Citizenship Amendment Act upholds the Idea of India

The Idea of India is under threat. Or so it is routinely claimed.

What exactly is the Idea of India? Is India just the sole propriety of the book now believed to have near-sacred reverence in the country - the Constitution or is it also a rich cultural and social inheritance that is touted to be one of the oldest living continuous civilizations?

It is in the starting point of this belief of the ‘Idea of India’ that the people of the country remain divided over solutions to civilizational issues. However, to even begin to understand the Citizenship Amendment Act, it is imperative to appreciate the context.

Much before Jesus Christ was born, between 500 BC and 50 BC, several extensive and well-administered kingly reigns were already prevalent in the country, we now recognize as modern India. The Maurya Empire, between 320 and 185 BC, more or less laid out the boundaries of present-day Indian sub-continent as a single empire ruled by one king. Evidence such as this and much more should have put an end to the shrill conversation around the miraculous ‘birth of India’ in 1947, but for the persistence of extreme Left elements who oppose this continuity both in history and in present.

The Indian sub-continent is geographically so categorized, flanked by the Himalayas in the north, the sea on its entire southern coast; and the flood plains, deeply forested mountainous regions and Chin and Kachin hills on the East, that irrespective of time and changing cultures, much of India today is also Bharat of the yore. The only moving area has been the North West of the country through which we suffered onslaught from incoming invaders time and again.

And all this while, we remained ‘secular; - as the implication of the meaning of the word stands today. We were welcoming to all persecuted religious groups all over the world. It is like while the world outside kept changing with invading armies and toppling reigns, we stood like a huge Banyan tree whose roots are deep within but still finds in its being, the ability to give shelter to all passers-by.

In 562 BC, the Jews – persecuted all over the world, including the countries heralded as secular today, found peace and comfort in Bharat, so much so that they were granted land and trading rights by the then kings who knew nothing of the word ‘secular’ that modern India will try to define itself by. In 1st Century AD, Christians came to India and through missionary activity spread the religion in various pockets in the country. Parsis (Zoroastrians from Greater Persia) came in the 9th Century, the descendants of whom command some of the most powerful business houses, along with one of the only two Field Marshals in India today. Tibetan Buddhists, escaping the persecution by the Chinese government in 1959, were not only welcomed but formed a government-in-exile from the cold mountains of Himachal Pradesh. Baha’I, facing religious persecution in Iran, found safe haven here.

These victimized groups have not only found refuge in the country, but they have thrived. Their numbers have grown, they have established businesses and local ethnic ties, and are inevitably an inextricable part of India.

The truth be told – India is secular because of its Hindu fundamentals, and not because the word found its way into the constitution by the 42nd Amendment. 

The Supreme Court in S.R Bommai v. Union of India, ruled that India was already a secular state from the time it adopted its constitution - what actually was done through 42nd amendment is to state explicitly what was earlier contained implicitly. However, Hindu in the statement above doesn’t mean a narrowly defined religion, but the ‘Hindu way of life’ that even the Supreme Court had clarified in Ramesh Yeshwant Prabhoo case [1996 SCC (1) 130] that Hinduism is a ‘way of life of Indian people’. As recent as yesterday, amidst cries of majoritarianism RSS chief Shri Mohan Bhagwat categorically said that 130 cr population of India is all a part of Hindu society. While this is the reality of India, Pakistan, formed entirely on narrow-religious lines has seen an inverse relationship of time and minorities. The more they moved away from Independence, the lesser the number of minorities became. At the time of partition in 1947, almost 14 percent of Pakistan’s population were non-Muslims which has declined to approximately 3 percent today1. A similar decline has taken place in Bangladesh where minorities have decimated to about 9% from around 23% in 1951.

But more than the numbers, it is the gruesome stories that come from the bottom of Pakistan’s conscience. Christian graveyards are often vandalized and desecrated because hate follows in death as well. In Sindh and Balochistan provinces, well-to-do Hindus are subjected to ransom kidnappings. Hindu women are repeatedly subjected to untold miseries through kidnapping and rapes. That these assaults have a religious element, is clear from the fact that both kidnapping and rapes are accompanied with forced conversions and/or forced marriages. While, obviously, there cannot be an official number, member of Human Rights Commissions and NGOs working in the region claim that a number anywhere between 20-70 girls from the Hindu and Christian community are abducted every month and forcefully converted. This strategy is not unknown to a similar trend against Kashmiri Pandit women when the Islamists in the Kashmiri valley drove away Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s, with the call relayed across public loudspeakers – “Leave or get killed. Leave your women behind”

