These days this is the hottest topics in India and abroad about India. So interestingly what is so special about this bill. Well if you have actually gone through the bill or will go through it in the future you will be amazed that it is very simple. Contrary to the miss-conceptions around it is not against any religious groups. It does have special provisions for the religious minorities of 3 countries namely Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan and the number of minority groups are 6 ! amazing isn't it where 6 religious groups are included that bill is tagged as communal, well anyway that is for later.
Now lets first talk about the points that ppl are raising against CAB and sometimes CAB in conjunction with NRC and then we will counter them categorically.
So first CAB individually.
1) CAB is anti Muslims and will effect the citizenship status of Indian Muslims
2) It discriminates against Muslims in India
So to understand the error in these assumptions we need to know the salient points of CAB
Citizenship Amendment Bill is a just an amendment to the Citizenship act 1995 amended in 2005 and yet again now in 2019
CAB simply adds special provision to the status of illegal immigrants from only 3 countries and I will stress upon the point "only 3 countries" because this point will play a crucial role in the explanation of the future arguments.
Now what are the provisions.
1) Any migrant from the countries stated Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if belongs to the following minority groups Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Buddhist, Jain or Christian will be granted immediate citizenship of India
2) Citizen ship will be granted on fast track basis even if they do not have sufficient documents which is obvious because many of them were illegal migrants escaping religious prosecution in the mentioned countries.
3) This act is not applicable to muslim Migrants from these countries.
So no where this act talk about the existing citizens of India. So this effecting the existing citizens is a myth and propaganda don't fall for it.
Why this act it not Communal or against the idea of secularism as perceived and propagated by many ppl ?
For this we need to have some knowledge of the following topics:
1) History of Indian subcontinent.
2) Population statistics of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and India since their inception.
3) Treatment of Minorities
4) State religion
5) Rights of Religious Minorities.
I will not go much into History as modern ppl consider it to be redundant and inconsequential in modern times so will give just few points.
1) Afghanistan was a Buddhist country before invasion of Arabs in 8th century. By 1970 the Hindu and Sikh population was 7,00,000 and today it is estimated to be around 3,000 combined.
2) Population of Hindus in Pakistan post Independence and after the migration was 24% (East and West Pakistan) now it stands at 1%
3) During the creation of Bangladesh the population of Hindus was 15% now it is less than 8%
*I am not giving stats of other communities because Hindus are the largest Minority groups in these countries so you can imagine what will be the state of the other groups.
Now talking about the prosecution:
All the three countries namely Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are declared Muslim countries and treat non Muslims residents as 3rd class citizens which are governed by sharia laws, which are not very friendly to non Muslims.
For example Non Muslims do not have voting rights and if they do i.e Pakistan then that is only an eyewash because they can vote only in specified constituencies and cannot fight election or vote in any other constituencies. Blasphemy law in Pakistan is used to prosecute Minorities and is punishable by death in most of the case. Kidnapping and forced conversion of minority women and girls is a common practice in all the three countries. I don't even want to discuss laws in Afghanistan because there are none. In Bangladesh the situation is slightly better but not much.
All this is just to give a floating Idea of the prosecution Minorities faces in these countries.
So in a nutshell the above paragraphs covers the basic background of the Indian subcontinent in terms of Minority treatment.
Back to CAB. :
CAB is created to primarily providing respite to these Minority groups as like it or not India is the natural home and place of origin of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism and inclusion of Parsis and Christians shows that this is an inclusive bill as these two are not of Indian origin but we still care.
Just a short note: Jews are not added in this bill because they already have a country to go to which will accept them unconditionally and that is Israel.
Now why Muslims of these three countries are not included in this Bill because believe it or not all three Pakistan,Bangladesh and Afghanistan are declared Islamic countries governed by sahriya law and have overwhelming Muslim majority population hence Muslims are not prosecuted there in the name of religion. Although there are multiple sects and then there is sectarian violence and at times discrimination but not religious prosecution. So we are not bound to take responsibility of their own infighting. Also every Muslim sects have an Islamic country of there own where they have majority over other sects for example. Iran is predominantly Shiya and Saudi is Sunni and so on. So they have practically 50 options of Islamic countries and multiple European countries which are dolling out refugee cards and benefits for Muslims.
