Mamata's 'bloodbath' fears unwise, but BJP isn't setting great trend with NRC either: It's dangerous and beyond the pale

On Tuesday, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee made an explosive entry into the debate over the updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam at a Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI)-hosted symposium, where she was the chief guest. But there is a context. Through the day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Opposition traded barbs over the issue. In the Rajya Sabha, BJP president Amit Shah started it off. He claimed that the process of updating the NRC was in accord with the spirit of the Assam Accord, which the previoud Congress governments “did not have the courage” to do; it had been left to his party and the National Democratic Alliance government to complete the job. Sounding rhetorical more than anything else, Shah asked how many of the 40 lakh people missing from the NRC draft were Bangladeshi intruders and why did the opposition want to protect them? There is a definitional issue involved here. It all depends on whom you want to call an intruder and whom you see as a refugee; who is entitled to citizenship by the mere fact of many decades of residence, an almost universal criterion for granting citizenship. In India, 12 years of residence is specified to grant citizenship to immigrants , which the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2016, wants to reduce to six years for ‘illegal’ Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Parsi and Sikh immigrants. [caption id=“attachment_4794371” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A file image of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Twitter/@MamataOfficial[/caption] The authorities have specified 24 March, 1971 as the cut-off mark, which effectively means that people living in Assam for almost half a century, and their children and their children, have not been deemed worthy of the grant of citizenship status , which, many could say with some justification, is absurd and unconscionable. Inside the House, Opposition leaders, including those from the Trinamool Congress and the Congress, protested vociferously. Derek O’Brien and Ghulam Nabi Azad wanted the business of the day set aside to discuss the NRC issue, failing which there was enough of a melee for its proceedings to be adjourned. Mamata’s bombshell was exploded later on Tuesday. She began on a sedate note, however, saying that an atmosphere had to be created in which we could ‘love our neighbours’. She also expressed shock that relatives of former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, who had been from Assam and had been a minister in provincial and (later) state governments, had been excluded from the NRC. Then she ratcheted up the rhetoric. She said the BJP’s politics of divide and rule would lead to a civil war. ‘There will be a bloodbath. The civil war has already started. Section 144 has been imposed in all districts of Assam. How can you let your own people die? There are so many poor people who have been living in India for generations who are being asked to leave. What will be the fate of this nation (if your own people are being told to leave this country)?’ she asked. Referring to statements which said that what had started in Assam, would be taken to West Bengal as well, Mamata said she would never allow it. She also noted that people were being lynched in Jharkhand and elsewhere and Christians, Dalits and Muslims were being marginalised. She signed off with a question no less rhetorical than Shah’s: “How can I tell those killers: I love you? I am not that liberal.” The point, of course, is whether Mamata’s incendiary statement is dangerous and whether it can be justified even if it is not. On the face of it, on principle no responsible leader should make public statements predicting bloodshed and civil war. In practical terms, it is, to say the least, unwise. It would be all too easy for political antagonists to point the finger at Mamata and  accusing her of inciting and fomenting hatred. Such incendiarism is best left for private conversations. On the other hand, it could be argued that Mamata was merely anticipating a situation that must be met in advance, particularly because the ramifications of what is happening in Assam could singe West Bengal, her state. Even if something like that were to happen, it is certain that Bengal will have to deal with the fallout of several lakh people being rendered ‘illegal’. It is not a huge stretch to anticipate that many of these people will wend their ways towards Bengal, where they can blend in with the local people and acquire the documents that will enable them to stay on in India. Bengal’s creaky infrastructure will be stretched as it has been many a time in the past, especially after the Partition and the Bangladesh war in 1971. It is also necessary to point out that from a rational, humanitarian point of view, the majority of those sought to be evicted as ‘illegals’ can justifiably lay claim to citizenship. What prevents that is the long-standing hostility towards Bengalis, in general, and Muslim Bengalis, in particular in Assam. The grievances may be thought of in some sense as ‘legitimate’, but actually is similar to the hostility of the Marathi-speaking people to people from the Hindi heartland and earlier some people from the southern states, which the Shiv Sena fanned to build a constituency. The BJP, without a doubt, is fanning these flames in Assam. And it is following a xenophobic policy that will burn ‘legitimate’ residents of Assam, whether they are ‘Bengalis’ or ‘Bangladeshis’ who have been living in Assam for decades or were born there and know of no other home. And it is doing it for the same reason: to consolidate its own constituency, not just in Assam, but countrywide, with an eye to impending elections. In other words, if what Mamata said was both unfortunate and impolitic, what the BJP is doing is dangerous and perhaps beyond the pale, even after conceding that politicians and political parties very often do or say things that are prejudicial to the general good to gain political advantage. It is to be hoped that the Supreme Court will continue to keep a close eye on the proceedings in Assam.