Reproducing verbatim from Wikipedia

“On 18 October 2005, Sanno Amra and Champa, a Hindu couple residing in the Punjab Colony, Karachi, Sindh returned home to find that their three teenage daughters had disappeared. After inquiries to the local police, the couple discovered that their daughters had been taken to a local madrassah, had been converted to Islam, and were denied unsupervised contact with their parents. In January 2017, a Hindu temple was demolished in Pakistan's Haripur district”

In the last two decades, a steady stream of Sikh and Hindu refugees from Pakistan have settled illegally in Punjab, especially those from Khyber Pakhtunwala and Sialkot. Several Afghan hindu families now living in Delhi, were original inhabitants of Afghan province of Kabul, Jalalabad, Ghajini, Gandhar, Logar, Kunduz, Parwan and Helmand. These families have been escaping human rights atrocities inflicted on them by Taliban, and have no papers and documents after their visas expired long ago. Numerous case studies such as the 52 year old Kamla Devi whose personal accounts reveal a story of racial and religious discrimination, and Rajesh living in Jalandhar, all of whom have come with their families and are surviving in absolute penury with precious money spent on renewal of visas, point to a glaring fact-Why would families endure more hardship and poverty in a different land if they were safe and secure in their own?

The country still charges people under Blasphemy laws, and around 700 people have been prosecuted under it. Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani, received death sentence for blasphemy in 2010, and on chances of her acquittal, Muslim cleric Maulana Yousaf Qureshi announced a bounty of 5 lakh Pakistani rupees to anyone who would kill her. Today, having fled to Canada, she is hearty and well but the two ministers who advocated for her – Shahbaz Batti and Salmaan Taseer were both assassinated.

In India, comparatively, during the same time, the majority has decreased from around 84% in 1951 to about 79% in 2011, with share of minorities increasing with the major increase coming from Islam (up from 9.8% to 14.23%). Here, the stories are of great significance. We have had Muslim Presidents, Catholic head of the opposition – Congress, extensive influence of minorities in the film industry, non-discriminatory selection of minorities in Cricket and sporting teams and in corporate world. India’s permanent representative to the UN is a quintessentially Indian Muslim.

Citizenship Amendment Bill – Necessity and Rationale

So, when the Citizenship Amendment Bill is introduced, it is only to set in stone a method for providing a legal method to persecuted minorities in Muslim-majority neighbouring countries with a poor-track record of human rights, to apply for citizenship in India through naturalisation. Contrary to what is being spread viciously amidst unsuspecting population, many of who are not in the know of the sections of the bill, let alone being conversant about it; the Act has a Positive and Noble objective behind it. To put it simply – in keeping with the centuries old tradition of India-the civilizational mother in the sub-continent, allow for minorities who have been forced or compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution before the date of Dec 31 2014.

The wording of the bill, which few would have read, is positively intended to provide a way to those suffering from human rights violations from our neighbouring countries and are already in the country, find a way to carry forward their near-stateless lives.

In any case, India, apart from being a geographical imprint on the landmap of the world, is also mother to one of the oldest religions in the world and its civilizational fundamentals. To deny cultural Hindus their natural origin of existence is not in keeping with the ethos of Bharat.

Why only Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan?

Simply because they are our neighbouring countries and often harassed minorities from these make way to India historically. Otherwise, the question can be asked for any country, religious or ethnic group that is persecuted which has nothing to do with India.

Why not Muslims from these three countries?

The three countries from which India has been receiving a steady-state of incoming refugees have a declared State Religion and are theocratic in nature. That naturally follows that persecuted minorities will NOT be those who belong to the majority religion of these three countries. In any case, if a Pakistani Muslim can be granted citizenship of India, what’s the whole point of the Partition?

Approach to Refugees

India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or the 1967 protocol. There is no national policy on refugees, so the country is free to form a policy for incoming refugees based on the need and characteristics of the time and context.

It is unfortunate that Opposition leaders, some members of the uninformed civil society, and the Islamists in the crowd provoked and spread wrong information among the people, instigating revolutionary-friendly elements in society. Leaders should have risen to the occasion and championed amongst the people the cause of celebrating our citizenship.

The large-scale destruction that has accompanied these protests clearly shows that there is little love for the symbols and properties of the country of whose citizenship they are fighting for. India, as a democracy, must welcome protests, all of which she has seen over the years right from the days of Mahatma Gandhi, who even against the British employed non-violent means. In near future, against Court’s judgement on Sabarimala, protestors had laid down their concerns peacefully without harm to life and property. 

Those who are contributing to arson and looting are only revealing their internal lack of attachment to our country. We don’t burn our homes.

At a close estimate, there are only 31,000+ people who can be immediate beneficiaries of this Act. Let’s open our hearts and homes to those who are already living with us and have no chance or opportunity to go back, for they will never find their faith or acceptance in the countries they have left far behind.