CAA-NRC: Empowering India

History was made on December 9, 2019 when the Lok Sabha passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) with an overwhelming majority of 311 votes to 80 votes. Again, on December 11, after a 9 hour long, intense debate, the Rajya Sabha passed the CAB with 125-105 votes.
 
Needless to add, the passage of CAB by the Indian Parliament, which represents the will of India's 1.3 billion citizens, is the biggest endorsement that this landmark bill, has both its head and heart in the right place. What then, explains the protests in Bengal, Gaya, Jaffarabad, Seelampur and other parts of Delhi?
 
The Q&A format below exposes the maliciously false narrative surrounding the CAB and concludes that the CAA and NRC exercises are pathbreaking in their intent and ethos and will further cement the vision of an empowered India, under the invincible Modi-Shah duo.

More importantly, CAA and NRC do not violate Article 14 of the Indian Constitution. Those harping about "Right to Equality" under Article 14, have no problem in taking specific privileges conferred on minorities in India under Articles 29 and 30. Why? Is it a case of wanting to "having your cake and eating it too?" Of course, yes!! In any case, all rights including those under Article 14, are not absolute but subject to "reasonable restrictions" pertaining to "public order, morality and health".

What is the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)?

The Act makes it easier for persecuted minorities from India's neighbours - Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan - to become citizens of India as it entitles Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians facing religious persecution in these three nations, to seek Indian citizenship. The Act says the refugees of these six communities will be given Indian citizenship if they entered India on or before December 31, 2014, after residing in India for five years, vide Amendment 2 of the Citizenship Act, 1955.
 
Who benefits from CAA?

The legislation applies to those who were “forced or compelled to seek shelter in India due to persecution on the ground of religion”. The requirement to stay in India for those belonging to any of these 6 religions for at least 11 years before applying for Indian citizenship has been reduced to five years. Indian citizenship, under present law, is given either to those born in India or if they have resided in the country for a minimum of 11 years.

Who are excluded from the Act's purview?

The Act does not apply to tribal areas of Tripura, Mizoram, Assam and Meghalaya because of being included in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. Also, areas that fall under the Inner Limit notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873, will also be outside the Act's purview. This keeps almost entire Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland out of the ambit of the Act. 

How is the National Register of Citizens (NRC) linked to the Citizenship Act?

The National Register of Citizens is an exercise that will enlist all Indians citizens on a ‘national register’ by vetting their documentation. The NRC does not exclude any Muslim who is a genuine Indian citizen. It only seeks to provide citizenship to minorities from Muslim-majority nations, where the said minorities, are known to face persecution.

The NRC, which identified illegal immigrants from Assam, had been a long-standing demand in Assam. After the updated final NRC in Assam was released on August 31 this year, it excluded the names of over 19 lakh applicants, including Hindus. Hence the malicious narrative being peddled by "left-liberals" that the NRC favours Hindus and is anti-Muslim, is entirely driven by the hate-mongering agenda of those who have been trounced electorally by the BJP in one election after another and are using NRC as merely a convenient tool to tarnish the ruling BJP led Modi government. 

NRC, which shall be extended to the rest of the country, does not discriminate based on religion, so Muslims have nothing to fear. Every sane country in the world has a national register of its citizens and India is no exception. Opposition parties like the Congress have amnesia and conveniently forgotten that the Assam accord inked by Rajiv Gandhi in 1985, provided for NRC exercise in Assam, to check illegal migrants and infiltrators.

Congress-led central governments also made suitable insertions in the Citizenship Act thereafter by way of Clause 14A in 2004, relating to issue of national identity cards to all citizens of India and later Schedule 4A in 2009, was also added. Hence fanning violence now, by spreading falsehoods regarding the NRC and CAA, to further the Congress brand of divisive politics, simply because it has been electorally vanquished by the electorate, is not justified.

What is the government’s reasoning for CAA?

