All you wanted to know about CAA and NRC and didn't know whom to ask

Terms like CAA, CAB, NPR, NRC, NRIC, UIDAI, Aadhaar and Census can sometimes be an alphabet soup. Business Standard tries to explain them with along with their background and rationale

The Indian Parliament approved the Citizenship (Amendment) Act recently and the country was thrown into a wave of protests against it. The amendment laid down criteria for who could be granted citizenship of the country. Protests have erupted against the passing of this Act and also against the creation of a National Registry of Indian Citizens (NRIC, sometimes also referred to as NRC).

On Tuesday, December 24, the Union government also approved the creation of a National Population Register (NPR). This register will be created between April and September, 2020 and the union cabinet also allocated Rs 8,500 crore for this project, which will be conducted all over India, except the state of Assam.

For those who are not familiar with the issue, various terms can often be confusing. Terms like CAA, CAB, NPR, NRC, NRIC, UIDAI, Aadhaar, Census etc can sometimes be an alphabet soup. Here, Business Standard tries to explain these terms with their background and rationale:

Census

According to the government, “Population Census is the total process of collecting, compiling, analysing or otherwise disseminating demographic, economic and social data pertaining, at a specific time, to all persons in a country or a well-defined part of a country. As such, the census provides a snapshot of the country's population and housing at a given point of time.”

It “provides information on size, distribution and socio-economic, demographic and other characteristics of the country's population.” Data collected through the Census helps the governments run the administration and formulate policies. It is used to demarcate electoral constituencies and is also used by private companies to make and alter their business plans.

Census activity in India is carried out once in ten years and the next one will be due in 2021. The Census of India provides the most comprehensive data on the entire Indian population. It is able to track the demographic changes that have taken place in the country over the last 10 years. The 2021 census will be carried out through a mobile phone application and preparations are already underway. This exercise is likely to cost Rs 12,000 crore. The first census was conducted in the year 1872 and the second in 1881. The decennial exercise has been conducted 15 times since inception.

The census is conducted by the Registrar General and the Census Commissioner of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, and all censuses since 1951 have been conducted under the Census of India Act, 1948.

National Population Register

According to the Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India, “The National Population Register (NPR) is a Register of usual residents of the country. It is being prepared at the local (Village/sub-Town), sub-District, District, State and National level under provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003. It is mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR. A usual resident is defined for the purposes of NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more.”

The NPR will collect both demographic and biometric data. The idea of creating an NPR was thought of at a Chief Ministers' conference on internal security in 2001. With the backdrop of the Kargil war in 1999, it was felt that there was a need to separate citizens from aliens. A Multi-Purpose National Identity Card was to be provided to citizens and the idea of NPR was born.

The exercise to build an NPR will be conducted along with the householding phase of the Census. The householding phase is the first phase of the Census exercise. The Office of the Registrar General of India also framed rules for this operation in 2003. This included the collection of biometrics for the MPNIC.

The NPR is to be prepared at the local, sub-district, district, state and national level.

The exercise to create an NPR got an impetus after the terrorist attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008 and this was carried out in the coastal areas.

UIDAI or Aadhaar

Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identification number issued to every resident by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). While the NPR was created to build a register of all residents of India, UIDAI’s purpose was to help streamline government spending on welfare schemes by assigning a unique number to every resident. While the NPR was launched as a mandatory programme, Aadhaar started off as a voluntary system. While NPR operated under the legal provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955, Aadhaar didn’t have legislative backing at inception.

Aadhaar and NPR

Around 2012, the UIDAI, which was collecting biometric details for Aadhaar cards, and the Registrar General of India (RGI), which was collecting biometric data for NPR, were locked in a bitter turf war as to which of the two should have the authority to collect biometric details and issue cards that would form the bedrock for identification of beneficiaries for a government scheme. At that time, UIDAI was an attached office of the then Planning Commission headed by Nandan Nilekani, while NPR was under the Home Ministry's project headed by P Chidambaram. The matter was settled by a cabinet decision in 2014 when UIDAI was given the mandate to collect biometric data in those areas also which were earlier to be covered by the NPR. In the first decision in 2012, UIDAI was given permission—and the finances—to enroll 600 million people under its Aadhaar scheme, while NPR was to collect its own data through the Registrar-General of India for the remaining 600 million people. This would have created the biometric data of all the 1.2 billion Indian residents by June 2013. Later though, UIDAI moved swiftly and now has the biometric details of over 1.22 billion people representing over 90 per cent of India's population, while NPR is believed to have collected the rest. In  a recent order, RGI has decided to use the biometric collected by UIDAI for preparing its NPR. 

National Register of Indian Citizens or NRIC

The NPR would be the building block of a National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC). To be created at the local, sub-district, district and State levels, the NRIC would be a subset of the NPR.

According to the rules, the local Registrar will verify the details of those who are part of the local register and ‘doubtful citizens’ will be identified. Such individuals will be informed about this decision and provided an opportunity to be heard before a final call is taken on including or excluding them from the NRIC. NRIC is sometimes also referred to as NRC.

After the publication of a draft NRIC, those left out will be able to appeal against the exclusion. The documents that will be accepted as evidence of citizenship have not been notified.

Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 or CAA

The Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) was passed by the Parliament on December 11, 2019. It has not been notified by a Presidential Proclamation yet. This amendment provides a path to Indian citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, Jew and Christian minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The CAA (also known as Citizenship Amendment Bill, CAB) excludes Muslims and atheists and this religious exclusion has become the reason behind the protests across India.

The NRIC exercise, carried out in Assam on the orders of the Supreme Court in 2018, excluded 1.9 million residents from the citizenship register. The CAA, 2019 was brought to provide a path to these residents but the exclusion of Muslims has become controversial as it adds a religious test to Indian citizenship.