Painting India Red Not Only Saffron!

“Toleration makes difference possible; difference makes toleration necessary” - Walzer

Whether it is the Delhi Police creating a ruckus or Jamia Millia Islamia students creating havoc, the fact remains that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill or CAB or CAA, is just another step that exudes the majority of Indian parliamentarian’s religious intolerance. It is yet another example of policy implication of intolerance and a lack of toleration‐based approach penetrating the society to its grassroots level. The citizenship bill was passed by the Lok Sabha with a majority of 311 votes against 80, these numbers exemplify the deep-rooted inclination to saffronisation of the state. In a country, erstwhile known for its religious tolerance and freedom of religion, today, yearns for equality and acceptance of different group identities. Our current Prime Minister, is just another Trump, trying to build a wall in India or just another Britisher, trying to divide and rule! Any country that has opposing religions, the religion in majority will prefer the “alien” people to boot away, but isn’t that why we chose NOT to have a state religion and be a secular country?

Soon we will be facing the legalization of the Hindu religion as the state religion. Do we really want to live in a country where Hindu law is recognized as the official religion of the country? Well, that will ideal for the very proud fascist Hindu clan, wouldn’t it? How is it different from Hindu Jihad? I am not trying to create fear, because it is a fear that persists all hearts of our awoken citizens.

Mir Suhail, Twitter, Saffronisation of India

It is not only a question of equality, the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019, is, by all means, discriminatory in nature and against the law and should be deemed null and void. One cannot, by law, pass a bill that is in conflict with the Constitution of India, unless of course, you are suddenly above the rule of law. It can be argued that as they are illegal migrants, the Fundamental Rights enjoyed by citizens of India, do not apply to them, but the very fact that it discriminates against one religion makes it bound to have loopholes. These tactics by Hindu Fascists will inevitably corner and provoke violent sects of the Muslim religion to cause large scale riots, where throwing them out will look like a good option (#ISupportDelhiPolice), but such intolerance has long term effects on the population! And I might not forget to mention, if it were the other way around, Hindu violent terror clans will also jump to the opportunity. As a country, we are breeding intolerant people, where the condition of harmonious co-existence between adherents of different religions and interactions is becoming a distant dream. According to a recent 2018 survey, around 201 million Muslims are in India and India is home to 11% of the world's Muslim population and we are trying to push them out!

“Tolerance is one of the few viable solutions to the tensions and conflict brought about by multiculturalism and political heterogeneity: tolerance is an essential endorphin of a democratic body politic” (Gibson, 2006a, p. 21).

On what basis were the Muslims left out of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019? There can be no evidence presented in court that an amendment was made on statistical evidence whilst ignoring the Article 14. Where our country’s current Home Minister, Mr. Amit Shah, states that human rights violation should be seen through the Indian prism not international standards, he and many like him who agree must be forgetting, they are universal standards! These statements and such fascist inclinations are the reason why India is still a non-permanent member in United Nations. How is religious isolation not a human rights violation of an entire minority?

Petitions Against the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019

It is submitted in a petition against the bill that illegal migrants are class by itself and therefore any law which is applicable to them should be irrespective of any religion, cast or nationality basis, the petition further says that the “impugned enactment exfacie violates the fundamental guarantees under Article 14 as also Article 21 of the Constitution”. MP Jairam challenged the Act on the grounds that classification on the basis of religion and geography is unsustainable. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill proposes to grant citizenship to the non-Muslims Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhist, Jains and Parsis - from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who arrived in India before December 31, 2014. “The classification of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh is not founded on rationale principle to justify a separate special treatment for the religious minorities facing persecution on the basis of religion,” the petition had said. The Bill says that on acquiring citizenship: (i) such persons shall be deemed to be citizens of India from the date of their entry into India, and (ii) all legal proceedings against them in respect of their illegal migration or citizenship will be closed. In other words, the CAB paves way for Indian citizenship to lakhs of immigrants (weak evidence to support this claim), who identify themselves with any of the given religions, even if they lacked any document to prove their residency. It also means that any immigrant who does not belong to the said communities would not be eligible for Indian citizenship. According to Live law, the Act does not prescribe any standard principle or norm behind choosing aforesaid three neighbouring countries, whereby it does not extend the benefit to religious minorities belonging to other neighbouring counties such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan.

If the saffronisation of our nation continues, we can only brace ourselves for more bloodshed and violence as it makes us more vulnerable to fascists riots and terror attacks. We need to stand together against painting our country saffron and letting many paint their hands red!