ON September 18, Union Home Minister Amit Shah declared that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) would be implemented across the country as the 2019 mandate for the Bharatiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance (BJP-NDA) indicated that there was all-round approval for the same. This notwithstanding the various questions connected with the publication of the final NRC list with respect to Assam, which had excluded some 1,906, 857 persons, the majority of them from the majority community. Amit Shah stated emphatically that it was not the National Register of Assam but the National Register of Citizens, implying that there was a pan India connotation to the concept. Connected to this and, more interestingly, 10 days before this declaration, while addressing the fourth conclave of the North East Democratic Alliance, or NEDA (the north-eastern version of the NDA), in Guwahati on September 9, he made a conscious reference to the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), 2019. He said, “our intention is to expel illegal immigrants from the entire country and not just Assam.”
The CAB is an outrightly sectarian Bill, which will change the definition of illegal immigrants. The government seeks to amend it in order to facilitate the grant of Indian citizenship to non-Mulsim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who are of Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist and Christian extraction and who had migrated to India without valid travel documents or the validity period of whose documents had expired during their stay in India. These people were compelled to seek refuge in India owing to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution in their countries of origin. The Bill has no provision for Muslim sects such as Shia and Ahmediya, whose members face persecution in Pakistan.
By the government's own admission to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), which was set up in 2016 under the chairmanship of BJP Member of Parliament P. Rajendra Aggarwal to examine the Bill and receive feedback from stakeholders, the total number of such “persecuted persons” was around 31,313 among whom Hindus constituted the largest chunk, 25,447, followed by Sikhs at 5,807, Christians at 56, and Buddhists and Parsis numbering only two each. Their problems ranged from claims of being discriminated against in jobs, being called “kafir” (disbeliever), their places of worship getting destroyed, and men and women being compelled to wear clothes of a particular religious denomination. Notwithstanding the small numbers, the CAB has been opposed by the indigenous tribes of the north-eastern States for the potential floodgates it could open in the future. Those who oppose the Bill argue that Assam will be a “victim” in view of its immediate proximity to Bangladesh. It was also opined that if Bangladesh could be removed from the list of countries identified under the CAB, the people of Assam would have no objection to it. The JPC submitted its report to Parliament in January 2019.
The CAB was introduced in the Lok Sabha on July 15, 2016. It was passed during the winter session of the Lower House on January 8, but it lapsed as it was not tabled in the Rajya Sabha, which adjourned sine die on February 13. The resurrection of the controversial Bill, which involves the amendment of the Citizenship Act, 1955, for the 10th time, was curious. Following apprehensions that it might not pass muster in the Rajya Sabha owing to resistance, especially from the north-eastern States, the Bill was not tabled in the Upper House. The BJP was also wary of the negative impact it could have on the outcome of the Lok Sabha election that took place in April and May. This was one reason why the BJP did not insist on the passage of the Bill and did not make it an election issue although it stressed its commitment to the Bill in its manifesto. The Lok Sabha election results in the north-eastern States showed that the CAB did not have any impact on the fortunes of the BJP and its allies. (In fact the BJP, won 41 of the 60 seats in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly elections, which was held in April/May.)
According to Amongla Jamir, R.K. Satapathy, S. Mangi Singh and Shreyas Sardesai, authors of a survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Lokniti, which was published in Economic and Political Weekly (Volume 54, Issue 34, August 24, 2019), despite a high degree of awareness plus opposition to the CAB, it was not a major determiner of voting preferences. The BJP won nine of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Assam; it won both Arunachal East and Arunachal West in Arunachal Pradesh; one out of two seats in Manipur; and both the seats in Tripura. The party gained six seats more than its 2014 tally, winning 14 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the region. More than the CAB, it was the NRC that was the major reason for turning voter enthusiasm towards the BJP and its NEDA partners. With the BJP back in power at the Centre with a huge mandate, it is once again pursuing the agenda of enacting the CAB. The Bill, with its singularly exclusionary character, gives the BJP another opportunity to reinforce its majoritarian agenda.
At the NEDA conclave, Amit Shah said the CAB would be brought up again in Parliament. He reassured the participants that the existing laws of the north-eastern region would be the same. The reassurance was necessary as there was widespread opposition to the introduction of the Bill both inside and outside Parliament, more so, in the north-eastern States. The BJP’s NEDA partners expressed strong reservations, and rightly so. According to media reports, Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga, while expressing his disagreement with the proposal to reintroduce the Bill, stated that all political parties supporting it were on the “verge of suicide”. “If at all the Bill has to be implemented, please see if the north-east can be excluded from it. I request you to look into the vulnerability of the region. The Citizenship Bill is a very sensitive issue here. In most of the States where political parties supported it, they are on the verge of suicide,” he said. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma also expressed concerns over the Bill at the conclave. He urged the Home Minister to take all the States of the region into confidence before bringing in the legislation again.
The irony is that while the NRC fulfilled the ideological demographic agenda of the BJP and raised the jingoistic quotient within the north-eastern region, the amendments to the Citizenship Bill, which have a similar sectarian objective, have been met with resistance by the same sections that pushed for the NRC on the grounds that it would alter the demographic pattern in the region, particularly Assam, and pose a threat to the political, economic, cultural and social affairs of the indigenous people.
