Undivided India was partitioned into West and East
Pakistan as one Nation and India as the other, such that Pakistan was intended
to be a country for the Muslims. The Feudal Muslim leadership felt a much better
position for itself in a new ‘Muslim Nation’ rather than an undivided India.
Indeed to achieve this end in pre-independent India, these feudal Muslims
floated the concept that declared ‘Muslim minority cannot live under a
non-Muslim majority’.
It is undeniable that in those times
there must have been immense draw towards a reactionary approach – to create a
Hindu or non-Muslim India in reaction to a Muslim Pakistan. And truly speaking
there were enough voices among our fore-fathers favoring such an approach, but
the wisdom of few, amongst our leaders, superseded the lure of falling into a
reactionary trap. India displayed prudence & decided to act in a
non-reactionary fashion and though Pakistan was carved out of India on its
western and eastern borders as a Muslim nation, India decided to remain a
motherland for all those who embraced it, irrespective of the religion they
subscribed to. Though India had not officially adopted Secularism (different
from how French describe it) till 1976 (42nd Amendment), yet the
spirit of Indian Constitution ab-initio was secular in nature.
Events preceding partition and the
process of partition itself was one of the bloodiest events in world history
with the highest time density of deaths (Highest number of deaths in the
shortest duration of time). If that was not enough, 1971 saw another bloody
exodus of Bangladeshis (both Hindus and Muslims) into India from then East
Pakistan after the West Pakistani Army Generals (who, covertly or overtly,
ruled Pakistan for the larger part of its independent history) unleased a
genocide of the Bengalis (now 'Bangladeshis') there. Millions fled. India
engaged in a short war with Pakistan, won and freed Bangladesh, winning it the
status of an independent nation from a defeated Pakistan.
Some of the persecuted Bangladeshi
immigrants, who fled across a porous border to India after a genocide was let
loose by the Pakistan Army returned to their homeland, but a roaring majority
of these few million immigrants stayed back in India as it provided better prospects for economic survival
and these immigrants had very little to lose economically in Bangladesh, their
country of origin. Thus most stayed back in India. In the meanwhile, India was
overburdened & bled from the overflow of illegal immigrants with long
spells of social unrest as the border states of North East India failed to
assimilate a demography-perturbing number of Bangladeshi immigrants and
continue till date to protest against residency of Bangladeshi immigrants -
Hindu and Muslims alike.
It is in the backdrop of these
demographic and political challenges concerning migrated population from
Bangladesh that the Government of India in fulfillment of an Order of the
Supreme Court of India, created a National Register of Citizens (NRC) only for
the North-Eastern Indian State of Assam. Owing
to a lack of tradition of documenting lineage, it was very cumbersome for people
there to prove their citizenship. Furthermore, corrupt Govt. officials made it
easy for immigrants to procure, against payment of gratitude, various Indian
identification documents including Ration Card (a special doc. that every
family in India was given collectively and carried a family photo) to buy subsidized
groceries from a Government shop. Other documents like Voter Card and Aadhar
(digital identification) were also acquired by many through corrupt means or in
logical subsequence/on-basis of a previously fraudulently procured ID. It is
not that the erstwhile Governments did not know of such practices. They let
them be. Reason – they benefited electorally & tacitly accepted lack of
options besides one – that is to persist with status quo till immigrants
assimilate into the local population. They kicked the can down the road with a
belief that the can will eventually disappear.
Notwithstanding protests for extraction
of illegal immigrants (who arrived after a specific date) & accords signed
among militating locals of North-Eastern India and Government of India, Nothing
really was done on ground by the latter and the problem was allowed to pester
for long.
Current Government does seem to attempt
resolving problems and issues accumulated, or created by complacency of
previous ones. Instead of a dilly-dallying decisions, it decided to take the
problem head on - an attitude that merits appreciation. Nonetheless, their
approach ended up messing the political landscape further, by bringing in #CAA
that permits assimilation of non-Muslim immigrants into Indian citizenry, while
dropping out the Muslims immigrants from Bangladesh.
Thus bearing to fruition a philosophy,
abandoned by our forefathers, who chiseled India – one that considers India as
a natural home for Hindus. Leaders of the current Government have made matters
worse by two events which coincided with protests against this law – (i) As has
been the practice they make veiled and sometimes open communal statements to
polarize the electorate in elections. As now has been the practice they did the
same in the run up to Delhi State Elections, compromising little, whatsoever equity
they were left with Muslims of India; (ii) they are committing a mistake that
the opposition (Congress) did in last 2014 elections, and from which they
benefited and which facilitated their ascendance to power in 2014 elections.
