India on the road to Hindu Rashtriya
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It was back in 1923, when V.D. Savarkar, in his ideological pamphlet, “Hindutva,” claimed that India was land for Hindus, and urged for the creation of a Hindu Rashtriya, or nation. Simply put, it stated that Muslims and Christians who had left the Hindu faith should either revert to Hinduism or in the cultural sense, have no qualms calling themselves Hindu Muslims and Hindu Christians. Since 1925, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been pursuing this agenda.
However, Hindutva never got the political traction in India where people still vastly believed in ‘unity in diversity.’ Secularism was officially adopted after independence in 1947 and Article 14 of the 1950 Indian constitution categorically prohibits discrimination on religious and ethnic grounds.
But Mohammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, after initially working for Hindu-Muslim unity and a united India, ultimately began to believe that Muslims in a united India would end up living as second-class citizens. Hence, Indian Muslims had no other viable option but to seek a separate homeland for themselves. What is happening in today’s India is a testament to Jinnah’s impeccable farsightedness.
The Bharatya Janata Party (BJP), the political wing of the RSS, is antithetical to what the Indian Congress, at least officially, stands for. The latter ruled the country for most of its 70-year history. And due to many blunders, it has now been losing its mass appeal. In politics, however, there is always room to bounce back. Perseverance is the name of the game.
The recently passed Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) by the Indian parliament is yet another manifestation of what the world should expect India to become over the coming years should the people of India continue to be duped by the BJP’s misguided incantations.
Dr. Abdul Basit
The BJP under Modi is no longer diffident about openly espousing extremist Hindutva ideology. During the last five years, scores of Muslims have been lynched by Hindu extremists under horrendous pretexts. The BJP has also launched the project ‘Ghar Wapsi” (homecoming) to incentivize lower cast Muslims and Christians to quit their respective religions.
From Kashmir to Ayodhya, the BJP/ RSS agenda is now clear and indeed presents unprecedented dangers. The recently passed Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) by the Indian parliament is yet another manifestation of what the world should expect India to become over the coming years should the people of India continue to be duped by the BJP’s misguided incantations.
India can always argue that it is none of the world’s business to lecture it on its constitutional amendments. Giving or not giving asylum or Indian nationality to foreigners is its sovereign right. And then there are many countries, especially in the West, which, despite being signatories to the 1951 UN refugee convention are refusing to accept refugees, especially Muslims from the civil war-torn West Asian countries.
It can argue that if India allows only minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan to benefit from its Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), this is only logical — all three are overwhelmingly Muslim-majority countries and the argument goes that the majority cannot be persecuted by a minority.
Par for the course, all the three countries reacted sharply to the CAA. Yes, the Indian parliament is sovereign to legislate, but it has no right to make a law on flimsy grounds. Nor does it have grounds to level unfounded accusations of minority persecution in the three Muslim countries. In fact, judging by what is happening in Indian-held Kashmir and to Indian Muslims, Christians and Dalits, it is India which is culpable of mistreating its minorities, exposing their lives and properties to unprecedented dangers.
Not only is CAA a gross violation of India’s own constitution, but also the 1985 Assamese Accord which allowed citizenship to only those who entered Assam by March 1971. This date has now been extended to 31 Dec. 2014. Not surprisingly, the indigenous people of the north-eastern states are disturbed that in the longer-term, they may be turned into minorities in their own respective lands.
There is no systematic minority persecution taking place in any of the three countries. Hence, the law is not about minorities there seeking asylum in India. Nor is there any possibility of Muslims in these countries longing for India, especially when Indian Muslims themselves are going through a very difficult time. They have been politically marginalized, religiously threatened, and have become hostages in their own country.
Pakistan and Bangladesh with their borders with India might be worried more about Indian Muslims seeking asylum in their countries because Modi’s India has laid bare its congenital bias against Muslims— with dozens already dead protesting against it.
*Abdul Basit is the president of Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. He was previously Pakistan's ambassador to Germany and Pakistan's High Commissioner to India.
