Opinion Out of my mind: Govt must clarify, or face chaos
Indian Muslims are a minority in India. Would the government conflate their religion with their being on a par with Muslim refugees from Bangladesh? Are they likely to be cast as infiltrators because they are Muslims?
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The passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in both houses of Parliament has triggered protests across India.
Boris Johnson won the British general election with a huge majority. The central issue, which led to the demand for Brexit, was the European Union rule that citizens of the EU were free to live and work in any country in the EU. The British public turned against immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria. This may have been a reaction to the shock of 2008 but there was no doubt that the British wanted the freedom to make their own laws on immigration.
This is not necessarily a sign of British racism as, at the same time, the highest number of ethnic minority candidates have been elected to Parliament. There are three ministers with Indian-origin parents and one of Pakistani-origin parents, more Muslims than ever before.
Brexit was caused not so much by racism as by xenophobia. The British want to choose their immigrants.
In the Citizenship Amendment Act debate, two different issues are confused together. The Act discriminates among refugees from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries by the criterion that these refugees are a minority there by virtue of their religion — Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist. This is where it gets tricky. Indian Muslims are a minority in India. Would the government conflate their religion with their being on a par with Muslim refugees from Bangladesh? Are they likely to be cast as infiltrators because they are Muslims? How would you distinguish between a Bangladeshi Muslim refugee and a Bengali-speaking Indian Muslim? There are of course Muslims facing persecution in Pakistan — Shia, Ahmadiyya. India will not welcome them.
The government says Indian Muslims should not worry. But there is a complication here. The Assamese have been unhappy about ‘outsiders’ immigrating to their state for years. By outsiders, they mean Bengalis and Biharis, be they Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist. In signing the Assam Accord, Rajiv Gandhi implicitly agreed to the idea of a cultural Assamese nation. This was tested in the NRC and 19 lakh residents of Assam failed to make the grade, many of them Hindus. There is promise of a review but the insecurity concerning the CAA is due to the NRC. Hindus would go through either because they are Indians or thanks to CAA, if they are persecuted minority from Bangladesh or Pakistan. But will the rejected Muslims?
Assam is not an exception in this. West Bengal itself is the classic cultural nation. After all, it was the 1905 Partition of Bengal that changed the character of the Indian nationalist movement. In 1971 again, it was the importance of Bengali as the mark of a separate identity which led to the movement to secede from Pakistan, the Muslim nation Jinnah had fought for. This is why Mamata Banerjee is playing the cultural nationalism card in refusing to implement the NRC or CAA. In her case, there is a state election round the corner which she would hate to lose.
For a certain generation of politicians, the Partition is still unfinished business. The young are bewildered. The two-nation theory means nothing to them. They want clarity not about the status of refugees but their own future. Is CAA just the first step to ‘othering’ all Indian Muslims? If that is not the government’s intention, it should clarify immediately and effectively. Or there will be chaos.co
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