Problem – opposition failed to recognize that the Indian electorate is no more
illiterate. High rate information dispersal through inexpensive mobile
communication and internet through last decade has made the electorate very
aware. Many sensible people feel their intellect insulted, when politicians of
ruling party make speeches about providing citizenship to the non-Muslims, who
have been persecuted in Pakistan (it is true but this truth is 0.1% of the
total truths). Every sensible voter of India understands that Non-Muslims from
Pakistan are not a matter of concern, because they are few thousands in
numbers. And no one in entire India is against provision of citizenship to
these persecuted minorities, who fled Pakistan. Indeed most Muslims and Hindus
alike have demanded that #CAA covers not only those who persecuted minorities
that entered India from Pakistan before 2014, but even those who desire to
migrate currently or in future. The object of #CAA apparently are the 1.40
million Hindus and half a million Muslims from Bangladesh.
Furthermore, fraudulently/corruptibly
acquired identification documents by illegal immigrants from Bangladesh melded
the left over markers distinguishing illegal immigrants from citizens -
documentarily.
Complacency of previous Governments left
the current one with no options but to demand cumbersome indirect documentary
proofs (of lineage) from the population to prove citizenship. This has been
troublesome for masses as in north eastern parts of India we do not have a
tradition of documentary recording of lineage (this view of mine lacks
research).
[It might be interesting for readers to know that most north
Indians have this tradition of recording their deaths and births with specified
Brahmins (literally by villages of India which are a few hundred thousands) at
a place called Haridwar, where most Hindus go for the last rites of the
deceased and update the records by registering the death as also new members
added to the family. I have 400 years of my family history sitting there on
papers recorded by my ancestors. This is very precious data which should
ideally be digitized into a Block-chain under state supervision without
compromising the linked earnings of the Brahmins there. Alas! No such lineage
recording tradition is prevalent in North-Eastern India].
NRC (National Register of Citizens)
exercise was anticipated to confirm the official State hypothesis - millions of
illegal Bangladeshi Muslims live in Assam. Data duped expectations delivering
an unexpected verdict for the ruling party - a roaring majority of the illegal
Bangladeshi immigrants in Assam are Hindu. West Pakistan Army had persecuted
Muslim and Hindu Bangladeshis alike. Both fled Bangladesh to bordering states
in India, saving their and their family's lives.
It is in the context of aforementioned
historical background that Government of India legislated Citizenship Amendment
Act of 2019 (hereinafter referred to as ‘#CAA’). It facilitates fast track
citizenship for illegal Non-Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh
(former two have no numbers of any consequence). The Government of India's
account is that they are executing the unfinished chores of partition – in
years of partition and those immediately following, Indian leaders of those
years including Mahatma Gandhi, who wielded immense moral power had pledged to
provide citizenship to all Non-Muslims fleeing Pakistan and Bangladesh. In
those years accepting persecuted non-Muslim minorities of East & West
Pakistan (Hindus, Sikhs, Parsee etc.) would have been construed not just right
but of highest moral standard. Nevertheless, water has flown under the bridge.
MULTIPLE TRUTHS OF #CAA
Legislation of #CAA is construed by many
(including Hindus & Muslim) as discriminatory legislation that treats
unequally two from the same kind (Muslims from among Hindu + Muslim illegal
immigrants). There are a host of techno-legal aspects to this problem which the
Supreme Court of India is hearing public interest petitions and will
consequently deliver a judgment in its wisdom and upholding the great Indian
tradition of Judicial Independence of the Supreme Court of India.
In the meanwhile, in the agile Indian
democracy, the will of the people is reigning supreme and unfortunately
riotous. We are still away from accessing any remarkable statistical study of
who thinks what of #CAA. To do any analysis, it is important to transparently
mention that the law (#CAA) is largely about illegal Bangladeshi immigrants
more of who are Hindus than Muslims. Immigrants from Pakistan and Afghanistan
are very few in number and would have not even merited creation of a separate
law. Therefore, the faux pas sold by the ruling party politicians is only
alienating the mindful class of Indians (now large numbers), who were sick and
tired of rhetorical responses of the Government pre-2014. Current Government is
falling into a similar power incumbency trap. Having said that, analytically,
there are four categories of Indians depending on their attitude to #CAA:
1. The first one thinks this legislation
is discriminatory and has to be retracted. The challenge – retracting the
legislation will be a major blow to the hardline image of the current
Government.
2. The second category of people
believe #CAA is fair as Hindus have nowhere to go & are persecuted in
Pakistan & Bangladesh. Data shows – Pakistan does persecute its minorities,
but it’s not so apparent in case of Bangladesh. It is felt that illegal Muslim
immigrants from India’s neighborhood, should be deported back to the country of
their origin, which had been carved out from undivided India for the very
purpose of providing Muslims their own homeland in Pakistan & Bangladesh.
