AMIT SHAH'S
DEFENCE OF CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT BILL 2019 SHAMES EVEN GOEBBELS
The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 (CAB) that promises
to open the door for Indian nationality to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians
and Parsis who got into India (on or before December 31, 2014) from
Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, facing religious persecution, was introduced
in the Lok Sabha by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah on December 9, 2019. This bill transgressing the fundamental soul
of the democratic-secular polity of the country was passed in less than 8 hours
due to RSS/BJP rulers enjoying brute majority in Lok Sabha. Sadly, it happened
on the eve of International Human Rights Day, the 10th December. It would
replace the Citizenship Act, 1955 which made no such distinction. It was passed
by Rajya Sabha on December 12.
It is not difficult to understand that it is the
first step in the direction of bringing in a more monstrous law for
scrutinizing citizenship of all existing Indian citizens. The NRC exercise is
going to play havoc with crores of Indians specially marginalized and Muslims.
Let us examine the Amit Shah's defence of this Bill in the Indian Parliament and outside one by one.
Let us examine the Amit Shah's defence of this Bill in the Indian Parliament and outside one by one.
(1) CAB attempts
to bury the democratic-secular Constitution of India
Shah while piloting the Bill in Lok Sabha declared
that it was in accordance with the Indian Constitution as "the
Constitution is our religion." PM who abstained from the House due to
election engagement in Jharkhand reposed full faith in Amit Shah by declaring
that “This bill is in line with India’s centuries old ethos of assimilation and
belief in humanitarian values”. [https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/citizenship-bill-clears-lok-sabha-after-fierce-rights-debate/story-iW8bp1uexLNaStZvhwqwFN.html]
These are shameless lies. This bill, first of its kind
in independent India, sanctions balatant violation of the secular Constitution
of India. Secularism has been declared as one of the 'basic structure' by the
Supreme Court of India. This bill claims that it is an amendment to the
existing citizenship law, Citizenship Act of 1955. However,
it is against the existing law as under this Act Indian citizenship could be
acquired by birth, descent, registration, naturalization or incorporation of
territory. Thus the present bill violates the secular character
of the Indian Constitution which was declared to be one of the four inviolable
pillars of the polity.
(2) It is part
of global anti-Muslim polarizing agenda of RSS
Amit Shah while presenting this bill declared that
it was not against minorities. According to him, "under PM Narendra Modi
no minority needs to be afraid". [https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/citizenship-bill-clears-lok-sabha-after-fierce-rights-debate/story-iW8bp1uexLNaStZvhwqwFN.html]
He seemed to be a large-hearted home minister who would welcome all "Those
who come here due to persecution, to save their religion and honour of the
women of their family..." [Ibid] The humanitarian Amit Shah argued “If
minorities are getting persecuted in neighbouring countries, we cannot be mute
spectators. We have to ensure their safety and dignity”. [https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/citizenship-bill-clears-lok-sabha-after-fierce-rights-debate/story-iW8bp1uexLNaStZvhwqwFN.html]
However, his claims fall flat on the ground when we
read the bill. Persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists,
Christians and Parsis in Afghanistan, Pakistan and
Bangladesh are welcome but persecuted Muslims like Shias, Ahmedyas and Sufis not
eligible for this offer. According to RSS/BJP rulers persecuted Muslims were
not considered because they did not constitute a minority but were all Muslims.
Even illiterates know that in the three countries these above mentioned sects
have been declared as non-Muslims.
Amit Shah highly worried about religious persecution
in three Muslim countries is not bothered about the persecution of rationalist,
liberal and atheist writers, poets, bloggers and activists who in hundreds have
been killed by religious vigilante groups. For long time India has been
denouncing ethnic cleansing of Baloch nationalists. Thousands of them have been
killed by the Pakistani armed forces and hundreds remain missing. Since they
are Muslims they will not be welcome as refugees despite their continuous
ethnic cleansing!
And what about persecuted Uighur Muslim minority in China? According to a UN committee more than one million
Uighur Muslims and other Muslim groups had been detained in concentration camps
in the western Xinjiang region, where they were said to be undergoing
"re-education" programmes. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-45474279]
Recently, US Congress overwhelmingly approved a bill aimed at
pressuring China over a brutal mass
crackdown on ethnic Muslims in the far west of the country.
