Dr Abdul Razak Shaikh
INDIA’S Parliament has passed a bill that would give Indian Citizenship to immigrants from three neighboring countries, but not if they are Muslim. The controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) will fast-track citizenship for religious minorities, including Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians, from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Opposition parties say the bill is unconstitutional as it bases citizenship on a person’s religion and would further marginalize India’s 200-million strong Muslim community. The government, ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said the bill seeks to protect religious minorities who fled persecution in their home countries. It cleared the Rajya Sabha, India’s Upper House of Parliament where the BJP lacks a clear majority, with 125 votes in favour and 105 against. The day before, lawmakers approved the bill 311-80 in the Lower House of Parliament, the Lok Sabha, which is dominated by Indian Prime Minister Modi’s BJP.
The Lok Sabha or Lower House of the Indian parliament, where the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party enjoys a large majority, approved the relevant changes to the law on citizenship on December 9th. A bill passed through the Upper House two days later, despite impassioned objections from across the political and social spectrum. The law has already been challenged in the Supreme Court. In the interest of social stability, of India’s reputation as a liberal democracy and of preserving the ideals of India’s constitution, the court should speedily and unequivocally reject it. I think it is, without exaggeration, probably the most dangerous piece of legislation that we have had because of it amounts to truly destroying the very character of the Indian State and the Constitution said Indian human right Activist, the very nature of the Indian Constitution is that it is based on secular values. Central to the idea was that your religious identity would be irrelevant to your belonging, and it’s that which is being turned on its head. It’s extremely worrying. Modi celebrated the bill passing on Twitter. A landmark day for India and our nation’s ethos of compassion and brotherhood, he wrote. This bill will alleviate the suffering of many who faced persecution for years. The bill’s passage has drawn widespread opposition and protests, in the different states of India and many Chiefs of Provinces refused to accept. Demonstrators shout slogans as they hold placards to protest against the government’s Citizenship Amendment Bill. Many indigenous groups there fear that giving citizenship to large numbers of immigrants, who came over the porous border with Bangladesh following independence in 1971, would change the unique ethnic make-up of the region and their way of life, regardless of religion.
India is known as the largest democracy in the world. But its current government is leading it away from democratic norms. Modi champions a hardline brand of Hindu nationalism known as Hindutva, which aims to define Indian culture in terms of Hindu history and values and which promotes an exclusionary attitude toward Muslims. UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet recently expressed concern over increasing harassment and targeting of minorities, in particular, Muslims. Under Modi, vigilante Hindus have increasingly perpetrated hate crimes against Muslims, sometimes in an effort to scare their communities into moving away, other times to punish them for selling beef (cows are considered sacred in Hinduism). And this summer, Modi erased the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir, which had previously enjoyed considerable autonomy over its own affairs. Muslims comprise approximately 14 percent of the national population and more than twice that in Asam State. In the 2019 Indian election, one of Modi’s central campaign promises was that he’d get the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in shape and deal with the Muslim migrants in Assam once and for all. Other BJP members have used dehumanizing language to describe the Muslims there. The CAB is only the latest measure the Indian government has taken to marginalize its Muslim minority (more on this below). This measure is particularly blatant in its discrimination.
The CAB will grant citizenship to a host of religious minorities who fled three nearby countries where they may have faced persecution, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. But Muslims will get no such protection. The BJP is positioning the CAB as a means of offering expedited citizenship to persecuted minorities. It seeks to address their current difficulties and meet their basic human rights, said a spokesman for the country’s Ministry of External Affairs. Such an initiative should be welcomed, not criticized by those who are genuinely committed to religious freedom. The prominent Indian political leader Mr. Shashi Tharoor said “The passage of this bill by the Indian Parliament is against the basic principle of the Indian Constitution.” He also confessed that this bill is true, a victory of Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s thoughts over Mahatma Gandhi. Let’s salute the father of the nation, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Dr. Muhammad Iqbal who gave us the State of Pakistan. The international community, however, must be worried about what is happening in India, a country of 1.3 billion people.
In a secular democracy, all citizens are equal before the law and parliament. No religious or political affiliation gives advantages or disadvantages and religious believers are citizens with the same rights and obligations as anyone else. On Monday fresh protests took place in Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, and Lucknow, where hundreds of students, most of them Muslims, tried to storm the police station, hurling volleys of stones at officers cowering behind a wall. Rahul Gandhi, former opposition Congress chief tweeted on Monday that the law and a mooted nationwide register of citizens also seen as anti-Muslim were “weapons of mass polarisation unleashed by fascists”. The UN human rights office said last week it was concerned the law “would appear to undermine the commitment to equality before the law enshrined in India’s constitution”, while Washington and the European Union have also expressed concern.
— The writer is retired officer of Sindh Govt.