Both Hindus and Muslims from Bangladesh migrated to India on persecution by the
Pakistan Army. They were both bound to return after Bangladesh got freedom, but
then Hindus should be allowed to stay back officially (they have nowhere to go
and if deported to Bangladesh, they will be persecuted over there). While the Muslims,
should be deported as Bangladesh is a Muslim nation and a Muslim cannot be
religiously persecuted in a nation with 90% Muslim population.
3. The third category believes,
this issue is of no major consequence at this moment, should be deferred, all
the more at a time when we are raring to claw back to economic growth levels of
yesteryears on which we have slid considerably. Tacitly, “Kick the can down the
road” approach.
4. Fourth category of people
(predominantly Muslims, along with liberal & left of centre non-Muslims)
believe that #CAA is just a conduit to trouble Muslims and subsequently subdue
them into some kind of submission (more a fear, than possible reality, though
sensible Nations [incl. India] should maintain vigilance, else, even large populations
can be deluded into believing myths). Current Government in power has no love
lost for Muslims and its credentials on this account are far from ideal.
Communal comments during Delhi Elections, further complicated the situation and
led to the worst Hindu-Muslim riots in Delhi this week after a sit-in protest
by Muslim women in #ShaheenBagh for over two months of chilling winters. Their
worry - non-Muslims, who fail to produce documentary evidence, whenever a
nation-wide NRC (National Register of Citizens of India) is conducted, can take
refuge in the #CAA sanctuary, while Muslims, similarly failing to produce
documentary evidence, will be left in lurch to contest State claims in courts
of law for years at best and be disenfranchised at worst.
Truth as always, is statistical and in
quantum states - It comprises of all available states (options) including those
mentioned above, though in differing proportions & probabilities. Otherwise
said, “Truth is in proportions”. While the proportions of aforementioned
categories are difficult to determine currently, but that there is substantial
number of people subscribing to each of the aforementioned is beyond doubt.
Therefore, the challenge - a good law
should at the least address all the major proportions and ideally all truths
associated with different aspects of a proposed law.
Ideal Citizenship Act, should be just,
fair, non-discriminatory, strategically benefiting, compassionate to humans
without compromising the concept of nation state which is the basis of
existence of social and economic order, converts a problem into an opportunity,
resolves all issues that Government wants to address (some of which might not
be easily cognizable by masses), mitigate internal or external security risks
to the nation; fulfill the necessary attributes including the purpose of
legislating the law; it should be introduced after creating the right
atmosphere and geo-ambience and should not be prohibitive in implementation
costs. Any good law should have high resistivity to declassification as a
fruitful resource with time as the society changes or the people on whom the
law is to be implemented increase or change.
It is unarguable that illegal immigrants &
stateless people are an issue, so has been the skewing of demography of
north-east - both needing a resolution. Of course, the idea is subject to
refinement.
A
SMART CITIZEN AMENDMENT ACT
A.
Allow religious minorities from neighboring countries to apply for
Indian citizenship with proof of religious (specifically and only ‘religious’)
persecution and discrimination of their community in the state or town of their
residence. This will not be time barred (so will be applicable to those
persecuted minorities, which have been in India - illegally) and could be held
applicable for up to 5-10 more years to provide persecuted minorities a window.
This would have reduced persecution of minorities in neighboring countries, as
such immigration applications could always be hailed to the global community as
poor minority rights protection record of neighboring nations, which would
indeed restrict the otherwise unending flow of persecuted immigrants and violation
of minority rights over there. India would provide citizenship, if the matter
of persecution is proven satisfactorily to authorities in India or the Indian
mission or consulate abroad, irrespective of whether such persecution happened
in the past or is happening presently. There would be a quantitative quota
under this stream, which would be pre-established to avoid mass immigration
requests in future. The mode will operate on a case-to-case basis, but on a
fast-track and be settled within 5-10 years.
OR
B. Those already in
India illegally, irrespective of their religion will have an option to apply
for citizenship under special below-mentioned terms.
B.1. They have to declare their origin and all
their data under oath including whether they migrated owing to religious,
sectarian or other persecution or for employment;
B.2. They would be given a special ID card for 5
years and allotted a state to settle in (thereby dividing the ingress across
less dense areas as well as ensuring that the immigration is divided across
India and hence does not jeopardize local ethnicity – in North East India);
B.3. They shall not have the right to single
citizenship (apparently, as they are not citizens) and will have to restrict
their residence to the allotted state till they acquire citizenship;
B.4. They have to become income tax-payees with
a minimum annual income of Rs.'Y' (for the entire family collectively) for
three consecutive years;
B.5. They should have no criminal record through
this period;
B.6. In case they fail to meet above-mentioned
conditions within 5 years they will get another 5 years of extension.
