NRC: More than a question of losing citizenship

          On 31 August, 2019, the government has released the final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and over 1.9 million people in the state have become stateless. As per the information of Ministry of Home Affairs, people who have been left out from the final list of NRC will have to appeal against it at the Foreigners Tribunals (the only authority that will review their claims and decide if they will live in detention or as citizens) and then subsequently in the High Court or Supreme Court within 120 days.

Many people believe that the Foreigners Tribunals that are considered to be the last hope for the excluded citizens of Assam have flaws in their functioning. Aakar Patel, Head of Amnesty India (a Human Rights organization), says, “The Foreigners Tribunals, which will decide the Indian citizenship of millions of people, are quasi-judicial bodies where persons claimed to be foreigners have the responsibility to prove that they are Indian citizens. Several reports have demonstrated how the proceedings before Foreigners Tribunals are arbitrary, while their orders are biased and discriminatory.”

It is evident that the BJP wanted to control the NRC exercise to suit its vote-bank politics, though the final list of NRC in Assam excluded many Hindus. However, the hidden agenda of the BJP behind the release of NRC was to target Muslims only. If you remember, last year during an election rally at Malda, Amit Shah had said, “I want to assure all refugees living in Bengal – Hindu, Buddhist & Sikh – that they need not be afraid. We have brought the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to grant citizenship to each and every Hindu Bangladeshi. No one will be left out, whether the person is a Buddhist, Sikh or Christian. Those who have been oppressed and have come from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh will be granted citizenship by the BJP’s Narendra Modi government.” So if you look at the Assam NRC list in this context, only Muslims will be excluded and destined to live in the detention camps. People from other communities will be able to retrieve their citizenship through the Citizenship Amendment Bill.

The process of othering the Muslims in India has a long history but under the Modi regime, this process has been further accelerated. Muslims are required to prove their love for the nation just simply because they belong to the Muslim community. They are being lynched simply because they carry a particular identity. Their beard and skull caps are seen as a sign of terrorism. They are being suspected at every step.

I fail to understand why Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not want to hug the Indian Muslims in the same way he hugs Arab Muslims. In fact, he often deliberately and repeatedly ignores Indian Muslims and their issues. He often delivers tall speeches but never addresses the growing insecurity among citizens, especially Muslims and Dalits. He promptly comments on each and every minor and major happenings from politics to sports but does not want to comment on the killings and lynchings of Muslims.

Narendra Modi never forgets to mention the philosophy of Upanishad ‘Vasudev Kutumbkum’ (The whole world is a family) whenever he addresses the international communities but when he comes back to India, he forgets his own utterances. If Modi honestly believed in the concept of ‘Vasudev Kutumbkum’, he would not have excluded 1.9 million people from the NRC list. People who have been left out from the NRC list in Assam may or may not be Indians but they belong to this world (the big family). Modi often preaches what he does not practice.

In a country like India, which lacks basic infrastructural development and where 269 million people are below the poverty line, the government is expected to eliminate poverty and build schools, hospitals, roads to meet the demands of development. The government with all its energy and resources is building detention centres to further marginalise a marginalised community.

In today’s India, a few pieces of paper decide the loyalty and association of a particular community with its motherland. It is very disturbing that the people whose ancestors are born and buried in this country will have to appear before the court to prove their citizenship. It is a matter of shame that the people whose ancestors have shed their blood and fought earnestly to free this country from the captivity of the British will now have to prove their nationality.

It is really shocking that even former president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed’s nephew Ziauddin Ali Ahmed is dropped from the NRC list. If the relatives of the former president have to face the ghost of NRC, one can imagine the fate of millions of those who don’t come from such connected families. What will happen to them? In fact, it raises disturbing questions. As Mahua Moitra, TMC MP, rightly pointed out in her first parliament speech, “In a country where ministers cannot produce degrees to prove that they graduated from college, you expect dispossessed people to show papers, to show that they belong to this country?”

As per a report published in The Quint, among those excluded from the list is 5-year-old Saahin Ashwar from Baksa district. Saahin is the only one from his family to be excluded from the NRC list. Another minor, 12-year-old Muzamil is also excluded from the list while his family name is included. Children are considered to be the future of any society and by disowning them, India is, unfortunately, disowning its own future. An Assam-based NGO specialising in child rights has warned of the psychological impact of the NRC on children and asked the authorities not to treat them as “collateral damage” from the expensive exercise. The National Campaign against Torture (a human right body) has also found that “children are the worst victims of mental torture” in the NRC process. “They are witness to the mental trauma of their parents and bear the brunt of their parents’ frustrations. India’s denial of citizenship to children born after 2004 is a violation of Article 7 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child relating to the right of nationality.”

