Suffering in Silence: A Visual Retrospective of NRC in Assam

By Vishal Arora

March 21, 2026

More than seven years after the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise concluded in Assam, the issue continues to appear in political debate across the country. The Election Commission (EC)’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has drawn comparisons with the NRC, although the Commission rejects those claims. This mini-documentary, filmed in Assam in 2018, captures the effects of the NRC on people living through the process at that time.

The NRC exercise in Assam took place between 2015 and 2019. Residents had to submit documents proving that they or their ancestors were present in India before midnight of 24 March 1971. Individuals who could not establish this connection faced the risk of exclusion from the citizenship register and possible legal proceedings.

The final NRC included about 31.1 million (3.11 crore) people, while around 1.9 million (19 lakh) applicants were left out of the citizenship register after verification of documents and claims. There were reports of arrests and deaths by suicide allegedly linked to the citizenship verification process. People declared foreigners by Foreigners Tribunals were taken into custody and held in detention centres under the Foreigners Act.

The NRC process affected both Bengali Muslims and Bengali Hindus, although public debate focused more heavily on the former. Many Bengali Muslims, whose families migrated to Assam over decades, faced scrutiny during the verification process and many were allegedly excluded from the final list due to difficulties in producing legacy and linkage documents. Many Bengali Hindus also appeared among those excluded from the register.

Discussion about the NRC continues during debates over the EC’s SIR, a process being conducted to update and verify voter lists of all citizens across the country. Local election officials are conducting house-to-house verification of voters, which involves checking existing entries, adding new voters, removing names of people who have died or moved away, and identifying entries considered ineligible. Unlike routine annual revisions of voter lists, the exercise involves deeper verification and may require voters to provide documents confirming their identity, residence or eligibility.

Although the NRC determines citizenship while electoral roll revisions deal with voting eligibility, the overlapping concern about documentation and eligibility has brought the two processes into the same national conversation.

Besides, the idea of a nationwide NRC gained attention in 2019 through statements made by senior leaders of the Union government. While the public messaging changed later, the idea continues to influence national politics.