Author: Rabinarayan Swain.
Editorial Note : The arguments being given against the CAA are changing by the hour. This is a rebuttal of the major ones in vogue currently. As new arguments appear, we shall update this article.
After a long time, a great civilisational wrong has been corrected by the central govt. and Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) has finally become Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). According to it, Indian Citizenship will be granted to the refugees from Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist , Jain, Christian and Parsi communities who faced religious discrimination and ethnic cleansing in 3 Islamic countries Pakistan , Bangladesh, Afghanistan while Muslim immigrants will not be given that. Another important thing to keep in mind that only those persons of the above category who have come here before 31st December, 2014 will be the beneficiaries. Political parties like Congress, AIMIM, TMC and left liberal “intellectuals” are opposing the CAA and misleading the common public.
Anyone aware about the clash of civilisations would support CAA. The Hindus and Sikhs are being subjected to ethnic cleansing in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Do watch Shri. Rajiv Malhotra’s videos on the subject here and here. The combined Hindu population of Pakistan and Bangladesh has decreased from more than 12% to less than 2%. Hindu women are being gang raped and sold there every single day. Situation is not similar in India’s case. Here despite all the outcry about ” violation of human rights”, “intolerance”, “fear of fascist govt.”, the population percentage of Muslims has increased from 9% to 14%. Due to India’s many pro-minority policies it attracts immigrants from Bangladesh and Rohingya community even today. People of coastal part of Odisha and Bengal must have seen a colony of Bangladeshi Muslims in their locality. These immigrants are engaged in many criminal activities and act as a political vote bank for some parties. So, all in all the bill is only pro Humanity.
But as expected the Left-Liberals are opposing the bill and giving different arguments to propagate fear. So here we will discuss some of these claims and debunk them.
1 . Savarkar supported the partition of Nation
These people misinterpret what Savarkar meant when he talked about Hindu and Muslim being 2 separate nations in his famous book Hindutva. But in the very same book Savarkar writes that anyone who considers Bharat Bhumi as his/her PitruBhumi and PunyaBhumi is a Hindu. Dr. B.R.Ambedkar in his book ‘Thoughts on Pakistan, chapter : Hindu alternative to Pakistan sums up Savarkar’s view as ,”He allows them to have a national flag . Yet he opposes the demand of the Muslim nation for a separate national home.” In his book ‘Hindu Rashtra Darshan‘, he quotes and endorses a comment upon Mahasabha’s attitude towards partition.
Militant Hinduism, true to form, was more outspoken. ‘The basic principle of the Hindu Mahasabha’, said its Working Committee, ‘is that India is one and indivisible, and it cannot be true to itself or to the best interests of Hindusthan if it is a party to any proposal which involves the political partition of India in any shape or form.”
While the Leftists blame Savarkar for partition what they do not tell that it was Syed Ahmad Khan who was the first one to come up 2 Nation Theory and actually demanded a separate nation which would influence a power hungry Jinnah in due time.
2. Migrants are a strain on Resources. So why accommodate them.
This is another foolish sentimental argument. As mentioned earlier, only those people who have come here before 31st December 2014 are the beneficiaries. No one is distributing citizenship to others or inviting anyone to come here. Those refugees are already staying here and using the resources. Thus neither our economy nor the Hunger Index position is of concern here.
3. Assamese are opposing the bill fearing that it will harm their culture.
Breaking India forces are making such violent protests and native culture is being used as an excuse. Secondly people from Assam are settled in many other parts of India. What if the locals want them to leave their state citing the same argument. Being part of a nation means people from different part of nation can have access to it. Assamese culture is not that much different from main stream Hindu culture except it’s local modifications. Shankara Dev , an Assamese Sannyasin translated Srimad Bhagabata , which is very popular there . The Ramayana is also widely read and there are folklores, traditional dances based on it. The language too bears a close resemblance with Bengali. It’s not people from different ethnicity but post modernism, which is the real threat to native culture. People need to understand this. Also, it’s not like that people from all over Assam are protesting. Recently Democratic Secular Students Forum (DSSF) has extended their support to the CAA.
4. If we are accepting the persecuted minorities then why not include the Ahmadiyyas and Shias who are facing the same in Pakistan?
Shias and Ahmadiyyas do not follow a different religion than Islam. The persecution is not due to religious difference rather, its sectarian. The Ahmadiyyas and Shias who are in Pakistan today, all of them were involved in the Direct Action of Jinnah. Ahmadi leaders even made a militant organisation named ‘Ahmadi Militia’. Some are also arguing that the Muslims who went to Pakistan are also being treated as second class citizens and tagged as ‘Mohajirs’. The argue that the bill should have considered their cases too. But all of those who are giving these arguments are not mentioning that behind Pakistan the major supporting factor was Direct Action which resulted in murder, gang rape and mutilation of millions of Hindus, led by these same Ahmadiyas.
