In addition, AASU’s various office-bearers and advisers have, some with undue haste and others with greater dignity, jumped over to the AGP or other political groups to contest elections to Parliament and the State legislature. In the process, they and the AGP have struck tacit deals with immigrant communities, standing their earlier theology on its head and creating further twists in an already convoluted situation.

The Indian Election Commission’s proposal that all voters will have to identify themselves before they are allowed to cast their vote is also another step that will secure the value of the vote and identity of an Indian citizen. Until the Election Commission distributes its comprehensive Identity Card among all voters, and this will, take a number of years to happen, given the high costs involved, it should be compulsory for voters to carry a substitute proof of their identity—passport, ration card, electricity bill or telephone bill confirming their address—at the time of elections.13 Tamper-proof Identity Cards have now covered 65 per cent of the country’s electorate.

The Delhi High Court also has ruled that a person cannot claim citizenship merely on the basis of a voter’s Identity Card or a ration card. In a ruling, on the pleas of eight residents of Yamuna Pustha in East Delhi (remember the explosion of violence against the deportation drive of the summer of 2000), Justice R.S. Sodhi said that the issue of a ration card or voters identity card ‘does not ipso facto confer citizenship.’ Justice Sodhi added that that citizenship could be conferred only under the existing laws.

There clearly needs to be a mix of several policy formulae that can defuse the situation and be practicabte enough to implement. The following is a checklist of ‘doable’ programmes which could transform the region.