EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE THE HINDU DELHI THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2019 OPED 11 EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Are fears over the CAA misplaced? Calling the U.S.’s bluff in 1971 To reassure Indian Muslims, the PM needs to state that the govt. will not conduct an exercise like NRC Bold power play by India and Russia held off Pakistan’s benefactors in those crucial days in December 1971 vention consider hate speech the prime harbinger of genocide. “The ambiguity about what the Indo­Soviet Treaty Holocaust did not start with the gas meant in the unfolding situation. chambers. It started long before with The White House had also been hoping hate speech,” observed Adama for some sort of a Chinese move to compli­ G. Sampath Dieng, the UN Secretary General’s cate India’s military operations. On the same Special Adviser on Prevention of day, Nixon told Kissinger, “a movement of Hate Speech, on Prevent Genocide Zorawar Daulet Singh even some Chinese toward that border could A day after asserting at an election Day this month. As a political tool, scare those goddamn Indians to death.” rally that those “creating a storm” the CAB­NRIC combo has the poten­ As we remember the liberation of Bangla­ against the Citizenship Amendment tial to encourage hate speech, espe­ desh this week more than four decades ago, China doesn’t take the bait Act (CAA) can be “identified by their cially at election time. As an adminis­ it is worth recalling the geopolitics that made On December 10, in a secret meeting in New clothes itself”, Prime Minister Naren­ trative tool, it weakens constitutional it possible. By 1969, Prime Minister Indira York, Kissinger told Huang Hua, China’s offi­ dra Modi tweeted that “no Indian has safeguards against genocidal machi­ Gandhi and her advisers were aware that the cial at the UN, that the U.S. was “moving a anything to worry regarding this nations, which could prove deadly in U.S.’s feelers to China could potentially come number of naval ships in the West Pacific to­ Act”. It is unfair to dismiss without the unlikely event of the world’s lar­ at a cost to India’s security. The Sino­Soviet ward the Indian Ocean: an aircraft carrier ac­ careful consideration the govern­ gest democracy mutating into a ma­ split meant that Moscow had looked at geo­ companied by four destroyers and a tanker, ment’s claim that Indians have noth­ joritarian state sympathetic to such political developments with a similar per­ and a helicopter carrier and two destroyers.” ing to fear from the CAA. Not even its machinations. spective. By July 1971, the veil had been lift­ Kissinger also offered to provide “tactical in­ critics can deny that all that the CAA ed. Pakistan had served as a middleman in telligence” on “the disposition of Soviet forc­ does is to offer a benefit: citizenship. Exclusionary precedents the U.S.­China detente. By December 1971, it es” on China’s borders, and added, if the Chi­ It does not take away anything from There is ample historical precedent was crunch time as the fate of their ally hung nese“were to consider the situation on the anyone. And, it offers the benefits of for exclusionary citizenship laws and in the balance. The U.S. aircraft carrier ‘En­ Indian subcontinent a threat to its security, citizenship to persecuted religious the ends they served. The Reich Citi­ terprise’ was despatched to the Indian and if it took measures to protect its security, minorities from Afghanistan, Pakis­ zenship Law of 1935 stripped Ger­ Ocean as a gambit to raise Pakistan’s morale. the U.S. would oppose the efforts of others to tan and Bangladesh. man Jews of their citizenship, and At a meeting chaired by Mrs. Gandhi to as­ interfere with the People’s Republic.” True, it doesn’t offer this benefit to everyone knows what came after. sess the implications of the Seventh Fleet’s The move was aimed to kill several birds persecuted Ahmadiyyas or Shias Closer home, the 1982 Citizenship presence in the Bay of Bengal, her adviser with a single stone. But China didn’t bite. from these countries. It is discrimi­ Law in Myanmar rendered Rohingya D.P. Dhar urged India to leverage the special Beijing feared that even limited coercive ac­ natory towards persecuted non­In­ Muslims stateless, despite the fact understanding that had been formalised in tions against India would invite immediate dians who are Muslims. But what has that they were indigenous to the Ara­ August, “What is the point of India having reprisals from Moscow. In the light of Rus­ that got to do with Indians, or Indian kan region. Myanmar is currently signed the Indo­Soviet treaty of Peace, sia’s dramatic military escalation to