In a recent editorial at The Indian Express, “Nation’s Orphans”, the editor-in-chief writes that instead of blaming the process, political parties need to recognise, perhaps, the flaw that lies in the imagination that produced the NRC. Modern societies are shaped by migration and it may be futile to engage in costly exercises to identify “outsiders”. The idea of citizenship can’t be imprisoned within the framework of blood and soil or religion; it needs a broader, more inclusive definition rooted in the liberal spirit of the Constitution.

The BJP-led government at the centre is replicating in India the Nazi idea of atrocities. In Nazi Germany slogans like “Germany for Germans only” led to the imprisonment of millions of Jews in concentration camps where they lost their lives. In the same way, the slogans such as “Hindustan for Hindus only” have developed a mindset among the Hindu fanatics to torture, kill or lynch Muslims. The detention centres that the government is building are the concentration camps of New India. Now the Indian Muslims are being targeted by both the government and Hindu fanatics. The BJP believes that the more space it provides to the Hindu fanatics the more seats it will win in the Parliament. That is why it has given free hands to them to spread hatred towards Muslims. This polarisation of Indian society has brought more than 300 seats for the BJP in the parliament. When the Home Minister Amit Shah uses the term “Ghuspaithiye” (infiltrators), he refers to Muslims only because he is ready to give citizenship through Citizenship Amendment Bill to everyone other than Muslims. When the Home Minister of the world’s largest democracy has a communal mindset, you can imagine the functioning of agencies under him. Under these circumstances, the free space in India for Muslims is shrinking day by day. They are becoming the captives within their homeland.

It seems to me that the NRC is just a process of othering Muslims and pushing them towards more backwardness. If this process continues, one can easily predict the future of Muslims in India. The way the NRC is being conducted is also unconstitutional as it violates section 3 of the Indian constitution. Defying political subversion, the apex Court of India should take this matter very seriously because it is considered to be the custodian of the Indian Constitution. The NRC exercise is no longer about losing citizenship; rather, it is more about losing the homeland. How can a state force anybody to leave her homeland?

As my growing disillusionment and disappointment compelled me to write this essay, I have been thinking of Martin Luther King Jr’s words, “There comes a time when silence is a betrayal. The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” If we do not raise our voice against the growing injustice, cruelty, and oppression of the government, it will be a betrayal.

Alienating Kashmiris while integrating Kashmir

On August 5, 2019, the BJP-led government in centre revoked the autonomy of Jammu & Kashmir by abrogating Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which confers special status on Jammu & Kashmir.

The centre has also abrogated article 35A, introduced in 1954. It empowers the state legislature to define who is a permanent resident with the right to buy property and apply for jobs in Kashmir.

All of this happened without the consent of Kashmiris, without any discussion among India’s own parliamentarians and, most crucially, without any sound constitutional foundation. Over 500 important political workers and leaders, including former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, have been detained in Jammu and Kashmir since the centre decided to revoke provisions of Article 370 and divide the state into two union territories.

This has left the Kashmiris in both anger and shock. This has also alienated Kashmiris. They have been put under complete shutdown for a protracted amount of time. Almost eight million Kashmiris are living under siege, experiencing the worst crackdown in three decades, imposed by the centre.

The entire valley is under the severest curfew in decades and an unprecedented communications blockade has been put in place, with mobile phones, broadband, even landlines blocked. The world’s largest democracy has cut off Kashmir from the rest of India and the world.

The ruling party and their supporters say that the abrogation of Article 370 will bring growth and development in Kashmir. Under a complete lockdown in the valley, those who talk about the possibility of growth and development are actually suffering from an illusion.

The BJP and their supporters can’t deny the fact that even today the indicators of growth and development for Jammu & Kashmir are better than the indicators for Gujarat. The kind of poverty that we see in Gujarat and in rest of India often we don’t see in the streets of Kashmir. I am comparing Kashmir with Gujarat with respect to growth and development because Gujarat was ruled by Narendra Modi for 15 years without any political interruption.

I think colonizing Kashmiris in the name of development is a ridiculous move. Peace is a prerequisite for bringing growth and development and under curfew and siege peace cannot be ensured. The policemen are deployed everywhere. Barricades have been put in front of important buildings. Markets, schools and colleges are shut. In such circumstances, I fail to understand the kind of development the centre wants to bring to Kashmir.

