The Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA) stipulates that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jains and Parsis from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan — all Islamic countries — who had entered India before 31 December 2014, are entitled to Indian citizenship. The hapless victims from these Islamic countries needed this urgently. Every true Indian must be thankful to the Government of India for this Act.
This takes us to the starting point: Religious demography and the gross misuse of the categories of “minority” and “majority” in the past that unfortunately persists to this day. This brief essay intends to explain to all those still pretending to be clueless regarding one specific provision in the Act, and then make one bona fide suggestion.
Leaders of our freedom movement had ignored the fate of the Hindu minorities living in the Muslim-majority areas. As against them, the arch-communalist-separatist Muslim League never lost sight of the fate of Muslim minorities in the Hindu-majority areas. That is why, Sind, being Muslim majority, was separated (1936) from Bombay Presidency. The Congress leaders miserably failed to draw the necessary lessons from the pogrom of the Hindus in Kerala by Khilafat-Moplahs and Kohat. Occasional warnings by the Hindu Mahasabha and a few thinkers on the demographic decline of Hindus vis-à-vis Muslims and its dangerous consequences were ignored.
The Muslim League hype on the fate of the Muslim minority in Hindu-majority provinces was false and mischievous. But they succeeded! Post-1947, even in the Hindu majority areas in India, “minority” Muslims far from declining are growing in numbers, besides maintaining their traditional influence. Just look at the crime records in West Bengal and Kerala since 1947, and even in various BJP-run states in more recent times. Overall, Hindus have continued to decline while Muslim population continues to grow and prosper, thanks to the Sachar largesse!
In Pakistan and Bangladesh, it is just the obverse. The Hindu, Sikh population — 23% in West Pakistan in 1947 — stands reduced to about 2%. In Bangladesh, earlier East Pakistan, similarly, the Hindu, Buddhist population has been reduced to about 8% from 29%. In the west, they were subjected to “jhatka”, while in the east, they became items for “halal”! There is no end to their sufferings in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. We continue to get heart-rending stories on the sufferings of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, etc, from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
No wonder, it came as a shock to learn when the Chief Ministers of Punjab and West Bengal, the two Indian states which suffered most from Partition, raised objections to the CAA as it had excluded the Muslims. It is difficult to believe that they are oblivious of the blood-soaked history of Partition. How could Punjab ignore the fact that in the Muslim-majority areas that opted for Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs were finished off in one quick blow. The case of West Bengal is worse. Beginning with the non-exchange of population that happened in the west, it is turning volatile and dangerous every day. Here, Muslims infiltrators from East Pakistan/Bangladesh were provided all the necessary facilities to live, prosper and indulge in whatever anti-India, anti-Hindu activities they wanted. To this was added thousands of Bihari Muslims-held guilty of war-crimes as collaborators of the Pakistani regime during the Bangladesh war of liberation. There’s rapid growth of Muslim population in West Bengal, which is more than 27%, while the Hindu population continues to decline rapidly amidst the growing policy of Muslim appeasement.
Both the Chief Ministers of Punjab and Bengal may well inform the nation about the number of Hindus/Sikhs/Buddhists surviving with dignity and honour in Pakistan and Bangladesh. After all, this is the land of Hinglaj Mata and Dhakeshwari Shakti peeth, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal, Dr Meghnad Shaha and countless revolutionaries and other luminaries. These people were very much Bharatiya, and so would have been their succeeding generations who were forced to become second-class citizens of these Islamic countries. Indian leaders have made them Pakistanis/Bangladeshis.
Be that as it may, we expect that the Government of India through various diplomatic channels and certain international humanitarian international organisations are keeping track of inhuman treatment meted out to them despite the smothering of such cases by India’s “secular” political class, media and intellectuals with the help of their international patron-collaborators.
Persecuted Hindus and other minorities had continued to seek safety and shelter in India after December 2014, and in keeping with the spirit of the CAA 2019, citizenship must be granted to them. The cut-off year leaves out those who need it desperately. Wolves remain wolves, and those countries have not turned saints after December 2014.
India was divided by the Muslims of India and their leaders, and not by Pakistan and Bangladesh, who have made Hindus and other minorities second-class citizens and refugees in India. Hence, Muslims from these countries, who had created Pakistan are ineligible for Indian citizenship, except in special cases as is still being done. Muslims can’t be victims of religio-ethnic cleansing in Muslim countries. Having helped create Pakistan, we can’t allow more Pakistan/Bangladesh in a “shrinking and shrunken India”. We need to ponder over as to why a Muslim-majority Malerkotla (Punjab) shows a declining Sikh/Hindu population, while Khulna, a Hindu-majority district given to Pakistan shows a steep decline in Hindu population (52% to 18%) and Murshidabad, a Muslim-majority district retained in West Bengal in 1947, shows a phenomenal decline of Hindu population.
Equally, important is to ensure that every act of refugee flight to India must be enquired into, in the country of origin, the victim’s material and psychological losses quantified, and then adequately compensated by the guilty nations. Inhumanity involved in the country of origin must be severely penalised. But as long as they continue to live in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, their basic human rights have to be ensured. This is India’s historic and moral responsibility.
The writer is a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR). The views expressed are personal.