Home minister Amit Shah has said that the measure has the endorsement of over a billion Indians as it was always a part of the BJP manifesto, both in the General Elections in 2014 and 2019. The Act does not discriminate against anyone and does not snatch anyone's rights and that is precisely the reason the BJP-led Modi government stormed to power with a brute majority, in two successive Lok Sabha elections.

The exclusion of Muslims is not an act of Islamophobia. Muslims in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan are the majority community in these nations and the CAA is meant for only minorities facing religious persecution in these nations. In any case, there are 50 Muslim majority nations globally, of which 45 have officially declared themselves as Islamic Republics. Muslims, including Ahmediyas and Bahais, can find shelter in any of these 50 Muslim centric nations but a persecuted Hindu for instance has no country to turn to. Hence those protesting against CAA are exhibiting Hinduphobia. Being pro-Hindus or pro-Buddhists does not make CAA anti-Muslims.

How many people are likely to apply for naturalisation under CAA?

With the cut-off date set at December 31 2014, the number of people who will benefit from the amendments stands at 31,313, a figure submitted by the IB during a parliamentary committee hearing on the bill in 2016. 

“As per our records, there are 31,313 persons belonging to minority communities (Hindus- 25447, Sikhs – 5807, Christians – 55, Buddhists – 2 and Parsis – 2) who have been given long term visa on the basis of their claim of religious persecution in their respective countries and want Indian Citizenship. Hence, these persons will be immediate beneficiaries.” 

What is the "NorthEast Angle" in  CAA?

The opposition to the CAA has been minuscule. It is only vested, politically aligned groups owing allegiance to the Congress and Leftists who are fanning violence to derive political capital given their depleting political fortunes. Assam and Meghalaya saw normalcy after temporary imposition of curfew, preventing agenda-driven protests by vested groups from taking a grim turn. 

The Northeastern states have for long faced large scale migration from infiltrators and illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries, thanks to years of lethargy displayed by successive Congress-led regimes. However, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah at the helm, Northeast is finally getting its due. It is precisely to prevent any further large scale demographic invasion by infiltrators like Bangladeshi Muslims or the Rohingyas that the NRC will step in.

As for CAA, it will legitimise the residency of only persecuted minorities from the 3 neighbouring countries without damaging the existing socio-demographic fabric of the Northeast, because these "persecuted religious minorities", are in any case, very small in number, compared to say the demographic invasion by Bangladeshi Muslim migrants who illegally entered the Northeast, in lakhs. 

Will CAA apply to all Indian states?

The amended law inserts a new clause that says: “Nothing in this section shall apply to the tribal area of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram or Tripura as included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution and the area covered under “The Inner Line” notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873.”

Apart from the above exceptions, the law shall be applicable across all states. The Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled states like Punjab, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have stated that they will not implement the act in their respective states. However, states do not have the power to refuse implementation of the law, as it is enacted under the Union List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.

Conclusion

The CAA does not disturb the status quo of any Indian citizen. It simply gives legitimacy to persecuted religious minorities who are already residing or have been forced to seek refuge in India and were compelled to flee from their "home" countries after facing religious persecution. Muslims are not a minority in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan, hence Muslims have been excluded from CAA.

Bollywood starlets, left-leaning stand up comedians and sundry academicians should stick to their knitting, rather than feverishly tweeting about falsehoods and endorsing arson, loot, violence, torching of buses and rampant vandalism by students.

Burning trains and attacking the police force with molotov cocktail grenades, does not qualify as peaceful protests. Right to protest in a democracy does not give anyone the right to destroy public property. Dissent is fine, not descent. A few misguided students from Jamia Millia Islamia, JNU, Aligarh Muslim University etc, do not represent the larger student community and cannot be given a free run to attack democratic institutions under the guise of a protest. 

No elected government anywhere in the world will tolerate its men in uniform being attacked by vandals who endorse mobocracy. The CAA and NRC exercises are constitutional, legal and simply put, they symbolise the "greatest good of the greatest number".

Ms Sanju Verma is an Economist, Chief Spokesperson for BJP Mumbai and Author of the Best Selling Book, "Truth &Dare--The Modi Dynamic".