Amit Shah's NRC Plan Decoded
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Established 1946 1 Pages 20 Price : Rupees Five Vol. 74 No. 45 Amit Shah’s NRC Plan Decoded December 1, 2019 Siddharth Varadarajan The Constitution as a Living Document Nandini Sundar In speech after speech, Union of dividing the Indian people on the How Far Have We Deviated From the home minister Amit Shah and other basis of religion. Ideology of Our Constitution? Sangh Parivar leaders like Mohan That is why leaders like Amit S.V. Narayanan Bhagwat have been insisting that Shah are trying to scare Muslim Finance Ministry Rejected RBI's Dissent on Electoral Bonds no Hindu will ever be deported from citizens and make them feel insecure Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar India when their plan to create a about their place in their own What Policies Can India's Corporates National Register of Citizens (NRC) country, while telling Hindus that Buy With Half a Billion Dollars? is enforced across the country. this country really belongs to them Raghu Karnad At a political rally in Kolkata and reassuring them that they will Pathetic State of Economy: on October 1, Shah said, “I want never have to fear their citizenship Modi Govt Hides Data Prabhat Patnaik to assure all Hindu, Sikh, Jain, or devotion to the country being Buddhist and Christian refugees questioned. Jharkhand: Where Is the Mineral Wealth Going? that you will not be forced to leave This kind of politics goes Subodh Varma India by the Centre. Don’t believe against not just the letter and spirit Global Climate Disaster: rumours. Before NRC, we will bring of the Constitution but marks a Science is Screaming the Citizenship Amendment Bill, potentially dangerous turn—even Jake Johnson which will ensure these people get by the violent track record of Capitalism versus Life on Earth Indian citizenship.” Hindutva organisations. But beyond Ian Angus Now, if—like me—you were that, Shah’s reassurance to Hindu Editor : G. G. Parikh brought up on the values of the refugees, and those who care only Indian Constitution, you would for them, rests on a gigantic fib. Associate Editor : Neeraj Jain likely be scratching your head and Ever since the 2014 Lok Sabha Managing Editor : Guddi asking how on earth a minister could election, when Modi and the speak like this. Granted, he is talking Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) first Editorial Board : about refugees and not Indians, but began playing dangerous communal B. Vivekanandan, Qurban Ali, by what canon of morality, law or politics over India’s laws governing Anil Nauriya, Sonal Shah, tradition is it okay for the home foreigners and citizenship, the Amarendra Dhaneshwar, minister to say India will welcome government has moved swiftly Sandeep Pandey any and every kind of refugee as to segment and eventually even long as they are not Muslim? segregate the country’s residents on D-15, Ganesh Prasad, The fact is that all this talk of the basis of religion. Let us be very Naushir Bharucha Marg, refugees and immigrants is classic clear about this monstrous reality: if Mumbai - 400 007. dog-whistle politics, and is an we take Amit Shah’s words at face Email : [email protected] integral part of the Narendra Modi value, the only people without the Website:www.janataweekly.org government’s overarching strategy requisite documentation who will 2 JANATA, December 1, 2019 actually face deportation once an rightly so—including those who are in accordance with the Constitution NRC-type exercise is run across undocumented. Yet when it comes to and the law, without fear or favour, India will be Muslims. the fate of undocumented migrants affection or ill-will.” India has more than 1.3 billion in India, we behave just as horribly Shah’s plan hinges on residents, the overwhelming as the worst racists in the West. communalism, fear and division majority of whom are citizens. A Just look at the language that the but also on a lie. This is because the tiny, tiny fraction of the country’s government, the media and even the government’s plan to accommodate population comprises foreigners. courts use to describe undocumented Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain and Most of them are probably long-term migrants: we call them “infiltrators”. Christian refugees from Bangladesh, residents and it is safe to assume the An infiltrator conjures up the Pakistan and Afghanistan has a cut- majority do not have proper entry image of a man with a gun coming off date and that date is December or residence documents because to kill people. But an undocumented 31, 2014. successive governments simply migrant is someone who crosses a In 2015 and 2016, the never bothered to create a rational border in order to make an honest government amended the Passport migration and refugee policy. Of day’s