CAA rules out: How Constituent Assembly debated the questions of citizenship, tying it to religion

Here are some of the statements made during the Constituent Assembly debates, which shine a light on how some of the thorniest issues were taken up and resolved.

‘All Hindus, Sikhs should get Indian citizenship’

Much like what is being argued today, some Constituent Assembly members believed that all Hindus and Sikhs should have a natural home in India, since they had ‘no other country to call their own’.

PS Deshmukh, a Congress member from the Central Provinces and Berar, said in the Assembly on August 11, 1949: “Here we are an entire nation with a history of thousands of years and we are going to discard it, in spite of the fact that neither the Hindu nor the Sikh has any other place in the wide world to go to. By the mere fact that he is a Hindu or a Sikh, he should get Indian citizenship because it is this one circumstance that makes him disliked by others. But we are a secular State and do not want to recognise the fact that every Hindu or Sikh in any part of the world should have a home of his own. If the Muslims want an exclusive place for themselves called Pakistan, why should not Hindus and Sikhs have India as their home?”

Shibban Lal Saxena, a Congressman from the United Provinces, supported him. “We should not be ashamed in saying that every person who is a Hindu or a Sikh by religion and is not a citizen of another State shall be entitled to citizenship of India. The phrase ‘secular’ should not frighten us in saying what is a fact and reality must be faced,” he said.

‘What about Parsis, Christians?’

However, RK Sidhwa, a Parsi Congressman from the Central Provinces and Berar, pointed out that this facility should not be extended to Hindus and Sikhs alone. “…merely to mention the Sikhs and Hindus would not I think be proper…my point is we need not mention necessarily ‘any community’; if we do so it would look as if we are ignoring other communities which do require attention… there are hundreds of thousands of Parsis and Christians today in Pakistan who may like to come back—why should you close the door against them?”

‘Those who migrated to Pakistan should not be allowed back’

Jaspat Roy Kapoor, from the United Provinces, was of the opinion that once someone had tied their lot to Pakistan, they should not be allowed back. “This amendment says that those persons who migrated from India to Pakistan if, after July 19, 1948, they came back to India after obtaining a valid permit from our Embassy or High Commissioner, it should be open to them to get themselves registered as citizens of this country. It is a serious matter of principle. Once a person has migrated to Pakistan and transferred his loyalty from India to Pakistan, his migration is complete.”

To this, Brajeshwar Prasad from Bihar pointed out that not everyone who went to Pakistan wanted to settle there, and some had “fled in panic” as violence broke out.

Anxieties about Assam

Even back in 1949, there were concerns about the demography of Assam being changed by migration from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

CPI-ML leaders stage a protest after the Centre notified the rules for implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, in Kolkata, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (PTI Photo)

Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava, from East Pakistan, said, “I have been told by a reliable authority… that after partition as many as three times the Hindu refugees from East Bengal, Muslims have migrated to Assam. If a Muslim comes to India and bears allegiance to India and loves India as we love her, I have nothing but love for that man. But even after the Partition for reasons best known to themselves many Musalmans have come to Assam with a view to make a Muslim majority in that province for election purposes and not to live in Assam as citizens of India. My humble submission is that those persons have come here for a purpose which is certainly not very ‘ justifiable’.”

‘Let us not follow bad examples’

There were others who thought our citizenship rules should be easy and accommodating. Mahboob Ali Baig Sahib, from Madras, argued, “It is very strange that Dr. Deshmukh should contemplate giving citizenship rights only to persons who are Hindus or Sikhs by religion… let us not follow the example of those countries which we are condemning everywhere, not only here but also in the United Nations…”

‘Partition a mischief’

Yet others took a more idealistic view, arguing that Hindus and Muslims “were brothers”.

Brajeshwar Prasad said, “I wish all the people of Pakistan should be invited to come and stay in this country, if they so like… I say this because we are wedded to this principle, to this doctrine, to this ideal. Long before Mahatma Gandhi came into politics centuries before recorded history, Hindus and Muslims in this country were one. May I know if after partition, these blood-brothers have become strangers and aliens? Sir, it has been an artificial partition. I think that the mischief of partition should not be allowed to spread beyond the legal fact of partition.”

Nehru on criticism of ‘appeasement’, ‘secular’

As many of the members used the argument of “appeasement of Muslims” and “secularism” to criticise the draft rules for citizenship, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the issues.

“One word has been thrown about a lot. I should like to register my strong protest against that word. I want the House to examine the word carefully and it is that this Government goes in for a policy of appeasement, appeasement of Pakistan, appeasement of Muslims, appeasement of this and that. I want to know clearly what that word means. Do the honourable Members who talk of appeasement think that some kind of rule should be applied when dealing with these people which has nothing to do with justice or equity? I want a clear answer to that. If so, I would only plead for appeasement.”

This Government will not go by hair’s breadth to the right or to left from what they consider to be the right way of dealing, with the situation, justice to the individual or the group,” he maintained.

On secularism, Nehru said, “Another word is thrown up a good deal, this secular State business. May we beg with all humility those gentlemen who use this word often to consult some dictionary before they use it? It is brought in at every conceivable step and at every conceivable stage… as if by saying that we are a secular State we have done something amazingly generous, given something out of our pocket to the rest of the world, something which we ought not to have done…We have only done something which every country does except a very few misguided and backward countries in the world. Let us not refer to that word in the sense that we have done something very mighty.”