New Delhi: All Muslim festivals — Ramazan, Milad un-Nabi or Muharram — have gone missing from the list of Indian festivals in the manual of the National Population Register (NPR). This may spark another controversy around NPR, as it is already perceived by some sections that this data will be used for the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The NPR manual has an annexure on “Important Festivals corresponding to English/Gregorian Months.” This section also lists the major festivals and national holidays observed in India belonging to various religions, but the list does not contain any Muslim festival.
The list has festivals like Mahavir Jayanti, Good Friday, Christmas, Guru Nanak Jayanti, Guru Gobind Singh Jayanti and Budh Purnima which belong to the Jain, Sikh, Christian and Buddhist religions, but Muslim festivals are absent from the list.
Apart from these, all Hindu festivals, regional festivals and national holidays have been included in the list.