The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the National Register of Citizens (NRC), and the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar seek to disenfranchise citizens, and change the nature of citizenship in India. Collectively, they carry echoes of the most disturbing episodes of 20th-century history and augur a dangerous, exclusionary path that independent India has consciously avoided thus far.
Two main perspectives exist regarding citizenship: Citizenship by birth (jus soli) and citizenship based on race and culture (jus sanguinis). Of these, the Indian Constitution upheld the modern perspective of citizenship by birth, after the discussions on citizenship that took place in the Constituent Assembly in August 1949. Even in those discussions, arguments were raised in favour of making religion the basis for citizenship. However, the Constituent Assembly rejected this argument and adopted the position that the granting citizenship based on religious identities does not befit a modern democratic society. Thus, Articles 5 to 11, which deal with the question of citizenship, were formulated, and Article 5(a) unequivocally stated that anyone born in the territory of India would be an Indian citizen.
With the CAA, religion is a factor in deciding Indian citizenship. The Sangh Parivar claims that the CAA will not affect existing citizens. However, the Union Home Minister stated both inside and outside Parliament, “chronology samjhiye” — that is, to understand the chronology. What is that chronology? First the CAA, then the NRC; that’s the order. Those who are unable to produce proper documents will have to undergo verification based on the CAA criteria in order to be included in the NRC. How can one then say that the CAA will not affect existing citizens? During the preparation of the NRC, the citizenship of those who are unable to provide precise details, including the birthplace of their parents, will fall under the shadow of doubt.
We saw a clear picture of this when the NRC was implemented in Assam. Around 19 lakh people were excluded. Two-thirds of those excluded were women. Although the Sangh Parivar’s primary targets are religious minorities, even others — especially Adivasis, the poor and uneducated, transgender people — may not possess the requisite documents. Their citizenship, too, will come under question.
It is estimated that about 42 per cent of people in India do not have birth certificates. Crores of our brothers and sisters could cease to be Indian citizens for want of necessary documents. They will either be locked up in detention centres or become a populace devoid of civil rights. This is the dark reality that is staring us in the face.
The recent moves by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in the guise of the SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar suggest that a backdoor effort is underway to prepare the NRC. The SIR process has raised concerns about the disenfranchisement of marginalised groups, especially minorities. This has to be seen as part of a broader pattern of using bureaucratic processes to exclude certain sections from political participation.
Against the backdrop of these developments, we need to recall that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) drew inspiration from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during its formative years in the 1920s and 1930s. Balkrishna Shivram Moonje’s — president of the Hindu Mahasabha and mentor of RSS founder K B Hedgewar — visit to Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini in 1931 was a pivotal moment in the cross-pollination of ideas between Italy and Hindu nationalist circles in India. In his diary, Moonje praised Mussolini’s vision for the “military regeneration of Italy” and explicitly stated that “India and particularly Hindu India need some such institution for the military regeneration of the Hindus”.
Inspired by what he saw, Moonje established the Central Hindu Military Education Society in 1935 and the Bhonsala Military School in Nashik in 1937, aiming to militarise “Hindu India”. The RSS later adopted aspects of this model, with notable similarities in recruitment and organisational structure to the Opera Nazionale Balilla — the Italian fascist youth organisation. Moonje’s efforts and admiration for Mussolini’s methods have left a lasting impact on the organisational development of the RSS.
Early RSS leaders, including their second chief, M S Golwalkar, and ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, openly admired aspects of Adolf Hitler and Mussolini’s regimes. They were especially influenced by the concept of “cultural nationalism” and the fascist model of organising society around a dominant ethnic or religious identity. Golwalkar’s book We or Our Nationhood Defined (1939) explicitly referenced admiration for Hitler’s policies, arguing that India should be defined as a Hindu nation and that minorities should be treated similarly to how Nazis treated Jews. This book played a key role in shaping the RSS’s ideology and tied the organisation to fascist thought. In his Bunch of Thoughts, Golwalkar described Muslims, Christians and communists as India’s “internal threats”.
Those who lament that progressive values of secularism and socialism are foreign concepts are in fact using regressive foreign ideas and methods to carry forward their divisive communal agenda. Soon after enacting the discriminatory Nuremberg Laws in 1935, Nazi Germany completely abolished all democratic rights and stopped conducting elections. Taken together, the CAA, NRC and SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar that are being implemented and deemed appropriate for present-day India are a disturbing portent.
The writer is general secretary of the CPI(M)
