Modi's intellectual ancestry goes back to VD Savarkar who, a little under a century ago, articulated a curious concept called "Hindutva" which declared that only those who regarded this land as their "
pitrubhumi"' (Fatherland) and "
punyabhumi"' (Holy Land) had the right to be regarded as true citizens of India. From this, he went on to earn the distinction (if "distinction" is the word I want) of long preceding Jinnah in declaring that India was composed of "two nations". And when Jinnah did, Savarkar announced (15 August, 1943) that he entirely endorsed Jinnah's view that Indians were not one nation but two, irrevocably separated by religion. This constitutes the DNA of the Sangh Parivar and its political off-shoot, the BJP.
Savarkar's Hindutva was in direct contrast to the Idea of India enunciated by the mainstream freedom movement that India belongs to all her people and that Muslims are as much part of the Indian nation as any Indian of Hindu persuasion. In the seven decades of nation-building that have passed since Independence, it is the true nature of our nationhood - exclusive or inclusive - that has been the rift valley dividing secular Indians from the Hindutvist tribe.
Ever since the Hindutvists arrived 30 months ago on the throne of power, they have been searching for ways and means of by-passing the secular, democratic, constitutional order to push their discriminatory sectarian agenda only to discover that Dr Ambedkar's constitution blocks them at every turning. They are going to discover this once again in their pernicious attempt to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 on grounds of religious identity.
In substance, the proposed amendment seeks to insinuate into the Citizenship Act a distinct category of non-Muslim "migrants" from a distinct category of three Muslim-majority countries in our neighbourhood - Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan - who would be fast-tracked to Indian citizenship. Such discriminatory treatment on grounds of religion alone is incompatible with the ethos and values, the spirit and letter of our constitution, and the nature of our nationhood. It advances the concept of Hindutva - that nationality arises from religious identity - and erodes the essence of citizenship as hitherto defined: that religion cannot be the basis of nationhood or citizenship.
Amit Shah and Modi both have openly justified such discriminatory treatment on the ground that India is the "natural home" of Hindus. The implication is that India is the "unnatural home" of the Muslims. If India is, indeed, the natural home of the Hindus, would the BJP explain why millions of Hindus have, after Independence, migrated to the glorious Christian West, the lip-smacking Muslim Gulf, and the fabulous Buddhist/Muslim East when no one forced them to leave their so-called "natural home"? And why many million Hindus whose ancestors were sent as indentured labour to Fiji, Mauritius, East and South Africa, Guyana and Trinidad have preferred to stay and flourish (both politically and economically) where they were born instead of returning to their "natural home"? Moreover, it is precisely such Hindu migrants who constitute the core of the Nuremberg-like rallies that the BJP organizes in foreign countries for Modi to address, his arms cleaving the air as if he were a Hindu windmill.
The most obvious objection to the amendment bill is that it violates Article 14 of the Constitution. Although that article is just a one-line sentence, its import is of such significance that Dr BR Ambedkar said it had been among the most difficult of articles on which to secure consensus in the drafting committee. It therefore behooves us to carefully study the wording of the Article. Titled "Equality before law", the article says that the State shall not deny "equality before the law" or "equal protection of the laws within the territory of India" to "any person". Note that this fundamental right is not limited to Indian "citizens", it specifically applies to all "persons" irrespective of whether they are our citizens or foreigners. Note further that this right to all persons, Indian or foreign, applies "within the territory of India". Thus, any person of foreign nationality entering or wishing to enter the "territory of India" is entitled to the same equality before the law and protection under the law as any other person of foreign nationality. The proposed amendment seeks to privilege non-Muslims from three countries against Muslims from these countries, as also against all other persons from any other country. It is highly doubtful that the Supreme Court will go along with such a gross perversion of the Constitution, especially in respect of a Fundamental Right spelt out under Part III of the Constitution.
India's leading expert on citizenship issues, Prof Anupama Roy of JNU, who has made her name with books like
"Mapping Citizenship in India" (2013), has
argued that "while religious persecution is a reasonable principle of differentiation, it cannot be articulated in a manner that dilutes the republican and secular foundations of citizenship in India, and goes against constitutional morality." In other words, if a persecuted Ahmediya in Pakistan seeks refuge from religious persecution in India, he or she has under Article 14 the same rights as a persecuted Pakistani Hindu. To deny this by privileging the Pakistani Hindu over the Pakistani Ahmediya amounts to transgressing the "morality" of the constitution apart from undermining the "republican and secular foundations" of citizenship in India.