5. CAA violates Article-14 of Indian constitution.
Quoting J. Sai Deepak ,” Article 14 doesn’t deal with citizenship. So, it doesn’t apply to CAA. However even if someone cites Article 14, still article 14 says that people belonging to same group should be treated equally. It is not about treating everyone equally. So, when other groups like Hindus are facing persecution on religious basis, Shias / Ahmadiyyas are facing that on sectarian basis. So even according to Article 14 the state is not obliged to treat them equally.”
Article 5 to article 11 are the articles which deal with citizenship but they don’t address the question of citizenship entirely. In fact, Article 11 says that any law further made by parliament will be treated as constitutional and deal with it. So, CAB which has been passed by both the houses and got the approval from President doesn’t violate any law but itself is a law now.
6. CAA is ISLAMOPHOBIC.
This has been the ultimate weapon of the Breaking India forces. This bill specifically deals with the citizenship of peoples from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the home minister was very clear that it does NOT affect any Indian citizen. While this will give citizenship to people from mentioned communities as a group, as an Individual even Muslims from Pakistan or Bangladesh or Afghanistan can still apply for Asylum in India. So, we can safely conclude that CAA is not about exclusion but inclusion. Some even bring NRC to the debate. The current NRC rules are applicable only to Assam and the provisions of the nation wide NRC haven’t even been drawn up. Those who don’t have documents eventually, be they Hindu or Muslim, would be dealt with and penalised, if found guilty of violating the Act. Journalists like Ravish Kumar are saying that people may find it offensive. But why should they? Even for giving a competitive exam, one has to prove that one is a human not a robot. No one considers it offensive. Why can’t we respect our national integrity and laws made by our elected representatives?
CAA would never have been necessary if the partition was not done on religious basis. But our leaders accepted it. The radical Muslims have a country for themselves. Many of them proudly talk about the number of Islamic nations present today. But what did a Hindu get? His own motherland was amputated and made into a different nation overnight, one where he would have minimal rights , and be a second-class citizen. Since the very beginning of Hindu civilization Bharatavarsha has been the natural homeland of Hindus and other Dharmik faiths like -Sikhism , Buddhism and Jainism . It is high time we accept it.
Rabinarayan Swain is currently studying MBBS. He belongs to Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya and inspired by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo. View More.
References: –
4) https://www.sirfnews.com/shah-rebuts-opposition-on-cab-point-by-point/
Featured image Credit: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMKUEKeW4AE5UNg?format=jpg&name=medium
Direct Action which resulted in murder, gang rape and mutilation of millions of Hindus, led by these same Ahmadiyas
You have any proof for that?
Because AFAIK Ahmadi Militia was related to Furqan forces in liberation of PoK
ref: https://books.google.co.in/books?id=C2DxBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq=%22Ahmadi+Militia%22&source=bl&ots=-eexTqf175&sig=ACfU3U3Ol8i6dO_0Rsto_vNiiLtCGlyJ9g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwih5q3s4cPmAhXjyjgGHQy_D_UQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Ahmadi%20Militia%22&f=false
https://www.reddit.com/r/pakistan/comments/cjmybf/can_anyone_well_versed_in_history_help_me_out/
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/from-the-children-of-pakistan-a-message-delivered-by-a-fighter-pilot.353912/page-2
Muhammad Zafarullah Khan , who drafted the Lahore resolution was an Ahmadi. Mirza Basir Ahmad , another Ahmadi leader , directed the community to support Muslim league in 1946. As a community Ahmadiyyas never opposed partition of country on religious basis .
What they are facing is not religious persecution it’s a sectarian fight in which they are the willing participants .
The genuine contention I have is – ” if a muslim family has come to live in Assam from Bangladesh say in the year 1980( that means they are living in India for like close to 40 years but they do not have any documented proof of that) while a hindu family has come to live India from Bangladesh in say 2007. Now according to the law the Hindu family will get the citizenship but not the muslim family. And since they are in assam the naturalisation as an indian citizen after spending 11 years in India also doesnt not apply(Assam accord 1971 and 1985) so i think the muslim family who has spent more than 40 years should definitely be given citizenship ship along with the hindu family. Your views on that?
1st of all , people are being given citizenship on the basis of religious persecution . Do you also think that the “Muslim family ” had also faced religious persecution? Can they prove it? If they cannot why should they given citizenship ?
