- Wreaking havoc on the Muslims of the North-East
Both Houses of Indian Parliament have passed the Citizenship Act (Amendment) Bill, which removes a vast number of Muslims from the purview of Indian Citizenship, but includes Hindus and Sikhs migrating from ‘neighbouring countries’ (primarily Bangladesh, but also Pakistan and Afghanistan). Remarkably, the Bill explicitly differentiates between religious communities, thus shredding what little the BJP has left of India’s secular image.
The passage was clearly a high priority, as it passed the lower House one day, and the upper the next. This speediness was only exceeded, tellingly, by the single-day passage of the constitutional amendments ending Kashmir’s special status, and downgrading into two union territories. That India has not got over the protest movement there apparently did not discourage Union Home Minister Amit Shah from moving against Muslims in the Northeast. It is perhaps paradoxical that the protest is the strongest in the Northeast, but because people there fear that many Hindus who have migrated from Bangladesh will obtain citizenship in this manner, which will let them to make their place at the expense of locals.
The path along which the BJP is taking India goes back to the mob destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992, and even earlier. It has as its object the destruction of the Muslim presence in India. Pakistan’s reaction encompassed a National Assembly resolution and a Foreign Office statement, but there has been a reaction within India as well, by people who are made uneasy by the shattering of the secularist dream with which India was led to independence by Congress. Congress itself cannot escape guilt, for it was in power when India started the Kashmir issue, but has so far avoided the blatant Hindu supremacism of the current bill, which is merely a precursor of worse to come. The move has drawn fire worldwide, and the USA’s Commission on religious Freedom has sought sanctions on Shah and other BJP leaders. The current bill is actually a finishing of the business of the previous term, for a CAB had been moved, but not fast-tracked like the present one, in the last Parliament. The action in Kashmir was also a sort of finishing. The next step is the ending of separate personal laws in some matters, in favour of a unified civil code.