In this bill other countries like China, Srilanka, Myanmar, Indonesia, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan are not included which means any body coming from these countries have to go through normal procedure for obtaining Indian citizenship and no special privileges are provided in these terms as it is considered that these religious groups are not in danger or prosecuted in these countries on the basis of their religion. So any illegal immigrant from these countries will be treated as illegal immigrant and will be deported back.
On the other hand the only country close by to which these prosecuted Minorities can look upto is India the only Hindu majority country in the world which matters and have the resources to sustain them and Most importantly is willing to accept them.
This bill does not effect citizen ship of any person who is already a citizen of India by legal means that includes every Indian citizen and to make ppl happy that includes Muslims as well.
As a Matter of fact neither CAB nor NRC will have any impact on the existing citizen.
Also it is not discriminatory on the basis of religion but it does bifurcate on the basis of combination of Nationality and religion which is very logical because if we have to accept Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims at large then we should as well occupy these two countries and give every body Indian citizenship.
==================================================================================
Now somebody raised a concern based on a hypothetical scenario based on the combined effect of CAB and NRC lets discuses that.
So the argument is:
If you're Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Jain etc and can't find documents, you become illegal immigrant under NRC but because of CAB you will get citizenship anyway. But .......... if you are a Muslim you lose land rights and voting rights immediately. Now you are property-less, vote-less and country-less. Where do you live? Well, govt will be constructing detention camps( look up the camps in Assam, you'll cry). Also can't get jobs or go to other countries because you are now passport-less.
All hail New India.
Now Answer:
First of all the argument of not finding the papers. Well thanks to Mamta Di Di almost every illegal immigrant have Adhara and voter id card due to her vote bank politics. Also paper checking it the preliminary method of identification and citizenship identification is a very thorough process. Govt. of India has already talked to Govt. of Bangladesh and they have agreed to take back all the illegal Bangladeshi immigrants for which India can provide sufficient proof. Also in the initial NRC out of 19 lakh ppl who were not able to provide sufficient documents 14 lakh were Hindus and only 4 lakh were Muslims but no one was deported as it was considered that preliminary paper check cannot be the basis of citizenship identity, so administration is not fool they will involve security agencies and will put a plan in place.
And illegal immigrants from Bangladesh has emerged as a big threat to National security as demography of many boarding districts have changes due to continuous infiltration which is a very dangerous trend in an electrol democracy like India. Tomorrow an illegal Bangladeshi can become CM of Bengal or Assam then have you imagined the level of security breach. These reports and recommendations were identified even by the congress govt.s during 1990's but due to their political agendas they never implemented the recommendations by their own Ministers.
Also we need to consider the reasons of migration. Where communities like Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jain, Christians, Parsies are migrating to India to escape religious prosecution the Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are migrating to take benefits which Indian state provides to Minorities under different schemes of Center and State govt. from reservation in education to jobs and houses and BPL facilities which are for the poor Indian citizens are shared by these illegal immigrants. Not to forget they eat into the special facilities and reservations which are put in place for the Muslims in India who are Indian citizens. They also indulge in crimes as this is very easy for them as their papers are fake so they can very easily dispose their identity and run back to their own country if things go wrong and then their is espionage. because all the three countries have been hostile towards India at some point or the other and Pakistan is in a constant state of war with India.
Now illegal immigrants becoming landless, jobless, passports well they are illegal immigrants and are illegaly occupying these commodities so definitely they will loose these things as will be deported to their country of origin where they can rightfully demand these things.
As far as detention camps are concerned. Detention camps are definitely not a pleasant place in any country but are required for detaining large number of people and illegal immigrants are in hundreds and thousands in India. Also when Supreme Court have rejected the plea against these camps because Supreme Court itself have may times in the past instructed the governments to tackle the menace of illegal immigration. So let us not be the judge of something which is already Judged by SC of India unless we have a better idea of managing the situation and logistics related to it.
