CAA is not against Indian Muslims, but its opposition clearly smacks of anti-Dalit prejudice

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is back in the news. The Modi government, after keeping the momentous legislation in a limbo for three years after it had sparked massive protests then, has decided to implement the law, which gives citizenship to religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The Act states that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan will not be treated as illegal migrants, and therefore, be eligible for naturalisation. These communities are given this leeway because they have been facing religious persecution in their respective countries and are often forced to cross the border to save their lives and dignity.

While the government says the new law gives sanctuary to people fleeing religious persecution, its critics find it to be anti-Muslim.

While the government is categorical in saying that the legislation has nothing to do with Muslims staying within the country, those in opposition refuse to be convinced. One senior journalist called it a testament of sagging moral values in the country, while another bemoaned at not including Muslims in the list of ‘beneficiaries’.

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What the opponents of CAA don’t understand, deliberately or otherwise, is that Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh can still seek India’s citizenship under the old Citizenship Act — just the same way former Pakistani singer Adnan Sami did. Other countries, including the United States, too have similar citizenship laws. Also, what most critics don’t understand, as highlighted by senior journalist Abhijit Majumder in his Firstpost  article , dated 12 March, 2024, that the US has a CAA-like “narrow-window legislation called the Lautenberg-Specter Amendments which give preferential shelter to persecuted minorities from Russia and Iran”.

In fact, by delaying it in providing succour to minorities for so long, especially in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Indian leadership has committed a moral transgression. The famous Liaquat-Nehru pact signed between India and Pakistan in 1950 promised to provide safety to minorities in the divided subcontinent. While India kept its side of promise by not just providing minorities equal rights and opportunities but also — as then prime minister Manmohan Singh insisted publicly in 2009 — giving them the first right to the nation’s resources, the same cannot be said about the state of minorities in the neighbourhood.

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There were over two lakh Sikhs in Afghanistan in the 1980s. By the beginning of 2021, the number dwindled to 400 Sikhs, and after the Taliban’s takeover of that country, the number barely touches a three-figure mark now. Similarly, Hindu population in Pakistan today finds itself below the 2 per cent mark, while in Bangladesh, it has dwindled from being almost a third of the total population in 1950 to about 20 per cent in 1971 to less than 8 per cent today. Worse, if a leading Bangladeshi intellectual, Prof Abdul Barkat of Dhaka University, is to be believed, there won’t be a Hindu in that country after 30 years.

There is no doubt that minorities, especially Hindus, are facing existential crises in the neighbourhood. The same cannot be said about Muslims, though a few Islamic sects like Shias and Ahmediyyas do feel the occasional brunt of Islamic fundamentalism. Without denying the scale of persecution faced by them, it would be ludicrous on India’s part to grant a CAA-like relief to the descendants of those who had actively participated in its Partition. The fact of the matter is that Shias and Adhediyyas, among others, were at the forefront of the Pakistan project. In fact, the main architect of the Pakistan movement, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, too was a Shia Muslim, today facing the brunt of Islamic fundamentalism. So, can the Indian state open its arms for the very people who once took an active part in its dismemberment? What’s the guarantee that the descendants of the same sects won’t participate in a similar Partition-like movement in future? Can the Indian State take this chance?

But why special treatment for Hindus, critics could still ask. The answer lies beyond the Liaquat-Nehru pact of 1950. One can also for a moment ignore the civilisational aspect of the crisis where Hindus have no country but India to secure their safety and security. What makes the Indian state obligated to look after the Hindus of the neighbourhood is the fact that these people stayed back at the time of Partition after Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru proactively discouraged them from leaving the territories that would later become Pakistan and Bangladesh. They had promised safety and security. So, today when these people are facing persecution, the Indian state is duty-bound to ensure that the promises made by the architects of modern, independent India are fulfilled.

More importantly, anti-CAA-ism manifests the worst of anti-Dalit posturings. After all, who are these people who stayed back in Pakistan and Bangladesh? These were mostly Dalits and untouchables. The educated, upper classes largely shifted to India in the nick of time. But the poor found it hard to leave. They were also gullible enough to take the assurances of Gandhi and Nehru, even when Dr BR Ambedkar actively sought the transfer of population, citing historical and rational reasons for this.

In East Pakistan, which later became Bangladesh, these poor Dalits were let down by their own leader, Jogendranath Mandal, who was so influential at the time of Independence that he got Ambedkar elected to the Constituent Assembly from Bengal when he failed to get into the august body from Bombay. But while Ambedkar saw the Dalit-Muslim alliance as a tactical one, Mandal was naïve enough to take it at face value. Mandal so ardently believed in the Dalit-Muslim coalition that he migrated to East Pakistan and became the first Law Minister in the Jinnah Cabinet. And this one mistake cost the Dalits of East Pakistan dearly. Mandal soon realised his folly and in October 1950, he resigned from the Jinnah Cabinet to later migrate to India, leaving behind his followers in the lurch.

It’s ironical to see our politicians swearing by Dalits and Dalit rights, and queuing up in line to show their supreme adherence to Ambedkar, while at the same time working hard to subvert a legislative provision that promises to improve the lives of persecuted Dalits, among other minority immigrants, from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Anti-CAA-ism is against the promises of Gandhi and Nehru. It is against the ideals of Ambedkar. It is also inherently anti-Dalit in orientation. CAA is definitely not against Indian Muslims. But its opposition clearly smacks of anti-Dalit prejudice. The Opposition needs to realise it can’t always have the social justice cake and eat it too!

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.