Chinese Muslims, for that matter? As has facing charges of genocide at the In­ Friendship and Cooperation, if India cannot provocations in their 1969 border crisis, been pointed out umpteen times by ternational Court of Justice. call this bluff?” Then, on December 14, Mrs. Chairman Mao Zedong was not going to take Home Minister Amit Shah, the CAA Assurances by the government Gandhi’s confidant P.N. Haksar cabled Dhar a chance again. Indeed, a few months ear­ doesn’t even refer to Muslims. So that “no Indian will lose citizenship” in Moscow saying it was necessary “to make lier, Soviet Defence Minister Andrei Grechko why is it being said that this law tar­ A protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act in Bengaluru. Anti-CAA are to be welcomed. But anti­CAA a public announcement carrying the seal of had plainly told Dhar, “the Chinese were gets Indian Muslims? protesters believe that a section of Indian Muslims could lose citizenship. * PTI protesters are convinced that under the highest authorities in the Soviet Union aware of the superiority of Soviet forces on the CAA­NRIC regime, sections of that involvement or interference by third the Eastern borders and this ‘had downed No CAA without NRIC citizenship­related documentation, the Indian state as incarnated in the Muslims will cease to be “Indians” countries... cannot but aggravate the situa­ their tail’.” For China to “invite a conflict” af­ For an answer, we don’t need to look will the all­India NRC or NRIC be im­ CAA. Ready to be scooped up, like so anyway. Once they lose their citizen­ tion”. Shortly thereafter, the Soviets “sent a ter the conclusion of the Indo­Soviet Treaty beyond the Home Minister’s own plemented. If there is no NRIC, there many gasping fish, by the NRIC net. ship, the government can still claim top­secret message to Nixon” warning the would be tantamount to “courting a disas­ statements. Mr. Shah has repeatedly would be no need for the CAA either. Every Indian who is puzzled by that no “Indian” has lost citizenship, U.S. “against involvement or interference”. ter”. Later, during the Nixon­Mao summit in underscored two things: one, he will The NRIC’s objective is to divide the the intensity of the anti­CAA protests for it is the government which de­ 1972, Zhou Enlai told Kissinger that the U.S. implement the National Register of people domiciled in India into two sweeping the country needs to answ­ cides who is an Indian and who isn’t. Entry of Soviet naval vessels bluff had been called by the Soviets. On De­ Indian Citizens (NRIC), extending the categories: citizens and “illegal mi­ er a few simple questions: What hap­ If it is indeed the case that all fears Naval units from the Soviet Pacific Fleet had cember 13, the Soviet Ambassador to India, NRC exercise conducted in Assam to grants”. The CAA’s objective is to pre­ pens when, after Hindu, Sikh, Budd­ about the CAA are misplaced, and it already been dispatched. The U.S. was aware Nikolai Pegov, reassured New Delhi that Mos­ the rest of India; and two, the se­ emptively rescue, prior to the NRIC hist, Jain, Parsi and Christian is only “vested interests” that are that the Soviet Navy had entered the Indian cow would counteract any moves by the U.S. quence is all­important: he will im­ exercise, the citizenship of all In­ residents of India who are excluded misleading the nation, then it is easy Ocean on December 5 and by December 7 or China. And, if Beijing decided to intervene plement the CAA first, and only after dians except those whose religion by the NRIC are granted citizenship, for the Prime Minister to dispel such was “approximately 500 nautical miles east in Ladakh, Moscow “would open a diver­ that, the NRIC. finds no mention in the CAA. thanks to the CAA, only Muslim misapprehensions. Instead of bland­ of Ceylon (Sri Lanka).” On December 8, U.S. sionary action in Xinjiang.” Three days later, Put simply, the CAA is a safety net “non­citizens” remain? Will these ly insisting that “not a single Indian National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger the Pakistan Army surrendered. that will ensure, and insure, the citi­ Threat of omission stateless people be sent to detention will lose citizenship”, he only needs admitted that given the Russia factor, “I must Looking back, we can see that Indian pol­ zenship of all Hindus, Sikhs, Chris­ It’s simple arithmetic: add all the reli­ camps? Or will they be accorded an to declare categorically that the go­ warn you, Mr. President, if our bluff is called, icymakers achieved something remarkable tians, Buddhists, Jains and Paris — gious groups under threat of exclu­ inferior status in a hierarchy of citi­ vernment will never, ever conduct we’ll be in trouble..