So in a nutshell CAB and NRC combination does not go against the principal of Indian state of secularism( which by the way was not a part of original Indian constitution and was added in 1975)
Also India any by and large Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists are naturally secular we do not need to explain to the world as since the time immemorial India has assimilated every culture in herself despite the atrocities they have committed here.
Even former Prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh talkd in Rajya Sbha during his tenure on the urgent need to protect the prosecuted Minorities in neighboring countries and sending away the illegal immigrants. The only difference is previous governments did identified the problem and its solution as well but for personal gains never acted upon them where as the current government takes swift and decisive action.
The current govt. has done more substantial work for Minorities than any other govt. of the past. This govt has solved the problems which other wise considered as unsolvable by the people. So as an Indian I am proud of My Prime Minister and Home Minister they are doing a fabulous job.
As far as Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Christians are concerned yes they will be granted citizenship because the whole purpose of CAB is this. Also while making this argument about humanity, secularism and tolerance the persons forgets that the Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Christians and Parsies migrated to India to escape prosecution
So talking about humanity, secularism and human rights is very good this is what keeps us human but things cannot be looked at from one dimension
only. In state craft some times emotions should be controlled and practical realities should be considered. Also avoiding miss-information is equally important as no one have a clue as to how the govt. will proceed with the identification of illegal immigrants but ppl are assuming the worst as they did during the removal of article of 370 and Ayodhya verdict. Prediction was that there will be blood bath but amazingly not even a single bullet was fired by Indian security forces and transition occurred peacefully.
As a foot note I want to add couple of lines for those who are too worried for secularism.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------p
Secularism is not only about Muslims or safeguarding their special rights.
Other communities also need safeguard from prosecution in Islamic countries which is largely ignored even by UNHRC.
We as Bhartiya believe in "Vasudave Kutumbkam" and have proven it yet again by standing up for those who are forgotten by UN, US and Europe and even by their own brothers and sisters who are so vehemently opposing and criticizing the Citizenship Amendment Bill which is a beacon of hope for those tortured minorities Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afganistan. Please look up for situation of Hindus in pakistan you will cry.
Now lets first talk about the points that ppl are raising against CAB and sometimes CAB in conjunction with NRC and then we will counter them categorically.
So first CAB individually.
1) CAB is anti Muslims and will effect the citizenship status of Indian Muslims
2) It discriminates against Muslims in India
So to understand the error in these assumptions we need to know the salient points of CAB
Citizenship Amendment Bill is a just an amendment to the Citizenship act 1995 amended in 2005 and yet again now in 2019
CAB simply adds special provision to the status of illegal immigrants from only 3 countries and I will stress upon the point "only 3 countries" because this point will play a crucial role in the explanation of the future arguments.
Now what are the provisions.
1) Any migrant from the countries stated Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if belongs to the following minority groups Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Buddhist, Jain or Christian will be granted immediate citizenship of India
2) Citizen ship will be granted on fast track basis even if they do not have sufficient documents which is obvious because many of them were illegal migrants escaping religious prosecution in the mentioned countries.
3) This act is not applicable to muslim Migrants from these countries.
So no where this act talk about the existing citizens of India. So this effecting the existing citizens is a myth and propaganda don't fall for it.
Why this act it not Communal or against the idea of secularism as perceived and propagated by many ppl ?
For this we need to have some knowledge of the following topics:
1) History of Indian subcontinent.
2) Population statistics of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and India since their inception.
3) Treatment of Minorities
4) State religion
5) Rights of Religious Minorities.
I will not go much into History as modern ppl consider it to be redundant and inconsequential in modern times so will give just few points.
1) Afghanistan was a Buddhist country before invasion of Arabs in 8th century. By 1970 the Hindu and Sikh population was 7,00,000 and today it is estimated to be around 3,000 combined.
