- By Arnav Sampigethaya
Disclaimer: By writing this article, I don’t mean to offend anyone or hurt anyone’s sentiments. I try not to allow personal biases to affect my writing, so I’ll try my best to stay as neutral as possible. You may disagree and I might be wrong as well, and I want to know what you think so I can understand the different perspectives. If you have any feedback, opinions or I’ve made a factual error please e-mail me at arnavsa@greenwoodhigh.edu.in or feel free to send an op-ed to editorialgwh@gmail.com.
Faith. Faith is such an important thing in this world. We exist as a civilization because of our faith in various systems. Without our faith in money, government and other man-made social structures we would be no different than the apes and other creatures (Hariri, 2011). According to the 2011 census, India is 80% Hindu, 14% Muslim and 6% of the other religions (Christianity, Sikhism and Buddhism in that order).
Tirupathi
Source- Deccan Herald
On the 10th of January, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act came into effect and if you were in India, you would have heard of it whether you meant to or not. You couldn’t scroll 5 minutes through any social media platform without being bombarded with opinions about this act. The shocking thing is how little people actually know about the act itself. This may be boring to you, but if you really want to understand this issue, you need to read the exact bill. Here’s what it says - "Provided that any person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, who entered into India on or before the 31st day of December, 2014 and who has been exempted by the Central Government by or under clause (c) of sub-section (2) of section 3 of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 or any rule or order made thereunder, shall not be treated as illegal migrant for the purposes of this Act;"
The justification for this given by the authors of this bill is also available in the same document, here is the important part – “It is a historical fact that trans-border migration of population has been happening continuously between the territories of India and the areas presently comprised in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Millions of citizens of undivided India belonging to various faiths were staying in the said areas of Pakistan and Bangladesh when India was partitioned in 1947. The constitutions of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh provide for a specific state religion. As a result, many persons belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities have faced persecution on grounds of religion in those countries. Some of them also have fears about such persecution in their day-to-day life where right to practice, profess and propagate their religion has been obstructed and restricted. Many such persons have fled to India to seek shelter and continued to stay in India even if their travel documents have expired or they have incomplete or no documents.” (Lok Sabha, 2019)
There are many things to unpack here. I’m going to try to go piece by piece and explain both the pros and the cons of this convoluted act and its further implications. It’s also really helpful that I can look at this from the future.
This means that India will grant citizenship to migrants who entered India on or before 31st December 2014 from particularly Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who are Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian or basically non-Muslim.
It is important to note that this act will not affect the citizenship of any existing Muslim citizens. This will also not prevent any Muslims from seeking asylum in a conventional way, and also enter the country through legal means.
The justification for this particular wording is the important part. They claim that due to the fact that these countries have official state religions, the freedom to practice religion openly has been curbed and the aforementioned religions have been prosecuted on that basis. This is true. Other religions ARE prosecuted in the three countries. There are also Islamic groups prosecuted in these countries though, like the Hazaras in Afghanistan or the Ahmadis in Pakistan. If they included Muslims in the act, they would be granting citizenship to essentially everyone in those three countries. This is where the dilemma begins. This is the first religion-based prerequisite for citizenship in Indian history.
One of the cornerstones of the Indian constitution is secularism. What does secular even mean? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as "not connected with religious or spiritual matters.".By that definition, without a doubt, the wording of this act is fundamentally non-secular. There were many different ways in which the same act could have been implemented without specifically mentioning any religions. Those would be harder to govern and implement but doesn’t that seem like a fair price to pay to maintain the foundation on which India was built?
The secular ambiguity of the act aside, most critics are afraid of its power when combined with the upcoming NRC (National Register of Citizens). Here are a few facts about the national implementation of the NRC – _____________.
That’s right. We don’t know anything about this law other than what’s been told by politicians at political rallies where they’re trying to gain the support of like-minded people. We haven’t read the law, because it hasn’t been written yet. The government didn’t even create the law, the creation of the NRC was called for all the way back in the 2003 Amendment of the Citizenship Act, 1955. What the amendment says is that the country is entitled to make something called a National Population Register, where they will have to collect documents from all people and then they will need to compile that data in an orderly manner to create what we know as the NRC. The exact reason for its inclusion is unclear, but it seems to have been inspired by the failure of many acts to combat illegal immigration in Assam. While it is quite careless and callous of the people so close to Prime Minister Modi to speak the way they do about Muslims and the law as a whole, right now, we have zero concrete information. We can’t even use Assam as an example because the rules there were specific to the history of that state, and while millions got displaced, and the overall success is questionable, there’s no proof that the central government will be using that model.
Now, the fear that this could be used to target Muslims and render them stateless seems unfounded based on all the facts we have as of now. This is for multiple reasons.
Firstly, as I mentioned earlier, we have no idea what the prerequisites for the NRC will be. Secondly, let’s assume that it leaves many Indians unable to prove their ancestry, the Citizenship Amendment Act won’t protect most Hindus because most Hindus don’t have proof of living in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Bangladesh. There is no ‘one-two punch’. If it renders people stateless, it won’t discriminate and the ethics of the NRC itself are a whole other discussion but Western media and the protestors haven’t understood the original law in the first place.
The protests started in Assam as a way to protest against the fact that they did not want any immigrants entering Assam irrespective of their religion due to tensions with Bangladesh which go back many years into the past but slowly these protests spread across India. As the people caused chaos, so did the police. There were several incidents of police brutality.
The most severe one being the one in Jamia Milia Islamia in Delhi. The police forcefully entered and attacked several students who were protesting, using tear gas, batons and guns. This incident is scary in terms of police brutality. The other side of the coin isn’t pretty either. The protestors quickly stopped being ‘peaceful’, unnecessarily damaging both public and private property, blowing up buses and attacking innocent people. There were several instances of people attacking the police unprompted and the violence that ensued was gruesome. From both sides, the protestors were relentless and cruel. There were more peaceful efforts, in cities like Bengaluru but the overall trend was that of violence.
Source- DailyO
All in all, there is no ‘correct’ answer to the morality of it all. It’s very complicated. Mahatma Gandhi gets quoted a lot by the anti-CAA protestors in terms of secularism and brotherhood. That’s a very strong sentiment.
What most people don’t know is that Gandhi was a racist, often considering Indians and Caucasians to be superior to Africans, so even his ideals of fraternity are a moral grey area (Biswas, 2015).
One Gandhian ideal that seemed to get lost is ‘ahimsa’ or non-violence. The whole debacle has brought out the worst amongst both sides. If the peaceful protests had remained peaceful, the world would still have noticed, maybe more, but the second violence got involved, the morality of it all became very cloudy. Violence is never the answer.
Faith is a funny thing, isn’t it? It has a way to bring millions of people together. It has a way of making society function. It has a way of spreading so much joy and happiness. But faith is also an ugly demon. Faith can make people hateful. Faith can make people angry. Faith can make people treat others badly. Faith is dangerous and good. Having credendum in something is a flip of a coin in many ways. You never know which side you’re going to get.
Works Cited
Biswas, S. (2015, September 17). Was Mahatma Gandhi a Racist? Retrieved from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34265882
Hariri, Y. N. (2011). Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind. Jerusalem.
Lok Sabha. (2019, December 14). THE CITIZENSHIP (AMENDMENT) BILL, 2019. Retrieved from As Introduced in the Lok Sabha: http://164.100.47.4/BillsTexts/LSBillTexts/Asintroduced/370_2019_LS_Eng.pdf
Written By -
Arnav Sampigethaya
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