Hard choices before India

Madhav Godbole

Former union home secretary and ex-secretary, justice

The controversy surrounding the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) has become a theatre of the absurd. There is no doubt that it is a ‘theatre’, used by all political parties. Each party has its own agenda. The BJP is pursuing it as a part of its commitment of making India a Hindu nation. Home Minister Amit Shah has claimed that the government is prepared to talk to anyone but the opposition parties, and NGOs opposing the move are not prepared to come forward for a discussion.

Prominent among the opposition parties is the Congress, which is more visible in its media management than its electoral successes, including in the recent Delhi Assembly elections. As the largest opposition party in Parliament, though it could not qualify for being recognised as the lead Opposition, the media has been giving it undue prominence. Its most visible spokesman, P Chidambaram, has been making contradictory statements of his party’s and his own unsustainable stand. His latest statement is that the Opposition is not against the citizenship Act and all it seeks is inclusion of ‘all neighbours and all categories’ among those eligible for grant of citizenship. One may ask, who has authorised Chidambaram to speak on behalf of all opposition parties? The pronouncements of several parties are quite the opposite. They are totally opposed to the CAA-NPR-NRC.

Chidambaram has said the Congress has not openly supported Shaheen Bagh agitation as ‘that way we will fall into the BJP’s trap. If you go there, and visibly stand there in Shaheen Bagh, they (BJP) will say this is political’. Does this mean that the Congress is supporting it clandestinely?

Chidambaram has also said ‘what India needs today is not the amendment to the citizenship law but a law on refugees’. The task force on border management, appointed following the Kargil War, of which I was the chairman, had recommended the enactment of such a law in 2000. What stopped the UPA government, in which Chidambaram was the Home Minister for some time, from passing a refugee law when it was in power for a decade from 2004 to 2014?

Public memory is short but it needs to be noted that the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2003, on which the NPR and NRC are based, was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on May 7, 2003. It was sent to the parliamentary standing committee on home affairs. Among its prominent members were Kapil Sibal, Hansraj Bhardwaj, Ram Jethmalani, Dr LM Singhvi, CK Jaffer Sharief, Ambika Soni, Janeshwar Mishra and others. Keeping in view the public importance of the Bill, the committee decided to invite views from individuals/organisations. The suggestions were carefully considered and it recommended the Bill for adoption by Parliament. Thereafter, the Bill was unanimously passed by the Rajya Sabha on December 18 and the Lok Sabha on December 22, 2003. The Congress, AIADMK and RJD were some of the opposition parties which supported the Bill. After such a national consensus, what has happened since to oppose these provisions? There are only two apparent reasons. One is the experience of Assam NRC, which brought misery to millions, and second, the antipathy to the BJP.

The politicisation of these national issues is highly counterproductive. A climate has been created against any national surveys, including the forthcoming NPR, and even the surveys being conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) since 1950. NSSO surveyors are being ill-treated and even beaten up. People are being encouraged to deliberately give wrong information or withhold information. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee is set to mobilise support of all states to oppose these initiatives. Is this how India is going to become even a regional power, leave aside become a superpower?

It has become a fashion these days to invoke the Constitution every now and then. At no time in the past 70 years since its adoption, was the Constitution proclaimed to be so sacrosanct! But, it is little realised that the foundation of the Constitution itself is being threatened by these nationwide agitations.

The Constitution does not permit state citizenship. When J&K insisted on retaining it in the name of its special status, it was opposed in the country, and eventually led to the abrogation of Article 370. The Constitution has made a deliberate distinction between the residents and citizens of the country. Fundamental rights under Article 15 (prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth), and Article 16 (equality of opportunity in matters of public employment) are applicable only to the citizens. Fundamental duties under Article 51-A are prescribed only for the citizens. What is being advocated in the name of liberalism and secularism is to do away with the distinction between citizens and ordinary residents. In several Western democracies, rigid tests are applied before granting citizenship to anyone. Even in the US, by which most liberals and thinkers in this country swear, the conditions for grant of citizenship have become stricter and stringent over time. What is being advocated in the present no-holds-barred, bizarre theatre of the absurd goes against the basic structure of the Constitution, which the Supreme Court has declared to be sacrosanct.

The implications of this controversy are not confined only to the CAA-NPR-NRC. They go much beyond and this does not seem to have been appreciated fully. My repeated pleas to debate the issues nationally, on the basis of a White Paper by the union government, have fallen on deaf ears. What is at stake is the very future of India and its Constitution. But is anyone worried?

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