Grand Tamasha

Milan speaks with Niha Masih of the Washington Post about the ongoing political drama surrounding the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. Nearly 33 million residents of Assam applied to have their names included on the register, which was intended to distinguish between who was a legitimate resident of the state of the Assam and who was an illegal migrant from Bangladesh. When the list finally came out in late August, nearly 2 million people discovered that their names were left off the list--calling their citizenship status into question. Niha recently spent time on the ground in Assam and she and Milan discuss the history of the NRC process, its contested implementation, and the political color it has taken on in recent years. The two also debate the political implications of the registry for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the fate of the millions whose names did not appear on the revised list.