OR
C. In case they cannot
meet the aforementioned conditions, but have been already residing in India
illegally, they will be provided temporary residency (say 2 years) with working
rights, and on production of a passport of their country of origin (which India
will verify electronically), the temporary work permit shall be converted into
a permanent residency & work permit. India will facilitate procurement of
passports through arrangement with neighboring countries. Bangladesh would have
the guarantee that there will be no major influx of people from India back into
Bangladesh instantly, as people will get indefinite working permits. While
India will not have to allocate scarce resources to these self-declared
foreigners, while they will someday return to their country of origin.
OR
D. Those, who fail to
(or do not desire) execute any of the above-mentioned shall be evicted. The
process of eviction is suggested below:
For (C) & (D) neighboring nations
have to be taken into confidence (mainly Bangladesh).
D.1. In case of (c) they can be convinced to
recognize their citizens, subject to them not undergoing an influx as India
will allow them to live and work in India and indeed travel to their homeland,
transfer money and execute transactions legally which otherwise are in the
shady black market, enhancing revenues for both India and neighboring nations.
D.2. In case of (D), assuming the major issue
would be with Bangladesh. India & Bangladesh should agree to contribute
land on the northern tip of Bangladesh (near the chicken's neck), such that
Indian contributes less depth but large length along the border, while
Bangladesh contributes more in depth and less of length along the border (thus
creating a geometric wedge into Bangladesh). In this area, India shall
undertake to procure investment (so shall Bangladesh, but to a lesser degree)
to set up industries and enterprises, where the evicted illegal migrants of
Bangladeshi origin would be provided work by Indian Investing Companies. It
could be treated as a common Special Economic Zone for both nations. The defense
of the said area would be jointly done (thus enabling widening of the ‘neck’
against China, strategically) and passing through this area would be freely
allowed for citizens & vehicles of both the countries with their national
electronic RFIDs & national electronic cards seamlessly. Implementation
could be executed in mutually agreeable phases.
Not only would India be able to enhance
its strategic depth, where China is threatening, it will have a strong
politico-economic link with Bangladesh, it will be able to resolve the problem
of immigrants, eviction, India's north-east, registry of citizens, all in one.
It will be a more challenging task, but it will be a fair and
non-discriminatory approach to resolving the problem that the Government of
India desires to. I really don't see reasons why Bangladesh would not subscribe
to such a solution, which adds on to their economy substantially, and does not
lead to an economic burden on their heads.
SEPARATING PEOPLE FROM POLICIES
One important thing that I desire to add from my side, with my personal bias is the need for all patriots to distinguish policies from people. People, including politicians do a number of overt deeds, which are not policies as also a number of covert deeds which are desired to be made policies in the ensuing future. It is very important to distinguish these two. Good policies should be supported irrespective of whether the political thought is oppositional, bad policies discouraged even if floated by your own political outfit. One of the best metrics to do this is to analyze & understand the intent of the doer. Legal frameworks and Roman law is highly emphatic on intent. If a person pelts a stone at a snake, misses it and hits a boy behind the snake, killing him; the stone-pelter is tried for manslaughter. Contrarily, if a person pelts a stone at a boy, misses the boy, hits and kills the snake, he will be tried for attempt to murder. It is therefore crucial to analyze and understand the intent behind #CAA. Resolution to the CAA conundrum likes in bolstering or reforming the intent. A commentary on intent is not the raison d’etre of this article and hence I refrain from elaborating on it. I leave it to the aware and intelligent people of this country to take calls on this subject.
CAN THIS BE BETTERED?
Certainly yes. My proposal is a kickoff.
543 members of Indian Parliament have produced legislative jewels, why would
they not make one more!? Is the proposal nationalistic to the ruling party
metrics – I bet its more nationalistic than what ruling party has construed
with current #CAA, which is a fish-bone stuck in throat – neither can be
swallowed nor thrown up and is only making the nation cough harder and harder,
till eyes pop out!
Enfin, Laws, like everything rest should comply with the
best philosophy of humankind of all times. Mahatma Buddh said, "Don't
believe, don't believe only because you have been told, or it has been
transmitted to you by tradition, or you have thought on your own and adopted
it. Don't believe what your Guru (teacher) has told you because you hold him in
high esteem. Examine it, adequately analyze it, and when you discover a thought
beneficial to all, good for the majority, in welfare of all living beings,
believe in it, adopt it. Such thought will be path revealing, because that
belief will be self-made and hence resolute."
Scan the QR below to access a contagious
but beautiful video of the aforementioned teaching of Buddha or go to the link
below…
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