Chandan Sharma
Why the citizenship amendment act (CAA) has become so controversial? And, why the students some of the best central universities are so agitated that they had to take the route of violence to express their anguish against the law? This question also show the behaviour of the ‘failed administration’ to control a simple law and order problem and allow it to become a national issue. In fact, the Prime Minister had to intervene into the matter and appealed younger generation to be peaceful and calm.
It is a matter of the fact that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is now become a law after getting nod from the both the houses of the parliament (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) and approval from the president of India. It is also a matter of the fact that the law talks about granting of citizenship to the minority communities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, persecuted in their countries due to their religious belief and migrated from these neighboring countries. Certainly, it does not talk about majority community (Muslims) of these Islamic nations.
There are several aspects of the law. Exclusion of the Muslims is the ‘big issue’, as being projected by non-NDA leaders and parties as well as student leaders of some of the universities. As the law talks about only minorities of these three nations, certainly no question of disparity arises due to religious belief. But despite the debate, that continued over 20 hours in the both the houses of the parliament, government or ruling BJP unable to spread the clear message among the people, especially among the minorities.
This has certainly gave the chance to some of the opportunist leaders to mislead and confuse the ill-informed students and younger generation and convert the confusion into a big nationwide protest, that ultimately to benefit some of the rivals and enemies. But before going into the details of all these, it must be understood that this law does not restrict Muslims to get citizenship of India. But conditions apply everywhere, even in case of the applying for a simple ration card or aadhar card. Moreover, a refugee, in India or anywhere else, is entitled to enjoy or get certain amenities from the concerned country. That is certainly an extra burden for that nation. As far as India is concerned, the total number of official and unofficial refugees is in millions or even in crores. The implementation of NRC in Assam revealed about 1.9 million refugees in a single state. It must be remembered that there are over 30 states in India and bordering states have large number of refugees, both officially and unofficially. Moreover, in absence of proper habitat for them these refugees become cause of socio-economical-urban complexities and put a heavy pressure on life and culture of locals. This can be understood by condition of some of the states facing acute refugee problems like North-eastern states, J&K, West Bengal, Odisha, border areas of Bihar, UP and some of the southern states and some of metro cities.
Even if these refugees are entitled to get citizenship or granted citizenship by the state, it is a difficult task to get them absorbed in the society. It takes decades or even generations to get absorb in the society. But at the same time it is a matter of the fact that these communities are darling of regional parties. They use them as vote bank during the polls. It is also a fact that citizen of other nations sometimes considered as the normal citizens of India and not as refugees. So, it is not that the issue of refugees or migrant refugees is not going to resolve completely by this issue but the new law will certainly open a new window of solution for a large number of refugee populations. As the law entitles Christians, Sikh, Parsi, Buddhist and Jain community to get citizenship in India, the intelligence report also gave a rough calculation of the number of such minorities in these nations. If go by the calculation or estimates, it does not cross 50,000 marks. In the country like India it is not difficult to accommodate them.
But this also become a reason to protest. But here it must be noted that these protest mostly on ethnic line as the mainstream political parties, sitting in opposition, unable to stop the bill in the parliament or unable to send it to the select committee, so that a wider discussion could take place.
But democracy is also about raising of voice not for suppression. Whatever happened in some of the universities including Jamie Millia Islamia in New Delhi or AMU or some other institutions, including Assam is an example of ‘failed administration’ on the issue of maintaining law and order. Students or younger generation may be confused or misled by some miscreants; but mishandling the new generation in such a manner indicates two things clearly - 1. The ‘failed administration’ is paving way for emergence of new generation of rebellion against state and 2. The ‘public administration’ still living in British era of suppression, that invited unnecessary attention from the global communities and give a chance to criticise the democratic process of the country and raises question of right to protest, raise voice and discussion on several issues in a peaceful and democratic manner.
However, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has come out to defend the action taken against protestors after taking stock of situation and Supreme Court too has refused to put a stay on the Citizen Amendment. This is despite the fact that opposition leaders gave a representation before the President of India seeking withdrawal of the law. And, UN Chief Antonio Guterres’ in his message advocated all basic amenities for migrants on International Migrants Day. But, democratic rights in a democratic nation like India need right to protest peacefully, debate and discuss and raise the voice for people. Educational institutions like colleges and universities and other institutions are probably the best forum for free and fair discussion to understand best and worst of any important issue. Government or administration may like or not but their people too come from the similar system of debate, discussion (and democratic way to raise their voice). Unfortunately, human being is not robot.
(Chandan Sharma is founder of Yuvavani.com, A pvt. Initiative)
