Humanitarian in character and Constitutionally upright: The CAA is all that India stands for

A Constitutionally moral and ethically resonant Citizenship Amendment Act has been at the receiving end of rampant flak and red-herring ever since it was passed in December 2019. Deception and detraction have stood out as the hallmark features of a virulent anti-CAA campaign engineered by interest groups in the Muslim fraternity, the leftist lobby, the opposition parties and the anti-Modi media.

The canard levelled against CAA is based on the premise that the act discriminates on religious grounds and is a weapon to hound Muslims out of India. This could not be further from the truth as the act does not concern the Muslim citizens of India or the whole of Indian citizenry for that matter. The Citizenship Amendment Act only paves the path for granting Indian citizenship to refugees belonging to certain religious communities who were victims of religious persecution and sought refuge in India before December 31, 2014. 

The act brings under its ambit Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and Parsi refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. However, it does not cover the victims of sectarian violence - the Shias and the Ahmadiyas which are the two religious sects within the Muslim community. This remains to be the biggest thorn in the flesh of those who label the CAA as discriminatory and draconian. They have presented and continue to present a distorted picture of the CAA to induce fear and hatred in the hearts of Indian Muslims. 

All Indians, especially the Muslim community, should be cognizant of the historical fact that Zafarullah Khan, the chief architect of the1940 Lahore Resolution which called for the creation of Pakistan as a separate homeland for Muslims, was a renowned Ahmadiya himself. Not only did he and his followers consciously choose Pakistan over India but he also played a leading role in crushing Pakistan’s chances of espousing a secular constitution as had originally been envisioned by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Liaqat Ali Khan who succeeded Jinnah after the latter’s demise, by virtue of the Objectives Resolution of 1949, ensured that Pakistan’s Constitution was inspired entirely by the tenets of Islam. The birth of Islamic theocracy in Pakistan left the country’s non-muslims as second-class citizens. What is supremely significant though is that the Objectives Resolution was supported by Shias and Ahmadiyas in letter and spirit, thereby owing allegiance to an Islamic Pakistan. In the subsequent years, non-muslims were subjected to heinous atrocities by the state while Shias and Ahmadiyas who had supported the Objectives Resolution watched all of it like mute spectators. After carrying out a mass obliteration of minorities, the Pakistani state started a systematic crackdown on Shias and Ahmadiyas declaring them as non-muslims. 

Anti-CAA commentators call the act discriminatory despite the historical account that establishes Shias and Ahmadiyas of Pakistan as choosers of an Islamic theocracy instead of a secular constitution and as the audience and supporters of the genocide of their non-muslim countrymen. To put it bluntly, it is the malevolent desire for Islamisation of India that drives the torchbearers of pseudo-secularism to advocate the inclusion of Shias and Ahmadiyas in the Citizenship Amendment Act. But a stoic silence is maintained on episodes as recent as the brutal killing of 25 Sikhs in Kabul by ISIS terrorists or dating as far back as the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir in the 90s. This is simply because both categories of victims are non-muslims. Pseudos’ textbook of religious persecution does not include Hindus. They portray Hindus as a community that persecutes Indian Muslims while itself being immune to any form of persecution. 

This selective employment of the word ‘persecution’ aimed at projecting a particular community as the victim while demonising another is as detrimental, if not more, to the idea of a unified and stable India as persecution carried out in practice itself. In the aftermath of the Delhi riots, the anti-Muslim pogrom connotation attributed to the carnage to portray Hindus as an Islamophobic blood-thirsty community has traumatised the collective consciousness and dignity of the self-respecting Hindu society. Vilifying Hindus through propaganda and fake news was the mainstay of the vicious anti-Hindu agenda run by the so-called “seculars” of India and the Modi-baiters in international media. A lop-sided narrative was weaved to brush under the carpet the gut-wrenching barbarism unleashed on the majority community. The macabre murder of the IB official Ankit Sharma was barely highlighted with any vehemence by the pseudo-secular brigade and the anti-establishment media. What has emerged, therefore, is an irrefutable imperativeness of laying an unambiguous emphasis against the misrepresentation of the idea of “protection and rehabilitation of persecuted Hindus and other non-muslims” as a threat to the existence of Muslims in India. The CAA is a significant step in this direction. Its relevance and indispensability have become even more pronounced after the Delhi riots, not just in the context of the refugees but also with regard to Hindus and other non-muslim communities in India. 