The former Prime Minister and BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee had addressed the Kashmir issue in a very positive way. He said, “The gun could not solve problems; issues related to Kashmir can be guided by the three principles of insaniyat (humanism), jamhooriyat (democracy) and kashmiriyat (Kashmir’s legacy of amity).” In fact, the approach of Vajpayee is considered to be the foundation of peace in Kashmir. The BJP has totally forgotten the guiding principles of its founder in dealing with the issues of Kashmir.

In 1952, while addressing the Kashmiris, Nehru had said: “Kashmir is not the property of India or Pakistan. It belongs to the Kashmiri people. We have taken the issue to the United Nations and give our word of honour for a peaceful solution. As a great nation, we cannot go back on it. We have left the question of final solution to the people of Kashmir and we are determined to abide by their decision.”

It is the BJP which always talks about naari samman (respect for women) but the gender concern for BJP is so shallow that after scrapping the special status of J&K, the BJP Ministers and supporters are fantasising about marrying fair Kashmiri girls. It is also ridiculous that those who do not know the basic provisions of Article 370 are celebrating the abrogation of it with high fervor. For them, it is all about buying land in Kashmir.

After the revocation of Article 370 and Article 35A, the BJP is celebrating the integration of Kashmir into India and presenting and viewing it as a conquest. But what does it mean to conquer a territory that is already the most militarized space in the world? It is the kind of integration which happens under the cover of night and shadow of guns. Though the centre has integrated the territory of Kashmir into the Union of India, it has clearly failed to incorporate Kashmiris.

The toxic hypernationalism promoted by Modi-led BJP and its RSS backers has affected the Muslim minority whose nationalism is being questioned everywhere today. This hypernationalism has provided a reason for celebration to the BJP supporters in the matter of Jammu & Kashmir which is a Muslim majority state. They are under an illusion that the revocation of Article 370 and Article 35A will pave the way for the political establishment of Hindutva ideology in the valley.

Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, said she is worried that Modi’s Kashmir policy could further marginalize Muslims living in India. “This move could mark the government’s larger game plan to implement its Hindu nation-building agenda and snuff out voices of dissent and opposition,” she told DW. “The game plan is to erase differences, dissent and the rights of minorities.” Krishnan was also part of a fact-finding team that went to Kashmir to document the hardships suffered by Kashmiris during the government’s clampdown on communication and free movement.

Harsh Mander, a former bureaucrat and now an activist working with survivors of mass violence, said he believed the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir was part of several steps currently being taken to alienate Muslims. “I think war has been declared against Indian Muslims in many different ways,” he told DW. “What is happening with the National Register of Citizens in Assam is the beginning, and it is spreading to the rest of the country.” Mander added that the BJP’s far-right wing, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was seeking to reduce India’s Muslims to “second class citizens.”

The Independence Day is said to be an opportunity for great happiness for the people of any country which was colonised for almost 200 years. However, this Independence Day the people of Kashmir and their relatives mourned the plight of Kashmiris who are under siege. Freedom is meaningless for them. Though Kashmir too attained its freedom from the British rule almost 70 years ago, they have been colonised by their own people now. They are detained in their own houses.

We usually celebrate our festivals with our family members because we believe that celebrations are always incomplete without them. This year the people of Kashmir celebrated their Eid-ul-Azha far from their family members. Many of my Kashmiri friends who are students and are living in Delhi have not celebrated the festival as they were unable to reach out to their parents and family members even on phone. They were not allowed to go back to their homes for Eid. Is this the way the BJP-led government in centre trying to integrate Kashmir into India?

This approach will only help the government in the integration of the territory of Kashmir while alienating the people living there. This will always remain an obstacle before the peace and development in Kashmir.

To solve the Kashmir crisis, the centre first needs to treat Kashmiris as equal citizens. Kashmir is not just about a question of territory; it is more about Kashmiris who live there. My humble suggestion to the BJP-led government in centre is to love the territory less and the people more.

The Election Commission of India: In search of a credible autonomous institution in India

The Election Commission of India is an autonomous constitutional authority responsible for administering election process in India. It was created under Article 324 of the Constitution of India. The primary duty of the Election Commission is to conduct free and fair elections. Since its inception it has tried to maintain its credibility but in past few years people in general and politics in particular have raised many questions in the way it functions. Recently, a group of retired bureaucrats and diplomats, in an open letter to the President of India, also expressed their concern over the functioning of the Election Commission. They have mentioned in the letter that the institution of Election Commission is suffering from a crisis of credibility today.

