India is known all over the world for its centuries-old ethos, of assimilation; a culture of compassion, humanitarian values, and providing shelter to refugees from far off lands without any discrimination. It is this CORE VALUE that is under threat now with the present ruling dispensation adopting an exclusionist approach towards refugees fleeing from their homelands due to persecution. Opposition to the Bill,(now passed by both Houses of Parliament), stems from the fact that it proposes to grant Indian Citizenship to fleeing Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Cristian’s, and Parsis, who are residents of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, while it excludes persecuted Muslim sects, Shiyas and Ahamadiyas. In other words, non-Muslim immigrants wouldn’t face deportation and Muslims would. It also proposes to reduce the mandated 11 years residence in India for citizenship eligibility to 6 years. Ostensibly BJP wants to neutralise the Muslim infiltration in border states encouraged by vote bank politics, with a Hindu influx and effect a demographic change. But this idea is preposterous, simply because there are not enough Hindus left in those countries who would want to return to their roots. The population of Hindus in Bangladesh, at the time partition, was 30%, now it’s less than 5%, while in Pakistan during partition time 23%, now it’s about 1%, in Afghanistan, only 220 families are left. As of 2017 only a few thousands of Hindus and Sikhs were left in Afghanistan, and the less said, the better, about other minorities. Therefore, the illegal Muslim infiltration from Bangladesh, is only the main concern, because of porous borders and needs to be monitored. Bill must have been envisioned with Bangladesh as it’s the focus. Now that Assam, Arunachal, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland, have been kept out of the bill’s purview, it’s clear that the party’s target is undoing Muslim immigration into Bengal. It has now stepped back from the northeast because it has invested too much in the region in developing new vote bank and strengthening its footprint. Of course massive protests, bandhs have already taken place and it already started burning.
By implementing a law that treats one religion as a disqualifier for citizenship, India runs the risk of sending a wrong signal not only to the world at large but also to the Muslim community within the country. It is only because of political expediency that tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, and other northeastern states, have been exempted from the legislation and there are genuine fears that the legislation might repeat the bitterness of the partition era as it violates the basic idea of India.
Further in keeping with RSS-BJP political theology if there is no CAB there can be no compilation of NRC, CAB is therefore meant to give legal cover to illegal Hindus in Assam. The recent disastrous exercise of compiling NRC for Assam showed there were more Hindu illegals than Muslims. The state BJP rejected the exercise, thus added emphasis by the center on fresh NRC but only after CAB is in place.
Whatever it’s worth, it violates the right to equality, and other rights, including secularism which is the basic structure of our constitution, and parties that have supported the bill should seriously consider what it means for the very soul of this country.