The Citizenship (Amendment) Act makes religion the test of citizenship in India for the first time
"The Congress and its allies - some urban Naxals -- are spreading rumors that all Muslims will be sent to detention centers... Neither is anybody sending the country's Muslims to detention centres nor are there any detention centres in India... The Muslims of India don't need to worry at all. The CAB and the NRC will not apply to the Muslims of the country," PM Modi said at a mega rally at Ramlila Maidan, meant to launch the BJP's campaign for the assembly elections in Delhi.
"I want to tell the 130 crore citizens of India that since my government has come to power, since 2014, there has been no discussion on NRC anywhere. Only after the Supreme Court's order, this exercise was done for Assam," he said in his 97-minute speech, most of it devoted to the NRC and the new citizenship law, protests against which are being held across the country.
Comment: In a major reversal to their 2019 election manifesto, the Modi govt. seems to be underplaying their commitment to national NRC to calm down the commotion and violence that erupted due to fearmongering by the opposition parties and other anti-Modi forces.
"Lies are being spread. There are leaders who told in TV interviews that NRC across India will involve such heavy expenses but I want to say why you are you wasting your mental energy in something that is not even there. (Jo hai hi nahi usme kahaan itna dimag khapa rahe ho rey)," he added.
Comment: India hosts the largest number of immigrants in the world. India expects to have 24 million illegal immigrants, while United states has 11 million and Russia has 10-12 million.
Though anti-Modi Media outlets like NDTV try to project "detention centers" as "concentration camps" and "gas chambers" for millions of Indian Muslims to rake up fear for their "vote bank" politics, these are in fact holding locations during the immigration process which hold a few thousand, which every major country has.
The National Register of Citizens - meant to weed out illegal migrants from the country - was rolled out in Assam earlier this year and left 19 lakh people out, who are now unable to prove their citizenship. Many of them are now in detention centres across Assam.
Comment: The origin of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) goes back to 1951. After decades of delay and controversy, it was recently rolled out in the northeastern state of Assam, under the supervision of the Supreme Court.
Is the NRC an exercise to exclude Muslims?
No. Even in Assam, of the 1.9 million people excluded from the NRC, 1.3 million are Hindu and from indigenous tribes, as unofficial sources confirm. That also explains why the BJP has rejected the NRC in Assam. A scrutiny of the 2003 guidelines for a nationwide NRC reveals that there is no provision that can exclude a legal Muslim citizen from the NRC.
Critics have said the system of compiling the citizens' list leaves out not just Muslims but the poor and the uneducated who might eventually end up as stateless people.
Comment: This fear is based on the assumption that the poor will not have documentation. But, during the last 5 years, the Modi government has expanded the implementation of a citizen identity system (Aadhar Card), which the previous Congress government initiated in 2009. By creating a bank account for the needy and linking government subsidies to the people's bank account, the Modi govt. was able to successfully reduce the endemic corruption and save billions of dollars. There are other provisions for proving identity, even if one does not have documentation.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act makes religion the test of citizenship in India for the first time. The government says it will help minorities from three Muslim-dominated countries to get citizenship if they fled to India because of religious persecution. Critics say it is designed to discriminate against Muslims and violates the secular principles of the constitution.
Comment: The founding fathers of Independent India promised to give Indian citizenship to Hindus and Sikhs that were stranded in then Pakistan, a country that was created based on its religion. These critics didn't see that as "religious discrimination" as long the Congress party (which ruled India for more than half a century) was in power and demanded for Indian citizenship to be given to those minorities of Muslim neighboring nations who are known to persecute non-Muslims.
But, these critics find it "discriminatory" when a BJP govt. tries to implement what Congress promised for so long.
Since the amended law was passed on December 11, protests have swept the country. The biggest of these was held on Thursday, when protesters in 13 cities had raised their voices, some defying police orders and others, prohibitory orders banning large gatherings, triggering violence in which four people died. Thirteen more died in Uttar Pradesh since.
Comment: Violent protests in Uttar Pradesh killed 18 and the state government vowed to track down the culprits. The UP government claims that most of the people were killed by protestors firing weapons.
On Friday, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi attacked the centre, accusing the government of "brute repression" and showing "utter disregard" for people's voices in the nationwide protests. "The BJP government has chosen to use brute force to suppress dissent. This is unacceptable in a democracy," the Congress president said in a televised message.
Comment: This is a crisis manufactured by opposition parties including Congress, who lost the May 2019 parliamentary elections.