The headmaster of a village school in Murshidabad called the parents of students to a meeting to quell their fears about the new citizenship matrix and make them aware of their rights.

The meeting at Laskarpur High School, 50km from Behrampore, was prompted by the parents’ anxiety reflected in many of the students.

Around 350 people from as many as 10 villages, some of them around 7km away, attended the meeting. Many of those who turned up had to forego a day’s earning.

The area has a significant number of Muslims and the men are either masons or poor farmers, while women roll bidis at home.

“The area is backward with little education and it is important to make the people aware of their rights as citizens. For so many years, there was no need to cry out loud that we are Indians or to prove our citizenship. But now, because of CAA and NRC, there is a need for discussions because people are scared,” said Mohammad Jahangir Alam, the headmaster.

The villagers are scared because their documents might have been washed away in a flood. They are scared because several of their documents have discrepancies in names or spellings. They are also scared because they are Muslims and they are poor.

“The fear has moved out of homes and into playgrounds and classrooms. Children not more than 10 years old are chanting azaadi as they play and the senior students are talking about how harassed their parents are because their names are spelt differently in the documents,” said Alam, the self-effacing headmaster who did not want to be photographed.

The programme — Aamar desh, aamar adhikaar (My country, my rights) — focused on the rights of the people to health, education, protection and vote in an atmosphere of fear.

A lawyer, teachers and a filmmaker addressed the meeting. But many questions remained unanswered and much of the fear could not be assuaged. The predominant fear was of being sent to detention camps or voting rights being taken away.

The headmaster spoke about patriotism. “We all are citizens of this country, live in this country and are part of this nation. Patriotism does not come from chanting slogans. Patriotism is doing your work sincerely. Patriotism, for me, is helping a blind person cross the road because that is fellow feeling or picking up a nail from the middle of the road so that it does not hurt anyone,” Alam said.

There was an attempt to instil confidence in the people. “One weapon we as citizens have is the voting right and we have to exercise that right in the 2021 elections,” said a teacher at the meeting.

The villagers were advised to get anomalies, if any, in the identity documents rectified. “We will not show the papers but our papers should be correct and error-free,” said Abul Kashem, 52, a farmer.

“Some of my documents got lost in a flood. I can’t even work properly because all the while there is just one fear in my mind,” said Abdul Hai, 70.