take them back.”
At least 2,000 people suspected of being illegal migrants are being held in Assam’s six detention centres at the moment. “You can’t fill these detention centres with all these hundreds of thousands of newly identified Bangladeshis also,” Mr Bhattacharjee said.
“There’s no clear answer,” he said. “I would really like to stand in front of the Supreme Court and ask: ‘What is your Plan B here?’”
MATCH INFO
Qalandars 109-3 (10ovs)
Salt 30, Malan 24, Trego 23, Jayasuriya 2-14
Bangla Tigers (9.4ovs)
Fletcher 52, Rossouw 31
Bangla Tigers win by six wickets
MATCH INFO
Championship play-offs, second legs:
Aston Villa 0
Middlesbrough 0
(Aston Villa advance 1-0 on aggregate)
Fulham 2
Sessegnon (47'), Odoi (66')
Derby County 0
(Fulham advance 2-1 on aggregate)
Final
Saturday, May 26, Wembley. Kick off 8pm (UAE)
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Dubai World Cup Carnival card
6.30pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-2 Group 1 (PA) US$75,000 (Dirt) 1,900m
7.05pm: Al Rashidiya Group 2 (TB) $250,000 (Turf) 1,800m
7.40pm: Meydan Cup Listed Handicap (TB) $175,000 (T) 2,810m
8.15pm: Handicap (TB) $175,000 (D) 1,600m
8.50pm: Handicap (TB) $135,000 (T) 1,600m
9.25pm: Al Shindagha Sprint Group 3 (TB) $200,000 (D) 1,200m
10pm: Handicap (TB) $135,000 (T) 2,000m
The National selections:
6.30pm - Ziyadd; 7.05pm - Barney Roy; 7.40pm - Dee Ex Bee; 8.15pm - Dubai Legacy; 8.50pm - Good Fortune; 9.25pm - Drafted; 10pm - Simsir
MATCH INFO
Manchester City 4 (Gundogan 8' (P), Bernardo Silva 19', Jesus 72', 75')
Fulham 0
Red cards: Tim Ream (Fulham)
Man of the Match: Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City)
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-finals, second leg:
Liverpool (0) v Barcelona (3), Tuesday, 11pm UAE
Game is on BeIN Sports
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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The Cairo Statement
1: Commit to countering all types of terrorism and extremism in all their manifestations
2: Denounce violence and the rhetoric of hatred
3: Adhere to the full compliance with the Riyadh accord of 2014 and the subsequent meeting and executive procedures approved in 2014 by the GCC
4: Comply with all recommendations of the Summit between the US and Muslim countries held in May 2017 in Saudi Arabia.
5: Refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of countries and of supporting rogue entities.
6: Carry out the responsibility of all the countries with the international community to counter all manifestations of extremism and terrorism that threaten international peace and security
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What is Folia?
Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed bin Talal's new plant-based menu will launch at Four Seasons hotels in Dubai this November. A desire to cater to people looking for clean, healthy meals beyond green salad is what inspired Prince Khaled and American celebrity chef Matthew Kenney to create Folia. The word means "from the leaves" in Latin, and the exclusive menu offers fine plant-based cuisine across Four Seasons properties in Los Angeles, Bahrain and, soon, Dubai.
Kenney specialises in vegan cuisine and is the founder of Plant Food Wine and 20 other restaurants worldwide. "I’ve always appreciated Matthew’s work," says the Saudi royal. "He has a singular culinary talent and his approach to plant-based dining is prescient and unrivalled. I was a fan of his long before we established our professional relationship."
Folia first launched at The Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills in July 2018. It is available at the poolside Cabana Restaurant and for in-room dining across the property, as well as in its private event space. The food is vibrant and colourful, full of fresh dishes such as the hearts of palm ceviche with California fruit, vegetables and edible flowers; green hearb tacos filled with roasted squash and king oyster barbacoa; and a savoury coconut cream pie with macadamia crust.
In March 2019, the Folia menu reached Gulf shores, as it was introduced at the Four Seasons Hotel Bahrain Bay, where it is served at the Bay View Lounge. Next, on Tuesday, November 1 – also known as World Vegan Day – it will come to the UAE, to the Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach and the Four Seasons DIFC, both properties Prince Khaled has spent "considerable time at and love".
There are also plans to take Folia to several more locations throughout the Middle East and Europe.
While health-conscious diners will be attracted to the concept, Prince Khaled is careful to stress Folia is "not meant for a specific subset of customers. It is meant for everyone who wants a culinary experience without the negative impact that eating out so often comes with."
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