2) Population of Hindus in Pakistan post Independence and after the migration was 24% (East and West Pakistan) now it stands at 1%
3) During the creation of Bangladesh the population of Hindus was 15% now it is less than 8%
*I am not giving stats of other communities because Hindus are the largest Minority groups in these countries so you can imagine what will be the state of the other groups.
Now talking about the prosecution:
All the three countries namely Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are declared Muslim countries and treat non Muslims residents as 3rd class citizens which are governed by sharia laws, which are not very friendly to non Muslims.
For example Non Muslims do not have voting rights and if they do i.e Pakistan then that is only an eyewash because they can vote only in specified constituencies and cannot fight election or vote in any other constituencies. Blasphemy law in Pakistan is used to prosecute Minorities and is punishable by death in most of the case. Kidnapping and forced conversion of minority women and girls is a common practice in all the three countries. I don't even want to discuss laws in Afghanistan because there are none. In Bangladesh the situation is slightly better but not much.
All this is just to give a floating Idea of the prosecution Minorities faces in these countries.
So in a nutshell the above paragraphs covers the basic background of the Indian subcontinent in terms of Minority treatment.
Back to CAB. :
CAB is created to primarily providing respite to these Minority groups as like it or not India is the natural home and place of origin of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism and inclusion of Parsis and Christians shows that this is an inclusive bill as these two are not of Indian origin but we still care.
Just a short note: Jews are not added in this bill because they already have a country to go to which will accept them unconditionally and that is Israel.
Now why Muslims of these three countries are not included in this Bill because believe it or not all three Pakistan,Bangladesh and Afghanistan are declared Islamic countries governed by sahriya law and have overwhelming Muslim majority population hence Muslims are not prosecuted there in the name of religion. Although there are multiple sects and then there is sectarian violence and at times discrimination but not religious prosecution. So we are not bound to take responsibility of their own infighting. Also every Muslim sects have an Islamic country of there own where they have majority over other sects for example. Iran is predominantly Shiya and Saudi is Sunni and so on. So they have practically 50 options of Islamic countries and multiple European countries which are dolling out refugee cards and benefits for Muslims.
In this bill other countries like China, Srilanka, Myanmar, Indonesia, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan are not included which means any body coming from these countries have to go through normal procedure for obtaining Indian citizenship and no special privileges are provided in these terms as it is considered that these religious groups are not in danger or prosecuted in these countries on the basis of their religion. So any illegal immigrant from these countries will be treated as illegal immigrant and will be deported back.
On the other hand the only country close by to which these prosecuted Minorities can look upto is India the only Hindu majority country in the world which matters and have the resources to sustain them and Most importantly is willing to accept them.
This bill does not effect citizen ship of any person who is already a citizen of India by legal means that includes every Indian citizen and to make ppl happy that includes Muslims as well.
As a Matter of fact neither CAB nor NRC will have any impact on the existing citizen.
Also it is not discriminatory on the basis of religion but it does bifurcate on the basis of combination of Nationality and religion which is very logical because if we have to accept Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims at large then we should as well occupy these two countries and give every body Indian citizenship.
==================================================================================
Now somebody raised a concern based on a hypothetical scenario based on the combined effect of CAB and NRC lets discuses that.
So the argument is:
If you're Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Jain etc and can't find documents, you become illegal immigrant under NRC but because of CAB you will get citizenship anyway. But .......... if you are a Muslim you lose land rights and voting rights immediately. Now you are property-less, vote-less and country-less. Where do you live? Well, govt will be constructing detention camps( look up the camps in Assam, you'll cry). Also can't get jobs or go to other countries because you are now passport-less.
All hail New India.
Now Answer:
First of all the argument of not finding the papers. Well thanks to Mamta Di Di almost every illegal immigrant have Adhara and voter id card due to her vote bank politics. Also paper checking it the preliminary method of identification and citizenship identification is a very thorough process. Govt. of India has already talked to Govt. of Bangladesh and they have agreed to take back all the illegal Bangladeshi immigrants for which India can provide sufficient proof. Also in the initial NRC out of 19 lakh ppl who were not able to provide sufficient documents 14 lakh were Hindus and only 4 lakh were Muslims but no one was deported as it was considered that preliminary paper check cannot be the basis of citizenship identity, so administration is not fool they will involve security agencies and will put a plan in place.
