Anti-national, bereft of humanity
and religiously bigoted Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 is enforced in India
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act,
2019 (CAA) 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 replaced the Citizenship Act, 1955 which made
no such discrimination. It was passed by Rajya Sabha on December 12. It was
with the same hurricane speed that President of India gave her assent to make
it into a law the same day.
However, a law which took birth and become
a reality within 4 days (December 9 to 12) as if the Heavens would fall if this
law did not exist was kept in the cold storage for 4 years and 9 months without
being notified. It was enforced on March 11, 2024 when 2024 parliamentary elections
are few weeks away. The plight of the persecuted non-Muslim minorities in
India’s neighbourhood was abandoned to ensure that it was resurrected only when
PM Modi needed this polarizing law to his advantage.
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 defence of enforcing The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 or
CAA by the RSS-BJP rulers.
(1) CAA attempts to bury the democratic-secular
Constitution of India
Shah while piloting the Bill in Lok
Sabha had 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 were shameless
lies. This Act, first of its kind in independent India, sanctions blatant
violation of the secular Constitution of India. Secularism has been declared as
one of the 'basic’ structures by the Supreme Court of India. The Hindutva
rulers claim that it was an amendment to the existing citizenship law, Citizenship Act of 1955. However, it is in total disregard of the 1955
Act under which Indian citizenship could be acquired by birth, descent,
registration, naturalization or incorporation of territory. Thus the CAA 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 benevolent 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, this claim is
absolutely hollow like any other claim of his when we go through the Act. 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 Muslim rationalist, liberal and atheist writers,
poets, bloggers and activists who in hundreds have been killed by religious
vigilante groups in these countries. 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 despite their continuous ethnic cleansing by the
Pakistan Army!
And what about persecuted
Uyghur Muslim minority in China? According to
a UN committee
more than one million Uyghur 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 they
are not minorities in their respective countries. But persecuted Uyghur Muslims are a religious minority in
China. Denial to take refuge to them under the CAA 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 Talibaans. Since CAA has been notified all these Afghan refugees
are going to be forced back into a theocratic Afghanistan ruled by the Talibaan.
(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 in India. Modi started his first
term as PM of India on May 26, 2014. One of the first decisions he made was
about celebrating December 25, (X-MAS) as 'good-governance day' every year. It
continues till date. What fate awaited Christians in India was made clear by one
of the most decorated police officers of India, Julio Ribeiro, on
completion of almost nine months of Modi's government, in the following words:
"Today, in my 86th year, I feel threatened, not wanted, reduced to a
stranger in my own country. The same category of citizens who had put
their trust in me to rescue them from a force they could not comprehend have
now come out of the woodwork to condemn me for practising a religion that is
different from theirs. I am not an Indian anymore, at least in the eyes of the
proponents of the Hindu Rashtra.
“Is it coincidence or a well-thought-out plan
that the systematic targeting of a small and peaceful community should begin
only after the BJP
government of Narendra Modi came to
power last May? ‘Ghar wapsi’, the declaration of Christmas as ‘Good Governance
Day’, the attack on Christian churches and schools in Delhi, all added to a
sense of siege that now afflicts these peaceful people."
[https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/i-feel-i-am-on-a-hit-list/]
Such attacks on Christians and their
religious-educational institutions have since taken a pan-Indian diabolic
character.
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.] How much Christians are loved by Amit Shah was made
clear when Indian Parliament passed the 104th Constitutional
Act in 2019 itself. It did 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 in the 17th Lok Sabha 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.
(4) Love for Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists who are decreed as Hindus in
India by RSS
RSS-BJP rulers love for Sikhs, Jains
and Buddhists of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan is puzzling. BJP rulers
as members of RSS do not accord the status of independent religion to the above
mentioned religions. The most prominent ideologue of RSS, Guru Golwalkar declared
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 CAA.
(6) Persecuted Tamil Hindus of Sri
Lanka left in the lurch
CAA is silent on Sri Lanka where
large scale massacre of Hindu Tamilians took place. The fascist Buddhist
organizations in Sri Lanka have been demanding Sri Lanka for Sinhalese
Buddhists 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. More than 150000 (one
and half lakh) are languishing in miserable camps with no rights. Shockingly, CAA
sacrifices safety of even Hindus in the neighbourhood.
(7) Persecuted minorities and ethnic
groups in Myanmar left to die
Indian home ministry under Amit Shah
has ordered to erect a fence on 1643 kilometer long India-Myanmar borders. It
is being done to stop the religious minorities and ethnic groups like the
Rohingya people, Kachins (The Baptists) and the Arakan Army which are facing
brutal persecution of the Military rulers. Since they took refuge in India to
save themselves from the killing gangs of the Myanmar Army now with this fence
they would be at the mercy of Myanmar rulers.
[https://indianexpress.com/article/india/govt-fence-indo-myanmar-border-surveillance-amit-shah-9147017/]
(8) 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, prior to the CAA India had one single citizenship law but with
the enforcement of CAA India would have multiple citizenship laws. The CAA 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'.
[https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/caa-not-to-be-implemented-in-most-tribal-areas-in-northeastern-states-124031200011_1.html]
(9) CAA 2019 was scripted by the Guru of Hate
Golwalkar in 1939
CAA 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. 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.]
It is important to note that even
when CAA was not there India led by PM Nehru had allowed refuge to likes of
Dalai Lama with his retinue (April 1959). At the end of 1970s thousands of East
Pakistanis who were persecuted by Islamists and Pakistan army were provided
shelter in India. CAA is a ploy of RSS/BJP rulers led by diehard Hindu
nationalists like Modi and Amit Shah to convert democratic-secular India into a
Hindutva theocracy. It was facilitated by a capitulated Parliament. Indian
judiciary, specially the Supreme Court could have averted this tragedy by
timely intervention. But despite more than 200 petitions challenging the
constitutionality of the CAA pending before the highest court of justice since
2020 it continues to dither from hearing the petitions. Now the only hope is
that people of India would resist this undoing of democratic-secular India.
Shamsul Islam
March 12, 2024
Link for some of S. Islam's writings in English, Hindi, Urdu,
Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and video
interviews/debates:
http://du-in.academia.edu/ShamsulIslam
Facebook: shamsul
Twitter: @shamsforjustice
http://shamsforpeace.blogspot.com/
Email: notoinjustice@gmail.com
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