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Law and Justice | Meet Aman Wadud, a human rights lawyer assisting people to fight citizenship battle in Assam -Mahibul Hoque

Meet Aman Wadud, a human rights lawyer assisting people to fight citizenship battle in Assam -Mahibul Hoque

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published Published on Jun 5, 2021   modified Modified on Jun 7, 2021

-TwoCircles.net

While the Constitution of India ensures the fundamental rights and dignity of every individual, in Assam thousands of people are fighting the legal battle for citizenship. To fight these legal cases and to communicate the Constitutional rights, Guwahati based human rights lawyer Aman Wadud has been leading the initiative called Samvidhan Kendra or Constitution Centres in various parts of Assam. A TCN Ground Report features the lawyer and his work.

GUWAHATI – “However good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot. The Constitution can provide only the organs of the State such as the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the State depends are the people and the political parties they will set up as their instruments to carry out their wishes and their politics.” This is how Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar had warned about the working of the Constitution during his Constituent Assembly speech. The fear expressed by Ambedkar has long turned out to be true for lakhs of Bengali origin people of Assam.

The categories like D-voter or doubtful voter and ‘declared foreigners of many genuine citizens existing in Assam— have particularly reinforced Ambedkar’s fearful assumption and also exposed the lot that has worked the Constitution in the state. This has led to the disenfranchisement of 3.15 lakh people from electoral rolls and more than 1.35 lakh people were declared foreigners by the foreign tribunals.

Foreigners tribunals or FTs are quasi-judicial bodies that have the power to give their opinion on the cases of doubtful citizens and issue an order declaring the citizenship status of the accused person in Assam. There are 100 FTs in Assam to hear the doubtful citizens cases and its members comprise mostly lawyers with ten years of experience from district courts.

At the receiving end of the wrath of ethno-nationalistic anger have been mostly the marginal communities from the state— Muslims and Hindus of Assam with Bengali origins. The anger towards these communities led to the rise of the dubious categories in the scenic, diverse, resource-rich and fertile north-eastern Indian state.

As a result, hundreds of the poor people, generally illiterate, from the migrant communities who have migrated to the state more than a century ago from parts of undivided India find themselves entangled in a legal battle that essentially questions their existence as equal citizens with unique identities.

Legal recourse to injustice

While the Constitution of India ensures the fundamental rights and dignity of every individual, thousands of people in Assam are fighting the legal battle for citizenship. To fight these legal cases and to communicate the Constitutional rights, Guwahati based human rights lawyer Aman Wadud has been leading the initiative called Samvidhan Kendra or Constitution Centres in various parts of Assam.

“This is not just a socio-political problem, but also a legal problem. Many of us may be pejoratively called Bangladeshi, but we are not the real victims. The real victims are those people whose citizenship has been questioned, who are running around to prove their citizenship by selling their cattle, property and lifetime savings. People whose families have been destroyed are the real victims, Aman told TwoCircles.net as he pointed out that though the Constitution provides legal agency to everyone irrespective of their social, political, cultural and educational status, there has been a gap in the form of realising the values of India’s foundational document.

“Constitution has been reduced to a very complex document, which is generally read by the lawyers or judges. But it is meant for people and it is meant for everyone. So how do we take this to the people and bridge the gap? That is how began the initiative of Samvidhan Kendras,” Aman added.

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TwoCircles.net, 5 June, 2021, http://twocircles.net/2021jun05/442490.html?fbclid=IwAR10gmGrKnbFyOerq8e7HnmgChYKeEiwEKjPJyGamLmrK9EyTRjzpQIVYUU


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