Why I Oppose CAA?

When we sit around and talk over tea with friends, the topic that would never have missed is the issue of CAA, and NPR. Some support; some oppose; some say that it seems to affect Muslims; and some say that they don’t want to talk about them, and they would like to talk only about development, economy, etc.,

So, what are all these acronyms? Why do I oppose them? Surely, this is not going to be a five-minute video or sweet short speech or a group of metaphors so that you can understand easily. It is just a compilation of facts. If you don’t understand, read again. It can be understood. It is not relativity.

What is citizenship?

Citizenship defines the relationship between you and the state. If you are a citizen of a state, the state is legally bound to protect you and your livelihood. When you are born, even before you are named, you become a citizen. Because almost all modern nations including India have adopted birth-based citizenship. Once you are above a certain age, if you would like to settle in any other country, you become a citizen of that respective country, as per the law of that country.

Everything in the world doesn’t work as it is. Some people migrate illegally into the borders of the foreign country due to war, persecution, natural disasters, economic well-being, etc., Generally, all modern nations have codified laws regarding the treatment of these illegal migrants and their relationship with the state. This treatment or relationship doesn’t depend on the religion or belief of the migrant.

What is CAA?

Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 provides citizenship to persons who entered India without valid documents or persons who overstayed beyond the permissible time in India. To obtain citizenship, they should satisfy the below criterion:

• They should have come to India before 2015
• They should have come from three countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan)
• They should belong to either one of six religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism)
• They should have resided in India for a minimum of 5 years

Through the above criteria, one could understand that CAA is for the people who are already living in India without proper documents. It is not for anyone who is coming from these countries today or tomorrow. Not even for the one who came last year. We are making a distinction among st the people who are already living in India. One of those criterion for the distinction is religion. Being a modern secular state, can religion be a criterion for citizenship?

What is the objective, as stated by the government?

The government says that it decided to provide citizenship for the above people because these people are religiously persecuted. Conveniently, the phrase ‘religious persecution’ is not in the act. So, the objective is based on narrow assumptions:

• All people from these religions who came to India are religiously persecuted
• No other religious people in these countries are religiously persecuted
• There is religious persecution only from these three countries
• There is no illegal migration due to linguistic or political or ethnic persecution
• There is no religious persecution or any sort of persecution in these countries after 2015

Since all these assumptions are contentious and can’t be proved, they conveniently neglected the phrase from the act to stand the judicial scrutiny of ‘intelligible differentia’.

What triggers the Act and hence, the Protests?

If one had a chance to go through the 2014 manifesto of BJP, you could find abrogation of Article 370, Ram Mandir, UCC, etc., in that document but you won’t find CAA or NRC. Yes, they are a part of the 2019 BJP manifesto. What happened in that intermediate 5 years?

In 2013-’14, the Supreme Court of India started the process of NRC (National Register of Citizens) for the state of Assam and monitored the entire process. NRC is an outcome of the Assam Accord, which was signed between the Government of India and the leaders of the Assamese community. Leaders of the Assamese community felt that their culture was eroded by the infiltration of people from other regions and hence we need to update NRC of 1951. It should be noted that the NRC of 1951 is available only for the state of Assam and the recent exercise is to update it.

BJP government in the state and federal level supported the move because they believed most infiltrators would be identified as Bengali Muslims. But this was not the case of the Assamese community. Their concern is about the erosion of their culture. It wasn’t dependent on any religion. Contrary to the belief of BJP, when the initial draft was about to be published in the later months of 2017, it was clear that most of the people were identified as Bengali Hindus and tribal communities because they didn’t have proper documents to prove their claim. That was when the talks of CAB (now CAA) started to emerge.

In August 2019, the final draft of NRC is out, and it excluded 1.9 million people. Though the religion-wise data is not public, most of the people affected by the exercise are Hindus and tribal communities. Then, the government comes out with law and say that all those people except Muslims can become citizens, though everyone underwent a similar exercise. I am genuinely sympathetic to those excluded people and fully agree that they should be granted citizenship irrespective of any religion. If their presence is not welcome in Assam, the federal government should incentivize other states to provide a livelihood for them. NRC created a massive humanitarian and economic losses to the state of Assam. However, BJP intends to do NRC for the whole of India, though there is no necessity for it.

The law appears to be humane and hence, sometimes, anyone who opposes it is called inhumane. But the fact is that there was an inhumane exercise unleashed on a larger population; you find some people as ‘illegal’; then you show humanity to a selected few. NRC is an inherent DNA of CAA, 2019. Home Minister concluded his reply in Lok Sabha by saying NRC Aane Wala Hai (NRC is coming). This picture was the cause of protests on the streets against CAA and NRC.

It is not against Indian Citizens:

Sensing the backlash, the government of India backtracked and said that NRC is not on the table, right now. And, the argument now goes that it is not against any Indian citizens. It doesn’t revoke the citizenship of any persons. It only grants citizenship. Muslims can still obtain citizenship through the naturalization clause of the citizenship act.

Yes, it is not against any citizens. It is for illegal migrants. Also, we should note that illegal migrants can’t obtain citizenship by any means except through CAA 2019. Hence, if you were an illegal migrant, who don’t satisfy any of those criteria, your only option had to end up in the detention center.

Why it should be opposed?

I would like to call CAA 2019 is a limited law. That means it provides citizenship to a certain group of people who fulfills the above cited criteria. Practically speaking, the law doesn’t provide any citizenship for any people in 2020 because it has a date filter which says people who came before 2015 and had five years of residence. Hence, that closes the window by 2020. Basically, by now it should be clear to the government how many of the people it identified as illegal migrants and how many of the people it provided citizenship through this act. If that data is out, the work of this law is complete.

The reality is that we don’t have any data. We don’t know the number of illegal migrants in this country. We don’t know how many satisfy those criteria. If we start asking that question, we may end up in inhuman bureaucratic NRC. That is just the systematic way of marking out minority communities, opposition parties, civil societies and anyone who opposes this government. And then isolate them. And then, the government will show humanity, if it pleases. CAA is dormant without NRC. NRC doesn’t require parliamentary sanction and can be implemented based on executive action. As long as CAA is in statute books, it will keep the pot boiling for NRC.

The biggest, unanswerable question is what the government would do for those who didn’t qualify for citizenship. Strangely, this question is not propping up among the people as well. If that is the society you are living in, don’t you still understand how important that you should oppose this act? That is where we are. Humanity presents its grace based on the paper that you hold or the religion that you belong to.

One could say more but it is simple: this law is a scar on India’s constitutional history. If you don’t oppose, you are redefining citizenship based on a religious criterion.