Lawyer Aman Wadud desires to be the voice of his individuals and alter the narrative.
| Photo Credit: Special association
When the first checklist of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was launched in Assam in 2018, it excluded four million residents. They needed to reapply to be included and submit their biometrics. That day, lawyer Aman Wadud obtained a name from a 77-year-old Bengali Hindu retired professor in search of assist.
Wadud, 38, defends these Indians with lengthy household histories on this nation, who wrestle to show their citizenship in Assam’s quasi authorized ‘Foreigners Tribunals’.
It is basically because of individuals like Wadud that we first realised one thing deeply problematic was occurring in the border state. When he helped launch Moinal Molla after 2 years, 11 months and 29 days of detention, he posted a picture of the frail guide binder with the caption: ‘Moinal Molla’s Long Walk to Freedom’. “By then I had read Nelson Mandela, and the post went viral,” he stated.
He launched a wider viewers to a dystopian world the place the most marginalised had been labelled ‘Bangladeshis’ or ‘D (doubtful) voters’ for the tiniest discrepancies of their rigorously preserved id paperwork; and ‘detention centres’ the place individuals had been summarily taken after being declared ‘illegal migrants’, and the place they stayed for years, estranged from households. In 2018, the Central authorities commissioned the nation’s largest 15.5 acre Matia ‘transit camp’ in Assam. It opened final yr.
People’s rights
Now, after a decade of fighting a whole lot of citizenship circumstances professional bono, Wadud desires to “play a bigger role” and fights all sorts of constitutional legislation circumstances. He has joined the Indian National Congress and was lately appointed joint convenor of the social gathering’s management improvement mission in Assam.
It all has to do with a thought that struck him when the professor referred to as. Wadud informed the gent that the nation’s high court docket had ratified the NRC course of and that, if he was on the checklist, he had no possibility however to submit his biometrics. “There was a pause, his voice choked, he broke down, saying ‘it hurts my dignity, I cannot submit my biometrics’. He said this repeatedly and it made me think, in the 4-5 years I had been working for citizenship, no one had spoken about dignity.”
Wadud requested shoppers who had been launched from detention centres how the ordeal had made them really feel. They listed anger, despair, resignation. Some considered it as a take a look at from god. “They didn’t speak about the indignity they faced,” Wadud stated. “The professor had articulated his thoughts in a way I hadn’t heard before.”
That’s round the time he started speaking to individuals about how the state was violating their dignity. “It’s important to talk about constitutional rights to people, they are still very ignorant about their rights,” he added. Wadud’s ideology is greatest encapsulated in the one-pager that’s our Preamble.
Foray into politics
Looking again at his personal life, Wadud noticed many factors the place his dignity had been attacked. Like the time a classmate in Guwahati referred to as his teenage self a Bangladeshi. “It was an expression of indignity, to show me I’m not equal, I don’t have the same rights as other students in that class. That I’m different, even without committing any wrong,” he stated. When he moved to Bengaluru in 2005 to check legislation, he spent a big chunk of his cash in the metropolis’s bookstores, studying Nehru, Gandhi, Maulana Azad, Benjamin Franklin and Anne Frank.
At first, Wadud needed to be a “big shot lawyer like Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi”. But the guilt that he was not doing something to assist individuals again residence gnawed at him throughout his stint in the capital after he graduated from legislation college. “I realised I wasn’t making a difference,” he stated. “I wanted to be the voice of my people, change the narrative.” He did simply that when he returned to Assam and put faces and tales to Indians who had been being stripped of their citizenship.
When he switches on the TV, Wadud stated, he watches the dignity of Assam’s Muslims eroding. “The way elected functionaries address us is a perennial violation of our fundamental right to live with dignity. Not just detaining or accusing us as Bangladeshi, the entire discourse is very undignified,” he stated.
Politics is a distinct wrestle, one which requires monetary heft and affect. “In politics you need money and a godfather, both of which I don’t have,” he stated. “But I’m trying to make my presence felt through my work.” Wadud hopes to contest the 2026 State elections.
Every time he presents a case earlier than the Foreigners Tribunal, a thought crosses his thoughts: “What if my classmate was a police officer? Then I would have been the one defending my citizenship.”
The writer is a Bengaluru-based journalist and the co-founder of India Love Project on Instagram.