The Citizenship Amendment Bill
By Shiv Khera
Every country in the
world has a right and a responsibility to protect its national integrity by
preventing illegal immigration.
Giving Asylum to
Infiltrators is not magnanimity but amounts to treachery.
The Citizenship Amendment
Bill which has witnessed six extensions since 2016 is finally becoming a
reality – eventually a step in the right direction.
The purpose of this
bill is to address the mass exodus and thus the huge influx of Hindus, Sikhs,
Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, Christians etc. ‘non Muslims’ from Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Afghanistan, due to forced conversions, torture, rape, murder
etc only because they were non-Muslims/Kafirs.
The population of
Hindus in Bangladesh at the time of partition was close to 30% and is currently
estimated to be less than 5%. The Hindu population in Pakistan was 23% at the
time of partition and is currently less than 1%. Afghanistan’s Hindu population
declined since 1992 from a quarter million to less than 220 families (Tolo
news, June 2016).
Where have these 60
million Hindus disappeared in the last few decades? They have either been
forcibly converted to Islam or murdered, kidnapped, raped, and those who
survived the genocide escaped to India? Why have the so-called Human Rights
activists remained silent? The pseudo secularists ought to be ashamed of
themselves for being selectively prejudiced.
The Hindus in these
countries have been living a life of slavery and are terrorized at every step.
The disappearance of millions of Hindus post the partition is one of the most
horrifying genocides in human history possibly even worse than the Holocaust. Islam
remains the State Religion of all the three countries. What a demonstration of
peaceful co-existence!
The terror stricken
population from these countries filtered into India by hook or by crook
including bribing guards for survival. Among these were countless Muslims who
saw this as an opportunity to infiltrate into India for their personal gains
and dislodge resources from those living in this country. Some came in with a
political agenda to grab resources of local residents while others escaped to
avoid criminal proceedings in their home countries.
However the Citizenship
Amendment Bill categorically states that it is applicable to only non-Muslims.
Some pseudo secularists say it is discriminatory, unconstitutional and violates
Article 14. Actually it is none of the above. Rather it is a humanitarian issue
respecting human rights.
We must distinguish
between Refugees seeking asylum versus Infiltrators. Hindus are refugees because
they were terrorized and forced to convert to Islam or get killed. To them
living with dignity and survival was uppermost and these refugees have had no
choice but to come to India.
Muslims seeking
asylum are infiltrators because many of them crossing the border forced their
way into India for financial gains, political motives or escape from criminal
action in their home countries. Many of them are radicals supporting the ISIS
groups with an agenda of changing the demographics of India by making Muslims a
majority community. It is important to note that unlike the Hindus, Muslims did
not leave their home country because of forcible conversion to Islam. The
Muslims have a choice to get settled out of the many Muslim dominated countries
in the world.
However there are
some immature pseudo secularists who are saying ‘why not also give the Muslims
citizenship because some of them were discriminated?’ Such justifications are
absurd because they are referring to internal conflicts within Muslims and do
not justify that India should give them Asylum. Internal conflicts cannot be
compared to ethnic cleansing. The mass exodus of non-Muslims was a result of
ethnic cleansing.
Giving Asylum to
infiltrators is not magnanimity but amounts to treachery.
By accommodating
such infiltrators, aren’t we depleting our resources and adding poverty to our
own citizens? We need to learn that charity begins from home. Our poor
citizens have the first rights on India’s resources not infiltrators.
I totally agree with
the Assam agitation against illegal immigrants who come in as infiltrators to
de-stabilize but not the refugees. In fact, the illegal infiltrators should be
removed from the electoral rolls and deported. Besides, the infiltrators can be
a threat to national security both internally and externally.
It is important to
note that in 1947, the partition of India took place on the two nation theory
with the understanding that all Muslims will go to Pakistan and Hindus will
come to India.
The non-Muslim minority
that comes over as refugees can be spread over evenly all over the country so
that they can assimilate easily within the population.
In fact, the BJP
should have kept their promise of giving citizenship to the Hindu refugees as
stated in the 2014 manifesto.
The question is, how could so many illegal people
infiltrate into India and so easily procure Identity cards such as Aadhar Cards
etc. while Hindus, who are deserving refugees, are still waiting? It will not
be out of place to say that our security forces have either been lax or bribed
to allow the infiltrators to come into India, which amounts to treachery within
the nation.
To prevent problems of infiltration in the future, the
Government must seal borders and protect them with forces that are incorruptible
and more vigilant.
To see a United India, I support the Citizenship
Amendment Bill and invite all patriots to support it whole heartedly.