A divisive move riddled with pitfalls
The upper house of the Indian parliament, the Rajya Sabha, passed the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB) on December 11, much to the shock of the Muslims living in the country. The much-talked-about bill is now awaiting the assent of the President. So what is all the hue and cry about?
While the bill is popular among many in India, even if one tries to find some virtue in it, the only one that emerges—protection of monitory communities—is tarnished by the religion factor associated with it.
The BJP through the CAB want to amend the Citizenship Amendment Act 1955 to provide citizenship to the people of certain non-Muslim religious communities from three neighbouring countries, provided that they lived in India for six years. The proposed cut-off time is December 31, 2014.
Yet the bill has quite a few major drawbacks: it proposes to grant naturalised citizenship to the refugees from only six religion-based minorities—Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian—that too only from three specific neighbouring countries: Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. While India's claim about the persecution of religious minority groups in Bangladesh is incorrect, let us leave this issue aside for another day. For now, let us note here the religious underpinning of the about-to-be-enacted bill and its exclusionary nature.
And this creates two further problems: first, the religion-based preferential treatment of migrants is in violation of Article 14 of the Indian Constitution which says, "The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India." Segregation of refugees on the basis of religion is essentially against the pluralistic sprit of the Indian constitution—"fundamentally unconstitutional", as Dr Shashi Tharoor, a veteran Indian politician, has termed it.
While discussing the bill with the BBC, renowned historian Mukul Kesavan suggested that the bill is "couched in the language of refuge and seemingly directed at foreigners, but its main purpose is the delegitimisation of Muslims' citizenship"—a fear shared by many.
The second problem that the proposed amendment presents is one of human cost. In a region that is mired in religion-based violence—the genocide of the Rohingya by the Myanmar military-backed government; the persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka; the discrimination against Shia Muslims in Pakistan; the repression of Uighur Muslims in China's Xinxiang province, to name a few—the decision to open the doors of refuge and offer protection to only a few communities negates the "humanitarian" outcomes (protection of persecuted minorities) that the BJP aims to achieve through the proposed amendment.
And while some in India see the CAB in a positive light, there are others who are concerned by the potential consequences of this move. Mainly: diluting the ethnic social identity of the north-eastern states, especially those bordering Bangladesh. CAB can be seen as a tool to enable the integration of the Hindu population left out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, and potentially in other states in the future; solidifying the Hindu base of India and through it the BJP's Hindu vote bank; and marginalising the Muslim population living in India.
The CAB was first proposed by the BJP in 2016. But it had to be withdrawn after an ally withdrew support and protests flared up in the north-eastern states against the proposed bill. The bill, protesters feared, would allow for greater absorption of illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.
Tension between those who have migrated to Assam from Bangladesh and the locals have remained high historically, especially in the Muslim Bengali-dominated Barak Valley—where many Bengali-speaking Muslims had been transported as workers during the British Raj—leading to a bloody massacre of Muslims in Nellie in 1983 in which nearly 3,000 individuals had been killed in a six-hour operation.
In response to the six-year agitation by the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) that was initiated in 1979, to weed out the illegal Bangladeshi immigrants from Assam, the Assam Accord was signed between the Indian government and the leaders of the Assam Movement on August 15, 1985, setting March 24, 1971 as the cut-off time for deportation of all illegal immigrants irrespective of their religion.
And the NRC was updated recently to identify the people who had migrated to the said states after Mach 24, 1971 and declare them illegal immigrants. This resulted in the exclusion of nearly 1.9 million people in Assam from the final NRC—a majority of them reportedly from the Hindu community. And while some people in Assam welcomed the NRC result, the reintroduction of the CAB in parliament has sparked protests in the north-eastern states amidst fears that it will be used as a tool to absorb the Hindu population left out of the NRC into the country.
The statement of BJP President and Home Minister Amit Shah during a visit to Assam—"I have come here to assure all my refugee brothers that there is no need to worry as the central government will not force them out of the country. Before NRC, we will bring the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which will ensure these people get Indian citizenship"—only fuelled the fears of the people of the north-eastern states.
And although the BJP later announced that the CAB will not be applicable for areas under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution—which includes regions in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, as well as states that have the inner-line permit regime, namely Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram—scepticism among the natives of these regions remains high about the outcome of the proposed amendment.
While we cannot comment on whether the xenophobic fears of the north-eastern states are rational, what is apparent is that the CAB might potentially increase religio-ethnic tensions in the northeast of the country.
It will also trigger fears that if the NRC is applied to other states, the Hindu population left out of those registers will be absorbed in India thought the amended CAB, while the Muslims will be declared illegal, thus denying them equality on the account of their religion.
And because of the way the CAB has been presented, one might be pardoned for finding it similar to Israel's "law of return" which allows the Jews the right to live in Israel and to gain Israeli citizenship.
While trying to justify why Muslims have not been incorporated in the list of the religions, BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli told Al Jazeera, "Regarding Muslims, there are countries that were formed exclusively for them"—an unconvincing and inadequate response.
A closer look at the NRC, CAB and the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, through the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution earlier this year, suggests that all these fall into a pattern—a pattern that is essentially anti-Muslim and divisive in nature, and in contradiction to the secular spirit of the Indian constitution.
The bill might be popular among a few in India, but we must understand that just because something is popular doesn't mean it is good, or for the greater good of all. And the CAB is riddled with pitfalls that might essentially increase religious tensions in the country.
The BJP has embarked on a risky journey, toeing a very thin line. As a friend of India, we are concerned about the path of divisive policy that the BJP is steering India towards. The Citizenship Amendment Bill should make India a greater nation, one that upholds the values of human rights and sympathises with all persecuted communities irrespective of religion, rather than discriminating against people on the account of their religious beliefs.
Above all, it should not diminish in any way the pluralistic nature of the vast Indian democracy.
Tasneem Tayeb works for The Daily Star.
Her Twitter handle is: @TayebTasneem
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