wage. Now, we have Amit (Entry into India) Rules and the these, the largest single group are Shah calling Bangladeshi migrants Foreigners Act rules to declare that of Bangladeshi origin, but there ‘termites’ and promising to drive migrants belonging to those specific are also people from Tibet, Sri them out of India. It is not clear religions from these three countries Lanka, Myanmar, Afghanistan and where he intends to send those would never be considered “illegal Pakistan, most of whom have been whom his government is able to immigrants” in law provided they living in India for years and have identify; into the Bay of Bengal came to India before December 31, children who are full-fledged Indian perhaps? Because Bangladesh has 2014. The proposed Citizenship citizens. said repeatedly that it does not Amendment Bill will make it Labour migration is a fact of believe the people India wants to easier for these same groups to life, in South Asia and around the deport are Bangladeshis and thus acquire Indian citizenship, but world, and is a product of underlying will not accept them. That is why again provided they came in before economic dynamics in which labour Modi has been forced to reassure December 2014. shortages are actually transmitted Sheikh Hasina that she need not The carve-out for all religions from region to region. For example, worry about the NRC and External except Islam, the limited geographic economic opportunities in North Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has scope of the move and the cut- America lead to Punjabis migrating said the consequences of the exercise off date are proof of not just the out of India. Biharis then come is and will remain an internal matter government’s communalism but to Punjab to work the farms. But for India. total insincerity and dishonesty as this means there are less Biharis The NRC process has already well. available to work in West Bengal turned 1.9 million into virtually If India wants to adopt a and Delhi, which pulls workers in stateless people. Now Shah wants genuinely humanitarian policy from Bangladesh. Like Indians, to compound the problem that has towards refugees from neighbouring Bangladeshis also migrate to the arisen in Assam by replicating this countries, it should open its doors to West, leading to skill shortages dangerous exercise in West Bengal all victims of religious persecution back home. A few years ago, the and other parts of India. Since and not just non-Muslims. This World Bank published data that many Hindus have also ended up means Hindus from Bangladesh or Indians working in Bangladesh had in this excluded list, the home Pakistan should be welcomed, but remitted $3.7 billion back home that minister is busy reassuring Hindus so should Ahmadiyas, Hazaras or year—roughly half the amount that in Bengal and elsewhere who fail to anyone else. Bangladeshi workers in India send produce the proper papers that their Second, either you have a policy home each year. Indianness will not be in doubt. This for the neighbourhood or you don’t. Now India and the Indian people assurance is a blatant violation of Why are Modi and Shah being are very sensitive to the mistreatment his oath of office that obliges him humane to the religiously persecuted of Indian migrants worldwide— to “do right to all manner of people from just Bangladesh, Afghanistan JANATA, December 1, 2019 3 and Pakistan? Why not Myanmar new citizenship amendment for Bangladeshi, even Hindu ones— and Sri Lanka? By what logic is the Hindus persecuted in Pakistan or and using the citizenship and NRC government excluding Rohingya Bangladesh since 2015 who fled process to polarise the whole country Muslims fleeing persecution in to—or want to flee to—India? and consolidate their Hindu vote Myanmar, or Tamil Muslims The reason Narendra Modi and bank. and Hindus fleeing violence or Amit Shah have no place for them This is the ugly politics which persecution in Sri Lanka, should is because they love power more Shah is engaging in; it should surprise the situation (heavens forbid) ever than they love refugees, even Hindu us that this politics requires the use worsen there? ones. They know that if they were of ugly, vulgar words like ‘infiltrator’ Now Shah and his apologists to scrap the cut-off date—which and ‘termites’. Depending on how will likely scoff at these objections already violates the 1971 cut-off date desperate the BJP is to divert the because—as their guru Mohan stipulated in the Assam Accord— attention of voters away from the Bhagwat reminded us recently— voters in Assam will surely throw real issues, the NRC exercise could India is a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ and must the BJP out of power there. be used to polarise India in ways we therefore open its doors to Hindus So how do you “appease” cannot even imagine.