How the Modi government has destroyed the key institutions is not hidden from anybody: from the Supreme Court to the RBI, from CBI to EC and from CVC to ED is completely under the control of the Modi government. Let me enumerate in detail how Modi has hijacked the autonomy of the constitutional bodies of India.

It was a shameful moment for the nation when in January 2019 the four judges of the Supreme Court had to organise a press conference to share their grievances, in which they clearly said that the administration of the Supreme Court is not in order. Many things that are less than desirable have happened in the last few months. The judges were not satisfied with the way the Apex Court was functioning. Despite their protest the government acted as if nothing has happened to the Indian Judiciary.

Under Modi rule an unprecedented and dire situation has arisen. An organized loot in the form of demonetization was done without discussing the pros and cons with the RBI Governor. The blunder of the Prime Minister has cost the youth of the nation scores of jobs.

The recent war among the CBI officers and the intervention of the government have also exposed the Modi regime. The CBI’s role as the handmaiden of the central government, its misuse to target opposition parties and political opponents have destroyed the credibility of an agency that was supposed to be in the frontline of the fight against corruption. Now it is obvious that the CBI acts as a puppet in the hands of Narendra Modi.

Among all the government institutions which came under the political influence of Modi government, the political   subversion of the Election Commission of India is the worst threat to democracy. Needless to say that a healthy democracy can only be ensured with the free and fair elections and for conducting a free and fair election the institution organizing it should be genuinely independent and politically unbiased. If the function of the Election Commission is under political subversion, the democracy will die.

It is clear from the conduct of the Election Commission that it has lost its credibility. From the date of announcement of Lok Sabha elections 2019 till now, the so-called autonomous body of the Election Commission seems to be functioning on the will and direction of the ruling dispensation. I am saying this with a full sense of responsibility because once Prime Minister Narendra Modi was done with his 157 inaugurations across the country, the Election Commission announced the poll dates of Lok Sabha election on March 10, 2019.

Lok Sabha elections are going on across the country in different phases and the nation is celebrating it as a carnival. Almost every day hundreds of rallies are being held. All political parties are targeting each other; political leaders are exaggerating the amount of work they have done and also counting the failure of the political opponents. Poll observers have been appointed by the Election Commission to ensure that no political leader violates the Model Code of Conduct but it is surprising that in the presence of poll observers the leaders are publicly violating the Model Code of Conduct by spreading hatred and making misogynistic remarks against their political opponents in their speeches.

Sadhvi Pragya, a key accused in Malegaon blast, is dramatically fielded by the BJP as a candidate for Lok Sabha election. After getting ticket from the party, she has publicly dishounored Martyr Hemant Karkare who lost his life in 26/11 Mumbai attack. Sadhvi is on bail on health ground but she is healthy enough to contest election and attend political meetings. Despite acknowledging the comments of Sadhvi Pragya on Martyr Hemant Karkare, the Election Commission has lately served a notice to her but has taken no action to cancel her candidature. The Election Commission has only warned her to mind her language.

Though in a positive move, the Election Commission banned Yogi Adityanath, Mayawati and Azam Khan for a couple of days for violating the Model Code of Conduct, the amount of action the Election Commission has taken so far is not enough as the political leaders are still violating Codes with impunity.

The clear violation of the Model Code of Conduct can be seen on March 27, when Modi made a public announcement on TV channels about the successful launch of India’s first anti-satellite missile as if it was launched from the BJP headquarters and it was only his feat. As we all know that DRDO runs on taxpayer’s money; so taking credit for it is shameful and that too when the Model Code of Conduct is operational.

As far as violating the Model Code of Conduct is concerned, Narendra Modi tops among the leaders. He again violated the Model Code of Conduct by publicly making communally polarized speeches at Wardha on April 1 and Nanded on April 6, when the opposition asked the Election Commission to take proper action against him. The Election Commission clearly defended him and declared that there was no violation of the Model Code of Conduct.

Despite a clear warning from the Election Commission prohibiting political parties from using the name of armed forces for political gain in any manner during election campaign, Modi went ahead and asked people to dedicate their votes to the Martyrs of Pulwama and heroes of Balakot air strikes. India has seen many Prime Ministers losing elections but has never seen a PM losing his marbles. Although the Election Commission acknowledged the comment of Modi, it didn’t serve him any notice nor disqualified him from contesting the election. Since he is the Prime Minister, it seems the Election Commission can’t take action against him. If this is the logic of the Election Commission, this would be a murder of democracy. Indeed this is also a sign that India is heading towards dictatorship and the dictator would be above the law. The Election Commission is not merely ignoring the repeated blatant violations of the Model Code of Conduct by the Prime Minister but it is also favouring him by being lenient to him.