Prof Roy also points out that "by marking out Muslims as a residual category, it reiterates the narrative of Partition". That's exactly it. Modi regards Indian Muslims as a "residual category" (as Jinnah had claimed independent India would), but because he cannot directly train his guns on the Indian Muslim community, he begins by criminalizing Muslim immigrants as "illegal" while treating Hindus as merely returning to their "natural home" and, therefore, entitled to a special and separate route to naturalization. Of course, Modi loves Israel and admires what the Israeli army and secret service have done to the wretched Palestinians, so it is not surprising that he wants to reprise the fundamental national principal of Israeli nationality - the notorious "Law of Return" granted to all Jews, but not to Palestinian refugees - and grant Hindus a "Law of Return" while denying it particularly to Muslims.
Confronted with a similar dilemma while drafting the Constitution in the middle of the communal upheaval of 1947, our founding fathers bucked the "narrative of Partition" and drafted two Articles, 6 and 7, the first dealing with the citizenship rights of those of any religion who had been forced out of Pakistan, the second with those (largely Muslim) who, having left India for Pakistan, now wished to return to India for any reason. Thus, Hindu or Muslim, the problem of immigration was treated on an equal footing.
The amendment proposed by the Modi government flips over that delicate balance to blatantly favour non-Muslims, especially Hindus, over Muslims. The problem is real, not theoretical, as 36,000 Rohiya Muslims have sought refuge in India from religious persecution in Myanmar. Why should their need be less important for secular India than the 17,000 Pakistani Hindus who crossed over
en masse about a decade and a half ago? At the moment, both sets of refugees are treated equally under the Citizenship Act, 2015. Modi's amendment will give naturalization privileges to the Pakistani Hindu that will not be available to the Myanmar Muslim. Does the "natural home" of the Rohingyas lie in Bangladesh or Pakistan when it is in secular India that they have sought refuge? Article 6 says that Pakistani Hindus and Rohingya Muslims must be looked on equally as "persons". That is why "never before has religion been specifically identified in the citizenship law."
The most disastrous immediate consequence of what Modi is up to is already rocking Assam. Let me cite two separate views from the linguistic and geographical opposite ends of the state: the renowned Assamese writer DN Bezboruah from the Brahmaputra Valley, and the political scientist Joydeep Biswas, from the Barak Valley.
Writing in Assam's leading English-language newspaper,
The Sentinel, on the Modi amendment, the anguished Bezboruah cries out in despair, "I am very frightened. I have never been quite as frightened." This from the veteran mentor, philosopher and guide of the Assam students' agitation of the late 70s and 80s. These students are now part of the BJP-led government in their avatar as the Asom Gono Parishad.
Articulating the deepest concerns of the AGP, Bezboruah asks the most pertinent question: "How does a country discriminate on the basis of religion and yet claim to be a secular republic?" The Assam students' agitation was an agitation to preserve the Assamese ethnic, cultural and linguistic character of their state in the face of waves of Bengali-speaking immigration from both West Bengal and East Bengal. The BJP have hijacked this and made it into a Hindu-Muslim issue. The Assamese Muslim was never the target of the agitating students. The students always accepted the multi-faceted character of Assamese Assam. Their concern was over being overwhelmed by Bengali-speaking non-Assamese. Hence, Bezboruah reiterates, "It is not fair that the Assamese people and the various indigenous ethnic groups of Assam should get reduced to a minority in their home State and be obliged to bear the burden of thousands of Bangladeshi Hindus (in addition to lakhs of Bangladeshi Muslims) thrust on their shoulders."
From the other end of Assam, Joydeep Biswas underlines in
The Hindu that the very "votaries of Assamese nationalism" discern in the proposed amendment a design to "not only dilute the Assam Accord of 1985 but also put the indigenous language and culture at peril". He adds, "a significant section of Assamese intellectuals, regional vernacular press and various outfits is clearly peeved at the Centre's manoeuvring". He goes on: "The BJP is trying to further consolidate its Hindu constituency by wedging the religious divide...to complete the process of 'othering' the Muslim". Assam, he warns, is heading for "another spell of intra-community tension." It needs to be borne in mind that Muslim Bengalis "are in a majority in nine out of 30-plus districts".
This is the disaster waiting to happen as Modi fiddles with five-hundred and one thousand rupee notes - of which more next time.
(Mani Shankar Aiyar is former Congress MP, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.