GOVT CLARIFICATION ON NRC A TACTICAL RETREAT
By Arun Srivastava
After ten days of emphatic proclamation by the Home Minister Amit Shah on the floor of the Parliament that CAA and NRC are core to the establishment of nationality of an Indian, the Government on Thursday made a tactical retreat and released a document seeking to bust “misinformation” around the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Though Shah and his boss Narendra Modi have repeatedly harped on the fact that the two instruments would not be withdrawn and the Government would continue to pursue its mission, the eruption of anti-NRC protest movement has simply exposed the fallacy of the Government’s move. The situation turned volatile with Shah singularly keeping out Muslims from the list of the beneficiaries.
Shah denies it. His statement has no doubt turned the Muslims sceptical. Shah and Modi have been categorically spreading the message that Muslims are the illegal settlers, they are not the refugees. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the original Muslim natives would have to face the wrath of the Government. They would be hard pressed to prove their loyalty.
He said the non-Muslims who had been facing persecution in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan would be conferred with Indian nationality. It is fine. But a Muslim living in India would have to face enormous trouble while establishing his identity. The manner in which the BJP leadership has communalised the entire administrative set up, the Muslims would find it tough to procure documents to substantiate their nationality.
The fact is people, irrespective of their caste and communal lineage, are afraid of this. They are worried of their future, especially the Muslims, though the document has said that there is no reason for citizens from any religion to be worried about either the National Register of Citizens or the Citizenship Amendment Act.
The worry, true enough, emanates from the assertion and threats of Shah and Modi. They are stubborn in their approach and attitude. The clarification has interesting reading: the document claims that the CAA is a separate law and NRC is a separate process, and that no one will be excluded from the NRC on the basis of their religion. Apparently NRC has nothing to do with any religion at all and it is a citizenship register, in which names of every Indian will be recorded but singling out of the Muslims has been ominous.
Government clarification on furnishing the documents for establishing nationality has been quite intriguing. The document says that for the NRC, it will be sufficient for a person to submit details of their own birth, and there will be “no compulsion” to submit documents.
But the clarification also underlines that this is likely to include voter cards, passports, Aadhaar, licenses, insurance papers, birth certificates, school leaving certificates, documents relating to land or home or other similar documents issued by government officials. The list is likely to include more documents so that no Indian citizen has to suffer unnecessarily. What does it mean? It simply portrays the lack of commonality in the government stand.
Modi-Shah combination has been simply following the script of RSS. They are testing the nerves of the people. In parliament while Shah roared that NRC will follow soon, the fact is the BJP-RSS have not taken decision about the acceptable documents. A couple of days back Shah had ruled out the that the PAN, Aadhaar would serve the purpose, but now the document reads voter cards, passports, Aadhaar, licenses, insurance papers, birth certificates, school leaving certificates, documents relating to land or home or other similar documents issued by government officials would be needed. Astonishingly the government still contemplates to seek more documents.
The clarification makes it obvious that the worst sufferer would be the poor, daily wage earners and adivasis. It would be a tough proposition for them to get these documents. They will have to pay huge bribes for getting their work done. The most ridiculous argument is that a person will not have to prove his or her ancestry before 1971. What is most unfortunate is the saffron supporters have been misleading the common people on the size and percentage of population. They have been doing it only on the force of their argument.
While the document says it is important to know that at the national level, no announcement has been made to begin NRC process there is no denying the fact that the present crisis and chaos has been created by Shah and Modi. Had Amit Shah maintained certain amount of restraint the current situation would not have surfaced. It was his repeated threat and assertion that scared the people and forced them to come to the streets. Even today there is ambiguity in their stand about the clarification. If NRC is merely a normal process to register your name in the Citizens’ Register then this task could have been accomplished by the PAN and Aadhaar. There was no need of this Act. Modi and Shah must come clean and should not hide their intentions. Already the agitation has cost 14 precious lives. (IPA Service)