On April 16, the Election Commission suspended Mohammed Mohsin, a Karnataka cadre officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) for checking Modi’s helicopter after he had landed at Sambalpur in Odisha for addressing an election meeting. Is Modi above the law of the land? Is he above the constitution? Does the Model Code of Conduct not apply to him? These are the pertinent questions which can be asked of the Election Commission of India. By suspending the officer, the Election Commission has sent out a clear message to all other poll observers that if they follow the rules they will be penalized and suspended.

In a recent article, “A crisis of credibility?”, former Chief Election commissioner of India, S.Y. Quraishi, writes that the Election Commission has come under the scanner in 2019 general elections like never before in the wake of incidents involving a breach of Model Code of Conduct, particularly those by the ruling party. Despite having the constitutional autonomy, why is the Election Commission of India buckling under pressure? Mr. Quraishi provides a solution to this problem. He writes: “The genesis of the problem lies in the flawed system of appointments of Election Commissioners, who are appointed unilaterally by the government of the day. This problem can be settled once and for all by depoliticizing appointments through a broad based consultation as in other countries.” Being an Ex-Chief Election Commissioner of India, Mr. Quraishi knows well the root cause for the political subversion of the Election Commission.

It is time to think from a different angle on this issue, so that the transparency, credibility and autonomy of the Election Commission can be maintained. The Election Commission of India is the lifeline for the Indian democracy. It can’t afford to remain under political subversion because if this institution dies the democracy will automatically die.  So to keep alive the democracy, the autonomy of the Election Commission is a must.

Not only the Election Commission but all the constitutional and autonomous institutions are losing their credibility in the eyes of citizens. It is high time for all the institutions in general and the Election Commission of India in particular to restore its constitutional power without getting influenced by any political leader or party. Else the Indian democracy will end up as a pure anarchy.

A letter in response to Abu Osama's article on Dr. Rahi Masoom Raza

Dear Abu bhai!

I am deeply touched after reading your article. I extend my sincere thanks to you for presenting the life of a finest writer and a perpetual dissenter before us as most of us have forgotten Rahi in the dust of time. Indeed your analysis of his dynamic personality in the context of contemporary India is an eye opener for this generation. I think if the real struggle of Rahi gets the space in the writings of modern writers, surely the youth will get enlightened with his personality and find a role model in him.

Earlier for me Rahi was just a writer or a poet but after reading your article I came to know that He was the man of multifaceted personality. He was a poet, a writer, an activist, a visionary, a dissenter and above all a dreamer who always kept in his eyes a dream of free and communally unbiased India.

You have analyzed Rahi by putting him in a frame of contemporary India that is passing through the dark times; when we talk about dark times, an old yet relevant picture of Rahi comes into my mind when the entire nation was witnessing the oppression of emergency. Even the Film Writer’s Association knelt down before the government and supported the harsh policies of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Rahi being a member of Film Writer’s Association opposed the government and became the voice of dissent. Becoming a poet or a writer is easy but becoming the voice for the voiceless people is tough and we all know that Rahi had chosen a tough path by opposing the establishment.

The idea of Indianness which was propagated by Rahi is need of the hour. He looked at the Hindu Muslim relationship in a very different manner. You read any of his pieces of writing and you will find a master narrative of secular India. Despite being severely criticized and attacked by the Hindu fundamentalists he wrote the dialogue of a mega TV serial Mahabharata. He retorted to the fundamentalists by saying “I am a son of Ganga and who would know the civilization and culture of India better than I”.  

With reference to Aadha Gaon ( his much celebrated work), you have described in detail the love for India which Rahi was having in his heart but I think this love for India is something which Rahi had inherited from his father Syed Bashir Hasan Abidi, a leading civil lawyer of Ghazipur who had refused to leave India at the time of partition in 1947.

For me Rahi was a dreamer, he dreamt of a revolution, though the revolution which Rahi was dreaming of never occurred in his life but he forwarded his message of revolution to the many coming generation by writing this couplet.

Humari Aablapai ka zikr kar dena

Thaka hua jo tumhe koi Inquilab dikhe…..

I expect many more such articles from you and wish you good luck.

Yours 

Shahid Jamal