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/congress-approves-bill-condemning-china-for-persecution-of-ethnic-muslims/]
Amit Shah's argument for not allowing persecuted Muslims from Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Afghanistan is that latter are not minorities in their
respective countries. But persecuted Uighur
Muslims are a religious minority in China. Denial of a refugee status to them
under the CAB 2019 only shows hatred for
Muslims and kowtowing to the Chinese rulers.
Tragedy is soon to unfold for Afghans who in
hundreds, many of them women, migrated to India due to excesses of Talibans.
Once CAB becomes a law all these Afghan
refugees are going to be forced back into Afghanistan, large part of which is
under Taliban control for cleansing.
(3)
Farcical love for persecuted Christians
The love for Christians in the neighbouring
countries is more puzzling as after Muslims, this community has faced the
maximum violence at the hands of RSS goons. The most prominent ideologue of RSS
declared Indian Christians as 'Internal threat number 2' after Muslims who were
declared as 'Internal threat number 1'.
[MS Golwalkar, Bunch
of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996, p. 193.]
Amit Shah's farcical love for Christians is soon going to be exposed. In
next couple of days Indian Parliament will pass the
Constitution (126th Amendment) Bill which will do away with the nomination of
Anglo-Indian members to the Lok Sabha and state legislatures from January 25,
2020. Nomination to Anglo-Indians was provisioned in the Constitution in order
to give representation to a section of Christians who were incapable of getting
elected any member of their community due to small number. In fact, despite
this provision in force, since the 17th Lok Sabha was constituted (more than
six month back), the Modi government did not nominate any member from the
Anglo-Indian community to the House. [https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/anglo-indian-appeal-on-nominated-members/cid/1725605?ref=top-stories_home-template]
The regime which is bothered about the persecution of Christians across the
borders is working over-time to deprive them of all the rights guaranteed by
the Constitution.
BTW, once CAB becomes a law, Taslima Nasreen
will have to be deported to Bangladesh.
(4) Love
for Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists who are decreed as Hindus in India by RSS
Amit Shah's love for Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and
Buddhists of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan is puzzling. As RSS member he
does not accord the status of independent religion to their respective
religions. His Guru Golwalkar taught him that Hindus should not be divided into
Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains, "the Buddhists, the Jain, the Sikh are all
included in that one comprehensive word 'Hindu'".
[MS Golwalkar, The
Spotlights, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1974, p. 171.]
(5) Mysterious cut-off date
The cut-off date for seeking refuge in India
by the persecuted communities has been fixed on or before December 31, 2014. It
means that there has been no persecution of Hindus, Sikhs,
Buddhists, Christians and Parsis in the three countries after December 31, 2014.
It only shows complete disregard of the present reality in India's
neighbourhood. The cut-off date was tailor made to assuage the mounting anger
of more than fifteen lakh Hindus who have been declared foreigners in Assam.
But it has opened the old wounds in Assam where organizations fighting for the
Assamese identity have risen in revolt against CAB .
(6) Persecuted Tamil Hindus of Sri Lanka left
in the lurch
CAB is silent on Sri Lanka where large scale
massacre of Hindu Tamilians have taken place. The fascist Buddhist
organizations in Sri Lanka have been demanding Sri Lanka for Sinhalese only. Amit
Shah and his Hindutva government have brazenly betrayed the persecuted Hindu
Tamilians of Sri Lanka who were forced to migrate to India during the civil war
or still facing persecution there. Shockingly, this bill sacrifices safety of
even Hindus in the neighbourhood.
(7) Amit
Shah's hypocrisy on 'one nation, one legislation'
RSS/BJP rulers have been pro-active on the demand
that India is one nation and should have one law on each issue. [https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/india-news-one-nation-one-legislation-after-article-370-uniform-civil-code-bjps-next-how-it-will-impact-you/302079]
Interestingly, so far India had one citizenship law but CAB will give birth to
multiple laws of citizenship. The present bill exempts the whole of Arunachal
Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram, almost the whole of Meghalaya, and parts of
Assam and Tripura, but keeps all of Manipur under its ambit which may also be
made an exception. Thus citizenship will be governed by plethora of laws
bidding good-bye to the goal of 'one nation, one legislation'.
(8) CAB 2019 & NRC were scripted by the Guru of hate Golwalkar in 1939
CAB
2019 is the resurrection of what the most important ideologue of RSS, Golwalkar
decreed in his 1939 book We or Our
Nationhood Defined about the character of Indian nation. According to him
it was, it is and will remain an exclusive Hindu nation. Amit Shah while
presenting this bill declared that it was not against minorities. The reality
is that it is not only against the minorities but against democratic-secular
Constitution of India. The RSS has been
allergic to the idea of an all-inclusive India since its birth in 1925.
