Matiur Rahman has been waging a legal battle against the inconsistencies that exist in India’s National Register for Citizens (NRC) regime since November 2012. Some of the questions that prompted his writ petition to the Supreme Court of India were: How could there be one standard citizenship law for the rest of India but a different one exclusively for a constituent state? Is Assam a colony of India to be governed by separate laws? Why should the state alone take the burden of immigrants?
Rahman is the President of Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha, which presents itself as a confederation of 90 organisations representing indigenous people in Assam. As things stand, the organisation’s petition is awaiting a hearing before a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court.