And illegal immigrants from Bangladesh has emerged as a big threat to National security as demography of many boarding districts have changes due to continuous infiltration which is a very dangerous trend in an electrol democracy like India. Tomorrow an illegal Bangladeshi can become CM of Bengal or Assam then have you imagined the level of security breach. These reports and recommendations were identified even by the congress govt.s during 1990's but due to their political agendas they never implemented the recommendations by their own Ministers.
Also we need to consider the reasons of migration. Where communities like Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jain, Christians, Parsies are migrating to India to escape religious prosecution the Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are migrating to take benefits which Indian state provides to Minorities under different schemes of Center and State govt. from reservation in education to jobs and houses and BPL facilities which are for the poor Indian citizens are shared by these illegal immigrants. Not to forget they eat into the special facilities and reservations which are put in place for the Muslims in India who are Indian citizens. They also indulge in crimes as this is very easy for them as their papers are fake so they can very easily dispose their identity and run back to their own country if things go wrong and then their is espionage. because all the three countries have been hostile towards India at some point or the other and Pakistan is in a constant state of war with India.
Now illegal immigrants becoming landless, jobless, passports well they are illegal immigrants and are illegaly occupying these commodities so definitely they will loose these things as will be deported to their country of origin where they can rightfully demand these things.
As far as detention camps are concerned. Detention camps are definitely not a pleasant place in any country but are required for detaining large number of people and illegal immigrants are in hundreds and thousands in India. Also when Supreme Court have rejected the plea against these camps because Supreme Court itself have may times in the past instructed the governments to tackle the menace of illegal immigration. So let us not be the judge of something which is already Judged by SC of India unless we have a better idea of managing the situation and logistics related to it.
So in a nutshell CAB and NRC combination does not go against the principal of Indian state of secularism( which by the way was not a part of original Indian constitution and was added in 1975)
Also India any by and large Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists are naturally secular we do not need to explain to the world as since the time immemorial India has assimilated every culture in herself despite the atrocities they have committed here.
Even former Prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh talkd in Rajya Sbha during his tenure on the urgent need to protect the prosecuted Minorities in neighboring countries and sending away the illegal immigrants. The only difference is previous governments did identified the problem and its solution as well but for personal gains never acted upon them where as the current government takes swift and decisive action.
The current govt. has done more substantial work for Minorities than any other govt. of the past. This govt has solved the problems which other wise considered as unsolvable by the people. So as an Indian I am proud of My Prime Minister and Home Minister they are doing a fabulous job.
As far as Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Christians are concerned yes they will be granted citizenship because the whole purpose of CAB is this. Also while making this argument about humanity, secularism and tolerance the persons forgets that the Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Christians and Parsies migrated to India to escape prosecution
So talking about humanity, secularism and human rights is very good this is what keeps us human but things cannot be looked at from one dimension
only. In state craft some times emotions should be controlled and practical realities should be considered. Also avoiding miss-information is equally important as no one have a clue as to how the govt. will proceed with the identification of illegal immigrants but ppl are assuming the worst as they did during the removal of article of 370 and Ayodhya verdict. Prediction was that there will be blood bath but amazingly not even a single bullet was fired by Indian security forces and transition occurred peacefully.
As a foot note I want to add couple of lines for those who are too worried for secularism.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------p
Secularism is not only about Muslims or safeguarding their special rights.
Other communities also need safeguard from prosecution in Islamic countries which is largely ignored even by UNHRC.
We as Bhartiya believe in "Vasudave Kutumbkam" and have proven it yet again by standing up for those who are forgotten by UN, US and Europe and even by their own brothers and sisters who are so vehemently opposing and criticizing the Citizenship Amendment Bill which is a beacon of hope for those tortured minorities Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afganistan. Please look up for situation of Hindus in pakistan you will cry.