India has a civilisational responsibility to embrace the victims of religious persecution and Hinduphobia who have been denied a life of dignity due to their religious identity. This is a country that has a rich humanitarian tradition of accommodating the oppressed and the abused such as the Tibetans, Jews, Parsis, Sri Lankan Tamils and Ugandan Hindus. Then why not the non-muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh? Shutting doors on them would be tantamount to slapping humanity in the face, something that India does not stand for. 

In Muslim majority countries, Islamic majoritarianism percolates into the deepest levels of political practices as well as constitutional and jurisprudential proclamations. The majoritarian authoritarianism is so robust that it is considered to be the democratic right and religious duty of Muslims to build a state that is governed by laws and conventions of Islam. This enforcement of an Islamic identity not only leads to the alienation of minorities but also forms the bedrock of religious persecution in the Islamic world. Juxtapose this picture with the image of a religiously-tolerant Hindu-majority India that does not champion the cause of Hindu majoritarianism and upholds the country’s egalitarian justice system. Hindu ethos does not encourage or endorse the oppression of any community and the inclusive Hindu culture advocates the freedom of conscience, not subjugation or retribution. This is regardless of the reality that the Indian subcontinent faced the savageries of Islamic invasions for centuries. Millions of Hindus were brutally persecuted for standing up against forced conversions, Hindu temples were desecrated, Hindu girls were raped, and in many cases abducted and married to Muslim men after converting them to Islam.

People of non-Islamic faiths, for whom it was logistically and financially impossible to migrate to the Indian side of the divide in1947, have over the decades seen their plight manifest into imperilment. Post India’s independence there has been a prodigious decline in the population of non-Muslims from 25 per cent in 1951 to 5 per cent in 2011 in Pakistan and 23.2 per cent in 1951 to 9.6 per cent in 2011 in Bangladesh. Pakistan, in particular, is guilty of the state-sponsored crackdown on religious minorities, especially Hindus, in the form of killings, rapes, forced conversions, scrupulous allegations of blasphemy, forced marriages of minor Hindu girls, etc. Such horrendous acts of cruelty legitimise the granting of Indian citizenship to the exploited refugees. A nation that has the magnanimity and tolerance to accommodate those who chant anti-India slogans such as “Bharat tere tukde honge inshallah inshalllah”, “Jinnah Wali Azadi” cannot be questioned for opening its heart to those non-muslims who have been tormented in the name of radical Islamist supremacy. Shaheen Bagh protests in Delhi are a classic example of an attempt to blackmail India into surrendering to sinister anti-Hindu propaganda masquerading as an anti-CAA protest. At the heart of this anarchic theatre that lasted for many weeks was a morbid desire to paint India with an Islamic colour. 

But, firm in its determination, the Modi leadership has exhibited unflinching resolve to uphold India’s parliamentary sanctity and sovereignty, erecting strong barriers against unsolicited and unwarranted interference in its policy and decision-making. This is despite the constant intimidation and lambasting received from the propaganda-driven Shaheen Bagh protestors as well as the Congress and other left-leaning parties, or even some political and diplomatic voices from overseas be it the ‘growing Hindu supremacy and suppression of Muslims in India’ comment from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini or the UNHRC’s intervention in the Indian Supreme Court against the CAA.

From all that has been meticulously explained above, it can only be inferred that the CAA is inherently altruistic. The act is not anti-Muslim at all and benign for Indian citizens of all faiths. It does not divide the country on communal lines, instead bolsters India’s legacy as a nation of rich humanitarian values.