The Bill pegs December 31, 2014, as the last date for grant of citizenship, implying that those non-Muslims who settled after 1971 (the cut-off date for the NRC) and until 2014 would be considered valid citizens but Muslims who entered after the 1971 cut-off period in Assam would be excluded. In fact, the resurrection of the CAB has led to the interpretation that non-Muslims in the mass detention camps set up for “illegal immigrants” whose names did not figure on the final NRC list ,would be easily accommodated under the CAB, which recognises the right of residence of non-Muslim refugees who have stayed in India for seven years.
The problem is that the CAB wholly violates the fundamental right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution as it discriminates on the basis of religion, singling out certain religious denominations for inclusion while keeping out refugees belonging to the Muslim community. In their depositions and averments to the JPC, government representatives were emphatic that it did not constitute a violation of Article 14 as it did not discriminate against any religion.
The CAB has been construed as a violation of the Assam Accord (signed in 1985 between the representative of the Government of India and leaders of the Assam Movement), which clearly specifies that all those who entered Assam after January 1, 1966, and March 24, 1971, will be considered as foreigners and will have to register their names under the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939. Critics have pointed out that it will basically end up legitimising the citizenship of all those persons, mainly non-Muslims, who have been declared as illegal immigrants as per the NRC. Taking advantage of the lacunae that the Citizenship Act, 1955, does not define who is a citizen, and the virtual mandate given to Parliament to decide such matters, the BJP has found it worth its while to push through with this giving citizenship rights to only certain select communities to the exclusion of Muslims.
Worrisome mindset
In fact , a close perusal of the introduction of the report of the JPC on the CAB, which was submitted in January 2019, reveals a worrisome mindset. At the outset, it makes the distinction between theocratic and non-theocratic states, the former being synonymous with the persecution of minorities. Stating that the Constitution left the issue of termination and acquisition of citizenship and all related matters to Parliament, the JPC notes that “the ultimate resolution of the demographic problem depends on how countries define and enforce their respective citizenship policies”.
The JPC report also quotes B.R. Ambedkar as saying during the Constituent Assembly debates on Articles 5 and 6 of the Constitution pertaining to citizenship that “the business of laying down the law of citizenship has been left to Parliament” and that if “there is any category of people that is left out by the provisions contained in the amendment we have given power to Parliament subsequently to make provisions for them.” It quotes Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as having said in the Constituent Assembly (April 1947) that “it is important to remember that the provisions of citizenship will be scrutinised all over the world. They are watching what we are doing.” It also selectively quotes from Jawaharlal Nehru’s “Tryst with Destiny” speech where Nehru said that “we think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come”. Nehru's observation was not in the context of conferring citizenship rights but could be construed as a general observation and not made with any reference to any specific community or religious denomination.
The JPC also includes a copious quote from Syama Prasad Mookerjee, founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (the precursor of the BJP) whose resignation from the Constituent Assembly was a protest at the “treatment of minorities in East Pakistan” and who said “let us not forget that the Hindus of East Bengal are entitled to the protection of India not on humanitarian considerations alone but by virtue of their sufferings and sacrifices made cheerfully for generations not for advancing their own parochial interests but for laying the foundation of India's political freedom and intellectual progress.”
Even as the Bill awaited passage by Parliament, the government amended the Passport (Entry into India) Rules, 1950, and the Foreigners Order (1948) through a notification dated September 7, 2015, regularising the entry and stay of persons from the six identified groups from the three countries without attracting the penal provisions of the Foreigners Act and the Passport (Entry into India) Act and the rules pertaining to both pieces of legislation. India has a Standard Operating Procedure to take care of migrants who have entered the country following persecution on account of race, religion, ethnic identity, nationality, and membership of a particular social group or political group since 2011. So there were two categories of persecuted migrants who would be given different treatment depending on their religious denomination. For one category of “minority” refugees or migrants, the Standard Operating Procedure would apply and for the other, the citizenship rights would be conferred, thanks to the enabling provisions of the CAB.
For instance, the Union government has not treated the Rohingya refugee crisis with the kind of humanitarian response needed for what has been described by the United Nations as the worst humanitarian crisis in recent times. The U.N. described the Rohinya refugees, who have been fleeing from Rakhine State in Myanmar, as the most persecuted ethnic group in the world. Government estimates peg the total number of Rohingya refugees at 40,000 while the U.N estimates are higher. While refugees from Tibet have been issued registration and identity certificates, the government looks upon Rohingya refugees with suspicion and as a threat to internal security. The fact that Rohingyas are Muslims is an additional factor for this suspicion.
The absence of a refugee policy with provisions for asylum to persecuted groups has helped the government adopt a selective approach towards immigrants. It chooses to regard them as legal or illegal immigrant or legal or illegal refugee. India is not a signatory to the U.N.’s 1951 Refugee Convention (a treaty that defines a refugee and sets out the rights of those granted asylum and the responsibilities of the government towards them) or the 1967 protocol. But clearly, the north-eastern region and its elected representatives are not amused with the selective application of citizenship rights despite the government’s enthusiasm on this score.
It may be recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech, said that those who followed the principle of the small family contributed to the development of the nation. It was a form of patriotism, he added.
The politics of demography, national identity, cultural nationalism and, more recently, citizenship has always been high on the agenda of the BJP. Faced with a situation of being unable to address the growing economic insecurities and increasing unemployment, the renewed and repeated emphasis on weeding out illegal migrants through the “legal route” as stated by Amit Shah is a handy smokescreen to divert public attention from real and significant livelihood issues.
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