CAA : Non-Secular? Anti-Assam? Or both?
Citizenship can be defined as the status of having the right to participate in and be represented in politics. Being a citizen of a country entitles a person all the rights mentioned in its Constitution. The now amended Citizenship Act of 1955 prevented illegal migrants from becoming citizens of India, it defined ‘illegal migrants’ as foreigners who enter India without a valid passport or travel documents or stay beyond the permitted time. According to the act, illegal migrants can be deported or incarcerated. The Citizenship Amendment Act, which was recently introduced in the lower house by Home Minister Amit Shah, proposes to grant citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhist, Jains, and Parsis – from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who arrived in India before December 31, 2014. The Act has been subject to severe protests across the country, especially in the state of Assam. I believe there are two reasons which make this Act very contentious, firstly its non-secular nature, and secondly, its effect on the people of Assam. However, the Bhartiya Janata Party(BJP) defends the Act by claiming to protect ‘persecuted’ religious minorities from three neighboring countries, since they have a majoritarian official religion, Islam, which also happens to be the largest minority community of India.
Is the Act opposed to Indian Secularism?
Indian secularism adopts the doctrine of “state above religion” and professes no official religion of the state. It allows its citizens to peacefully practice, profess and propagate their religion. It treats all religions equally and does not consider faith as a parameter for citizenship. The Act clearly opposes the Indian idea of secularism since it divides the illegal migrants into a binary of Muslims and Non- Muslims, and plans to accommodate thes non-Muslims as citizens through naturalisation. The BJP in its 2014 manifesto promised that “India shall remain a natural home for persecuted Hindus, and they shall be welcome to seek refuge here”. The BJP fails to understand that India is the natural home of all its citizens, irrespective of their faith and creed. While accommodation or expulsion of illegal migrants is a matter of public policy, selective inclusion and expulsion on the basis of religion manifest anti-secular sentiments. The Act has several questionable provisions, to which the BJP has no answer. First is the selection of three countries namely- Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. All these countries have two factors in common- Islam being the religion of the majority, while the largest religious minority is the Hindus. Since, Afghanistan was never a part of colonial India, “common history” can’t be a justified reason for the selection of these countries. If the protection of persecuted religious minorities was the sole objective, why has the government not included Sri Lanka, where Hindu and Muslim Tamils of Indian origin have been historically “persecuted”. The move seems to have ulterior motives, such as further consolidating a Hindu majority and at the same time sully Muslims as “persecutors”, which ideally benefits the majoritarian idea of Hindutva. Yet another question which the BJP might not answer is if its only intention is to provide refuge to persecuted minorities, why does the word “persecuted” finds no mention in the Act. This means that a Bangladeshi Hindu who’s migrating to India for economic reasons shall be naturalised, while a Rohingya Muslim seeking asylum would be turned down. While the BJP claims that the Act and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) run parallel, one can identify intersections by looking at the larger picture. While the NRC, would identify illegal migrants, the Act would divide them into a Muslim-non-Muslim binary, and naturalise the non-Muslims, thereby completing the process. Given the above arguments, the Act clearly opposes the Indian idea of secularism.
How does the Act affect Assam?
Assam is one of the seven northeastern Indian states. The state is home to a large number of tribes, with their variety in tradition, culture, dresses and exotic way of life. These tribes have different languages, however, Assamese is the most spoken language of the state. With about 89 percent of the population residing in rural areas, Assam has experienced changing demographics due to illegal migration from neighbouring countries. Most migrants sneak into the Indian mainland in search for employment opportunities, education, healthcare, etc. The Assamese people since long have protested against illegal migrants, since they endanger the Assamese language and culture, and offer undesired competition in employment. Violent anti-foreigner protests broke out during the 1980s due to a drastic increase in the number of people registered in the electoral rolls. These protests were led by All Assam Students’ Union, which eventually signed the Assam Accord with the government of India, ending the 6-year long agitation. The said accord promised to deport all illegal migrants who came into India after 1971. Naturally, this task required a register of citizens, and the Assamese people were vocal in their support for NRC. However, the introduction of CAA would mean that a significant number of illegal migrants would be naturalised into the Indian state. Not only does CAA violate the Assam Accord of 1985, but it also endangers Assamese language and culture. The act strengthens the claim that the “needs of the northeast shall always remain secondary to the ambitions of mainland India”. What makes the situation worse is the flawed process of NRC, which at times has excluded Muslims, even tough they had all the required documents. In one of the cases, a Muslim woman and her son were excluded from the register, while her parents were included. These factors gave rise to political chaos in the state, in a reaction to which, the government banned the internet in the state. While the NRC has its own problems of blurred definitions of who an “insider” or “outsider” is, the CAA ensures that the Assamese demand of deporting all illegal migrants will remain unfulfilled.
