EDITORIAL: The far-right Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had enacted the highly contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, in 2019, which fast-tracks citizenship requests from non-Muslims fleeing “religious persecution” from India’s Muslim-majority neighbours — Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladeshi — but excludes Muslim refugees from those countries.
Along with the setting up a national register of citizens (NRC), an equally controversial move, the CAA was aimed at denying Bangladeshi Muslims living in India’s eastern states of citizenship rights, widely seen as a discriminatory legislation for granting citizenship rights to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Parsees to the exclusion of a particular religious community. It could not be implemented until the necessary rules were notified. The Modi government failed to do that in the face of countrywide protests by opposition parties and protracted sit-ins by civil society groups, leading to clashes with the police that left several people dead and hundreds injured.
Yet on Monday India’s home ministry announced the rules allowing the Modi government to bring the divisive law into effect. Why now? Modi who has made a career out of anti-Muslim hate rhetoric and actions is seeking a third term using his party BJP’s Hindutva agenda. The BJP, of course, has hailed the notification on the social media, calling the home ministry’s decision as a “watershed moment in the history of India.” Predictably, however, opposition parties have strongly criticised the government for notifying the rules just weeks before the elections. Congress Party spokesperson Jairam Ramesh questioned its timing, saying: “after seeking nine extensions for the notification of the rules, the timing right before the elections is evidently designed to polarise the elections, especially in West Bengal and Assam.” Notably, those are the two states where majority of Bangladeshi Muslims have settled. Speaking in a similar vein at a news conference, West Bengal chief minister Mamta Banerjee averred, “now that the elections are coming, they have brought this, but it will not benefit anyone”. And in his reaction, president of the Assam Jatiya Parishad termed it “a black day for Assam”.
The BJP has chosen to implement the CAA aware that it will draw another round of protests by people who worry about marginalisation of India’s Muslim community. It is a clever, calculated move as it fits in perfectly well with Narendra Modi’s Hindutva narrative. Louder the protests the more they are likely to rile up his support base, increasing his prospects of returning to the prime minister’s office. That makes it all the more important for others to fight for the restoration of Indian democracy’s founding principle of secularism celebrating its pluralism.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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