COVER STORY
Toward a Muslim-free India A majoritarian democratic setup has dismantled the citizenship rights of Muslim Indians BY KAMAL QALAMKAR
the NRC which could include ‘statelessness, deportation, or prolonged detention,’ according to three United Nations Special Rapporteurs.” The Factsheet also highlighted: “The CAA and NRC must also be understood in the context of the growing prominence of the BJP’s Hindutva ideology. This ideological frame views India as a Hindu state (with its definition of Hinduism inclusive of Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs) and Islam as a foreign and invading religion. Hindutva political rhetoric questions the legitimacy of Muslims’ Indian citizenship and perpetuates the further marginalization of this faith community. The BJP Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP) Yogi Adityanath, for example, promised in 2005 to cleanse India of other religions, calling this the ‘century of Hindutva.’ A BJP member of the UP Legislative Assembly further argued in January 2018 that India will become a purely Hindu nation by 2024 and all Muslims who do not assimilate to Hindu culture will need to leave the country. This perspective renders Indian Muslims particularly vulnerable to exclusion from a nationwide NRC, regardless of their citizenship status.”
USCIRF HEARING Aman Wadud
A
panel of experts convened on March 4 by the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF; https://www.uscirf.gov), stated that India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) could disenfranchise the country’s 200 million Muslims. This panel, which advises the State Department, Congress and the White House, met to help Washington develop policy recommendations in response to the issues this new law is spawning. The CAA, passed by the Lok Sabha (Peoples Assembly, India's Lower House) in December 2019, offers citizenship to non-Muslim minorities, who India alleges are being “persecuted” in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Its enactment has led to nationwide protests over fears that both it and a planned nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) may marginalize Muslims. The Indian government, which terms 32 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MAY/JUNE 2020
CAA an “internal matter,” says it seeks to “protect” the “oppressed” minorities [Hindus] in neighboring countries. The NRC — a register containing the details of Indian citizens living inside and outside India — requires them to prove that they came to Assam by March 24, 1971, the day before neighboring East Pakistan declared “independence” from Pakistan [finally becoming Bangladesh after India’s invasion and Pakistan’s surrender on Dec. 16, 1971].
FACTSHEET INDIA USCIRF’s Legislation Factsheet on India (Feb. 2020; https://www.uscirf.gov/countries/india) noted, “There are serious concerns that the CAA serves as a protective measure for non-Muslims in case of exclusion from a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) — a proposed list of all Indian citizens. This purpose is evident from BJP politicians’ rhetoric. With the CAA in place, Muslims would primarily bear the punitive consequences of exclusion from
USCIRF chair Tony Perkins, president of the [conservative Christian] Family Research Council (FRC; https://www.frc.org/aboutfrc), noting that the right to a nationality is a fundamental human right that serves as a bedrock for accompanying political and civil rights, said that denying individuals this fundamental recognition not only strips them of accompanying rights, but also denies them the ability to participate in the political process and use legal pathways to seek redress for discrimination and persecution. USCIRF Commissioner Anurima Bhargava, a civil rights lawyer who has served as chief of the Educational Opportunities Section of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, stated, “There are fears, however, that this law [CAA] in conjunction with a planned National Population Register and a potential nationwide National Register of Citizens, or NRC, could result in the wide-scale disenfranchisement of Indian Muslims. “This would leave them vulnerable to prolonged detention, deportation, and violence. We are already seeing this process being conducted in the northeastern state