Golwalkar declared that in
"Hindusthan, the land of the Hindus, lives and should live the
Hindu Nation...Consequently only those movements are truly 'National' as aim at
rebuilding, re-vitalizing and emancipating from its present stupor, the Hindu
Notion".
[MS Golwalkar, We
or Our Nationhood Defined, Bharat Publication, Nagpur, 1939,
p. 43]
He went to the extent of declaring that all those who
did not believe in establishing the Hindu nation "are either traitors and
enemies to the National cause, or, to take a charitable view, idiots". [MS
Golwalkar, We or Our
Nationhood Defined, Bharat Publication, Nagpur, 1939, p.
44.]
Golwalkar like other RSS leaders was a
great fan of Hitler and Mussolini. Glorifying the genocide of Jews by Nazis he
wrote:
"German Race
pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race
and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the
Semitic Races—the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh
impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root,
to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to
learn and profit by." [Italicized for emphasis]
[M.S. Golwalkar, We Or Our Nationhood
Defined, Bharat Publications, Nagpur, 1939, p. 35.]
Golwalkar unhesitatingly wanted to model
his Hindu Rashtra or Nation on Hitler’s totalitarian and fascist pattern as is
clear from the following words of his in the same book:
"It is worth bearing well in mind how
these old Nations solve their minorities [sic]
problem. They do not undertake to recognize any separate element in their
polity. Emigrants have to get themselves naturally assimilated in the principal
mass of the population, the National Race, by adopting its culture and language
and sharing in its aspirations, by losing all consciousness of their separate
existence, forgetting their foreign origin. If they do not do so, they live
merely as outsiders, bound by all the codes and conventions of the Nation, at
the sufferance of the Nation and deserving no special protection, far less any
privilege or rights.
There
are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves
in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at its mercy so long as
the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet
will of the national race. That is the only sound view on the minorities [sic]
problem. That is the only logical and correct solution. That alone keeps the
national life healthy and undisturbed. That alone keeps the nation safe from
the danger of a cancer developing into its body politic of the creation of a
state within a state." [Italicized for emphasis]
[M.S. Golwalkar, We Or Our Nationhood
Defined, Bharat Publications, Nagpur, 1939, p. 47.]
Surprisingly, a noted Congress leader, M.
S. Aney, also known as Loknayak
[people’s leader], agreed to write a foreword for We or Our Nationhood Defined, a terribly anti-minority and
pro-Nazism/Fascism booklet. Golwalkar’s choice for him was understandable as,
though being a Congress leader, Aney subscribed to the idea of Hindus being a
separate nation and subsequently India being essentially a Hindu nation.
However, even for a sympathizer of Hindu
nation like Aney, the extreme ideas demanding total subjugation and cleansing
of minorities propounded by Golwalkar in the booklet were unpalatable. Aney,
rightly realizing that for Golwalkar the terms, ‘minority’ or ‘foreign race’
meant only Muslims, tried to distance himself from the totalitarian kind of
solutions prescribed by Golwalkar.
"I find that the author, in dealing with the problems of the
Mohmeddans’ [sic] place, has not
always borne in mind the distinction between the Hindu nationality and Hindu
sovereign state. Hindu nation as a sovereign state is entirely a different
entity from the Hindu nation as a cultural nationality. No modern state has
denied the resident minorities of different nationalities rights of citizenship
of the state if they are once naturalized either automatically or under the
operation of a statute."
[M.S. Golwalkar, We
Or Our Nationhood Defined, Bharat Publications, Nagpur, 1939, p. xiii.]
Interestingly, these critical comments of
Aney were removed in next editions of the book.
RSS/BJP rulers led by diehard Hindu
nationalists like Modi and Amit Shah are working overtime (they claim to be
working 18 hours a day!) to convert democratic-secular India into a Hindutva
theocracy. With capitulated Parliament and judiciary, the only hope is that
people of India would resist this undoing of democratic-secular India.
Shamsul Islam
December 10, 2019
Link for some of S. Islam's writings in
English, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati
and video interviews/debates:
Facebook: shamsul
Twitter: @shamsforjustice
http://shamsforpeace.blogspot.com/
Email: notoinjustice@gmail.com
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