M Ziauddin
INDIAN diplomats are said to be fighting a rearguard action in South Asia as two close allies, Bangladesh and Afghanistan have expressed their displeasure at India’s new citizenship law. Just a few months ago India was revelling in its comprehensive diplomatic victory after abrogating Article 370 in August 2019, a special constitutional provision that gave the lone Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir a special status. While Pakistan, China, Turkey and Malaysia emerged as trenchant critics of the move, India remained seemingly unscathed, with most of the other permanent members of the UN Security Council siding with New Delhi as China tried twice to have the issue discussed in the UNSC behind closed doors. But the move to amend its citizenship law in December and fast-track applications for naturalization by non-Muslim citizens from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan has now created an unprecedented wave against India. A few weeks ago a former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan is said to have received a message from a top Afghan Minister seeking his opinion about the law. Why does it discriminate against Muslims?
This will not go down well with the Afghan people,” the person is reported to have said. “I did not know how to react. There is tremendous affection among the Afghans for India. This move has pushed India into a corner and isolated those in Afghanistan who support us.” Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai is quoted to have categorically stated that the classification was wrong, in an interview to the newspaper The Hindu. “We don’t have persecuted minorities in Afghanistan… the whole country is persecuted. We have been in war and conflict for a long time. All religions in Afghanistan – Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs – which are our three main religions have suffered,” he is quoted to have said. According to Indian journalist Saikat Datta (India losing friends over citizenship law—published in Asia Times on 21 Jan 2020). Bangladesh has proved to be one of India’s staunchest allies in South Asia. Much of that has stemmed from India’s unstinting support for its current PM, Sheikh Hasina.
“Two Ministers from her cabinet cancelled their trips and she is under tremendous pressure to explain India’s stance. There is also a worry in Dhaka that if thousands of Muslims are disenfranchised, they might end up being pushed into Bangladesh,” a diplomat who served in Bangladesh is said to have told Asia Times. Perhaps the biggest diplomatic embarrassment for the Modi Government, according to Saikat, came when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cancelled a trip to the State of Assam in India. With the state up in arms, the setback for India’s diplomatic efforts was far too obvious, observers said. “This was quite a disappointment for the Indian Prime Minister, a Member of the Ruling Bharatiya Janta Party was quoted telling Asia Times. “There is some worry in the Party that the government may have taken on more than what it could handle. The cancellation by Prime Minister Abe was seen as a personal setback for Modi, even within the Party,” Asia Times quoted the Party functionary as saying.
Saikat said diplomats are also worried that the twin decisions, the abrogation of Article 370 and the amended citizenship law, came too quickly and did not give them time to prepare. “Diplomacy works on IOUs that countries give to each other when the going gets rough. Lately, India has had to give out a number of IOUs to prevent Pakistan and China for pushing the UN Security Council to pass any adverse comments against India. We managed to avert a major diplomatic embarrassment. But these will come at a cost later,” another senior Indian diplomat as quoted by Asia Times said. With close allies and neighbours miffed and the big powers growing cold, ASEAN upset that India walked out of the RCEP, and big power allied like the US sending mixed signals, India’s foreign policy and strategic objectives are facing a cold and bleak winter.
The concerns of the Northeastern states are, however, said to be different in character and dimension than the concerns expressed in the rest of India. While the “Chicken Neck” or the Siliguri Corridor in West Bengal with a width of 21 to 40 kilometres connects the Northeast with the rest of India, the region shares an international border of 5,182km (about 99% of its total geographical boundary) with neighbouring countries. Of this, 1,395km is the length of the boundary with the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China in the north, 1,640km with Myanmar in the east, 1,596km with Bangladesh in the southwest, 97km with Nepal in the west and 455km with Bhutan in the northwest. These borders have shaped a closer linkage with Southeast Asia than with India historically. As a result, the region developed a culture and identity that are unique and faces an existential threat from the CAA now.
Under the Citizenship Act of 1955, one of the requirements for citizenship by naturalization is that the applicant must have resided in India during the last 12 months and for 11 of the previous years. The amendment relaxes the 11-year requirement to five years for persons who are not Muslims. The act exempts the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. According to Indian journalist Vikram Nongmaithen (Citizenship law poses threat to Northeast India — published in Asia Times on Jan.21, 2020) there have been widespread protests across all of the region’s states. A demographic profile of the region will illustrate the reality. Excluding Assam and Tripura, the two biggest casualties of the CAA, the total population of Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Sikkim according to the 2001 census was 10.88 million. While there are no exact figures available for Bangladeshi migrants in India, in 2004, Sri Prakash Jaiswal, the then Federal Minister for State (Home), is reported to have stated in Parliament on 14 July 2004, that there were around 20 million “illegal Bangladeshis” in India.
Kiren Rijiju, the present Federal Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports in the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is said to have claimed that 24 million “illegal Bangladeshis” live in India. Tripura, which had a population of 3.6 million according to the 2001 census, had only a 28% proportion of indigenous Tripuris after uncontrolled waves of Bengali migration took over the State. Assam’s Barak Valley is said to be dominated by Bengalis. Sikkim, the smallest State in India, is said to have seen unnatural population growth in the last five decades. Indigenous Sikkimese-speaking peoples such as Lepchas and Bhutias are now said to be a minority, while Nepali-speaking people made up around 62.6% of the population according to 2001 figures. Demographers and researchers project that the trend will be the same for Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya if the law is implemented. Therefore, while the anti-CAA protests across mainland India are mainly over principles and fears and politics over the Hindu-Muslim divide, the perception of the Northeastern people is that the indigenous people of the region will become minorities in their own land.
— The writer is veteran journalist and a former editor based in Islamabad.
