CAA/NRC Was Aimed At Polarising The Society For Political Gains: Experts

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CAA/NRC was aimed to polarise the society: Experts

Kashif Ahmad Faraz | India Tomorrow

NEW DELHI—Various speakers at a webinar on the theme of “A year since the Historic Movement against the CAA/NRC/NPR, What Next?” said that the whole idea of Citizenship Amendment Act and proposed National Register of Citizens was to polarise the society for political gains. The webinar organised by NGO-United Against Hate-  discussed the traumatic experience of NRC exercise in Assam, the constitutionality of CAA, peoples’ movement against it and government crackdown.

Participating in it, well-known human rights advocate Aman Wadud said that the Muslim community in assam had supported the NRC exercise to clear doubts on their identity and did not want the border police to send them to detention centres because Muslims were always suspected to be Bangladeshis and subjected to harassment at the hands of police and local authorities.

NRC exercise, he said, busted the myth of illegal immigrants. When the NRC list published was published, only 5-6 lakhs were out of NRC list while the number of Hindus failing to find their names in NRC was over 12 lakh. But this did not suit the agenda of BJP and hence, they are demanding fresh NRC in Assam.

Giving reasons as to why such a huge number of Hindus failed to pass NRC test, he said that  a lot of Bengali Hindus in 1960s migrated to Assam from  the erstwhile East Pakistan and they were given refugee certificates. There was resistance against their rehabilitation and this resistance increased further when the Bengali Hindus migrated in hordes to Assam during India-Pakistan war in 1971. Assam movement started in 1980s and the Assam Accord was signed in 1985 and it was then decided that those who came from Bangaldesh post-1971 will be deported and their names deleted from the voters list.

Vice-Chancellor of  NALSAR University Prof. Faizan Mustafa said, “After being declared foreigners, the question is how other neighbouring countries will accept these expelled citizens? People, whose citizenship has been taken away by Indian government despite having enough evidence, why should other countries  accept them as their citizens when they don’t possess any documents of that country”.

He said, “The whole idea behind this all  is to polarize the society for reaping the political dividend. It is a political tool of the right wing in which secularists also got carried away”. This, he said, was also affecting our economy and resources.

“While proposing the idea of citizenship in Constitution assembly, PS Deshmukh asserted that all Hindus and Sikhs, residing anywhere in the world should be entitled to Indian citizenship which was opposed by Sardar Patel, Pandit Nehru and Dr. Ambedkar. Hence, the current citizenship law is against the vision of Constitution that the citizenship can’t be granted on the basis of religion. It is more like the Law of Return of Israel”, said Prof Faizan.

“The basis of CAA was religious persecution but the same word is missing in the law. The worst religious persecution has been done in Myanmar, but our government is not willing to give the refugees from Myanmar even shelter. The deadline of religious persecution   mentioned in CAA is 2014. Does it mean that the religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh has stopped after 2014? It is still going on? So, why won’t citizenship be given to those entering India even after 2014 due to religious persecution?”, he asked.

He pointed out that the CAA is not based on reasonable classification but it is an “arbitrary law” and it doesn’t fulfil the intelligible differentia test.

“The foreign tribunals in Assam are Kangaroo courts where the judicial mind has not been applied and it is irony that 15 documents are not enough to prove one citizenship”, he said.

“If we really want to give shelter to the religious persecuted people, the government must implement the Refugee Convention”, Prof Faizan opined.

He said, “During the NRC exercise people gave evidential documents for citizenship and once they are out of the NRC list and declared foreigners, even if Hindu, he/she will have to prove the religious persecution from neighbouring countries where he/she has never been”.

 “Whatever the politics has happened on this law, has to be left and we should turn back to the constitutional vision”, he suggested.  

Jamia Millia Islamia student Aysha Renna alleged that though the northeast Delhi pogrom were conspired by the Sangh parivar with the help of state machinery, it is unfortunate that the students and activists who took part in anti-CAA movements were held responsible and were being put behind bars. She said that once the Covid-19 restrictions were over, activists would again restart the protest against CAA and continue it till CAA is repealed.

Human Rights Defender and UAH founder Nadeem Khan said, “It is an irony that those who were declared foreigners in Assam, were brought back to the same address when they died in detention centres.  The whole process of NRC in Assam is politically motivated. The Foreign Tribunal’s  performance was evaluated on the basis of declaring maximum people foreigner”.

He said that there were more than 500 Shaheen Bagh-type of protest all over the country, demanding repeal of CAA.

According to Khan, the violence during CAA protests was witnessed only in BJP-ruled states where police opened fire on protesters. For examples, the police fired on protesters on December 17, 2019 in Mangalore and two persons were killed. In UP, 23 persons were killed in police firing on protesters on December 20, 2019. In post-mortem, it was found they were shot above the chest.

He alleged that Khalid Saifi was tortured in custody, got fractured in both legs. “The court itself said in the Khalid Saifi case that it seems police want to implicate Khalid saifi in a fake case”, Khan alleged.

BJP leaders Kapil Mishra and Ragini Tiwari were clearly seen delivering hate speech that triggered the violence, but no action has been taken against them.

“We want to reiterate that protesting is our democratic right. We will continue it and we don’t oppose just NPR but also fresh NRC in Assam”, he said.

Senior Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushant said, “Shaheen Bagh was well organized, non-violent where Constitution, fundamental rights, Indian laws, understanding of civilization and cultures were discussed. It was an exemplary protest and set the model for how the democratic protest should be held. The government was afraid of this movement, so they started defaming and discrediting it by labelling it anti-nationals and terrorists. And later on, by well-planned means, the hate speech from Anurag Thakur to Kapil Mishra incited the violence against the protesters and the genocide happened.”

“The government has used standard tactics against protestors to defame them and later put them behind the bars slapping draconian UAPA on them”, he pointed out.

“The people have to stand united bravely and fight without the fear of jail as the anti-CAA protestors did and what the farmers are doing. By this process, we can reclaim our democracy”, he appealed.

PUCL’s Kavita Srivastava moderated the webinar.

  

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