In all probability that hypothetical M family voted for the partition of the country on religious basis . Now , why should India accept their burden ?
“Breaking India forces are making such violent protests and native culture is being used as an excuse. Secondly people from Assam are settled in many other parts of India. What if the locals want them to leave their state citing the same argument. Being part of a nation means people from different part of nation can have access to it. Assamese culture is not that much different from main stream Hindu culture except it’s local modifications. Shankara Dev , an Assamese Sannyasin translated Srimad Bhagabata , which is very popular there . The Ramayana is also widely read and there are folklores, traditional dances based on it. The language too bears a close resemblance with Bengali. It’s not people from different ethnicity but post modernism, which is the real threat to native culture. People need to understand this. Also, it’s not like that people from all over Assam are protesting. Recently Democratic Secular Students Forum (DSSF) has extended their support to the CAA.”
You have got this point totally wrong. As an Assamese person who follows this page I can certainly tell that your argument lack nuance and deeper understanding of the dynamics of north-eastern India. You have to understand the following points:
1) Assamese is not a single ethnicity like the way Bengali or Marathi is. “Assamese” is comparable to “Indian”. It is a collection of different communities following different customs and having different languages. Some of the communities have population in thousands only.
2) Please do not force a unitary Hindu narrative on the people of Assam. Loosely speaking most of the people follow some version of Hinduism or ancestral worship, but it is not like an Abrahamic monolithic identity.
3) During the partition of India Assam and Tripura accepted large number of refugees from East Pakistan. Rather than distributing them among different states of India, the central government forced them on the state. 70 years down the line, the ethnic tripuri people are reduced to minority now and facing persecution from the bengali immigrants who were mostly Hindus. It is very well documented. Please read history. Similarly prior to independence, in Assam the British government and Muslim league settled Muslim peasants from Bangladesh in tribal areas of Assam which is a cause of conflict now. Then in 1971 again Assam had to accept a large number of refugees, plus illegal immigration since independence till then. Now, if you look at the citizenship law of India, you will see that only in the state of Assam citizenship cut-off date is 1971. Why two different laws for the same country. This means that Assam has already taken the burden of extra population while the other parts of India have not.
4) People who are to be given citizenship through CAA are still not citizens of India, they are Hindus or probably non-Muslims from neighboring countries. But please remember that most of the people of Assam who are Indian citizen are also Hindus. So you are in a state of sacrificing your own Hindu brother for some unknown Hindu brother whom you want to “rescue”.
5) During the British rule the Britishers and their Bengali officials imposed Bengali as a state language. Since then there has been some bad blood between the two communities. One cannot also forget that Bengalis are the fourth largest ethnic group in the world, while some small ethnic groups in Assam are very small. So the fear of being overshadowed by a politically and demographically strong ethnic group does have some ground. This has particular significance when one look at the situation of Tripura.
6) “Secondly people from Assam are settled in many other parts of India. What if the locals want them to leave their state citing the same argument”,-You seriously need to understand how to frame right arguments. People of Assam are also citizens of India, Assam is not a foreign country that people of Assam would need permission to go to other parts of India and settle there. Indian citizens can come freely to India and do whatever is allowed by law. That is the norm. Nobody complains against that. When people of Assam go to other parts of India like Delhi or Kolkata, they do not get new citizenship. Your argument makes it look like people of Assam are foreigners in mainland India. Brother, you need to do better. This has been the mainland Indian outlook towards the people of North-East India for a long time and this bias creeps up knowingly or unknowingly. This has negatively impacted the cause of nation building. You need some due-diligence regarding the study of the people of NE or its history. This kind of attitude will go against the principles of very “Dharma” you profess to follow. Like a true Hindu, you have to respect everyone with dignity and not force any dogma on others without reason. So, please come out of your dogma
7) If you study history of Assam and Assam agitation, you will realize that it was a promise that the central government made to detect and deport the foreigners. This is the reason NRC was done. If you can accept the non-Muslim part of the illegal migrants through CAA, then it makes the Assam accord null and void. So the people of Assam demand that Assam accord is respected and Assam is kept out of purview of CAA. As an Assamese, most of us have no problem if the Indian government accepts refugees from neighboring countries and settles them in other parts of the country. Assam has accepted already enough of them. Sharing a porous border has already done enough harm for us. All we ask is for the mainland Hindus to understand the concerns of the marginalized Hindus of their NE states.
I hope I make my arguments clear enough. I will not put my real name here. But if you want you can contact me @ max99.zimmer@gmx.de