Citizenship Amendment Act: Flying embers in times of urban unrest

Students are swelling in numbers on the streets. They've braved chill in the air. Showers from water canons haven't doused the fire in the bellies of the protestors. Universities, mostly in metropolitan cities, are squirming with angst. Air smells of feverish emotions. The new decade dawned with loud shrieks from the youth, underlining their hatred for the ruling dispensation in India. That Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are no strangers to hatred is not forgotten by those with eyes and ears for the fast changing Indian democratic flavours.

INDIAN Parliament has been seized of the pressing needs for the amendments in the Citizenship Act for a few decades. The voice for amendments in the Parliament began gaining visible strength from 2003. Politicians cutting across party lies made sympathetic overtures for granting citizenship to thousands of refugees. Such refugees who fled neighbouring Islamic countries due to religious persecutions have been spread out in many cities for past three decades, while they continue to seek ways to come to India on the back of radical Islamist choosing them for their bigotry even in the recent times. The influx will not stop of such people even while the Citizenship Amendment Act draws the curtain of December 31, 2014 for them to gain Indian nationality. 

Deliberations in the Parliamentary standing committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs largely concurred that the refugees belonging to the majority community in Bangladesh cannot be considered for citizenship. Muslim refugees from Pakistan and Afghanistan aren't in any significant number to warrant attention. Muslims from Bangladesh, popularly called ghuspaithiya (illegal migrants), have, however, been in numbers to polarise election campaigns, with a few political parties vowing to throw them out of the country. Assam has seen riots in areas inhabited by them since 1980s. Assam was torn apart in the face of the swift demographic changes, posing an existential crisis to the Assamese identity.

Demographic changes, substantially altering linguistic and cultural identities of districts bordering West Bengal and Bihar with Bangladesh in the course of 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium, were swift. Waves of illegal migrants from Bangladesh mingled in Indian habitations unhindered and unquestioned. The military dictatorship in Bangladesh after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had co-opted the radical Islamist. The free flow of Saudi money to further the Wahabi stream of militant Islam found fertile grounds in Bangladesh. That the Parliamentary voices underlined security risk from such unabated flow of illegal Bangladeshi migrants indeed reflected the ground realities.

THE National Register for Citizens (NRC), committed in the Assam Accord and implemented under the watch of the Supreme Court, bared the religious fault lines. The cut off date for the people to make into the list was March 25, 1971. Over 19 lakhs were excluded from the final list for which over 3.31 crore people had applied. The BJP was livid, for the party leaders claimed that 12 lakh Bengali Hindus found their claim rejected. The BJP leaders fumed that over 90 per cent of the alleged Bangladeshi illegal migrants actually made into the final list. Predictably, the BJP government in Assam rejected the NRC held in Assam.

Indian Parliament exhaustively debated the draft legislation on the Citizenship Amendment Bill. The BJP also faced internal dissent in its Assam unit, with some expressing that there would be backlash if the Bengali Hindus are granted citizenship. The Central BJP leaders held firm and went ahead with clear intent that the Hindus in Assam would gain citizenship. The Bill excluded the Muslims from the ambit, while other minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan -- Christians, Buddhists, Parsi, Jains and Sikhs -- made into the beneficiary list. Such refugees from Pakistan and Afghanistan are said to be just little over 30,000. The BJP leaders have guessed Bangladesh illegal Muslim migrants in excess of one crore (100 million).

"The Citizenship Amendment Act is meant principally for the Bengali Hindus in Assam," said a senior BJP leader in an informal chat with scribes.

THE BJP chief Amit Shah has rewritten the political script of Indian politics. In Narendra Modi, Shah had a campaigner to allow the BJP to overwhelm inimical political hindrances. Shah rejoices in politics of confrontation. In Parliament, his debates are essentially confined to winning the arguments, with facts and instances from the past, which are uncomfortable to the Opposition. In electoral politics, he demonstrated effortlessly that the age old might of the strategic Muslim voting was just rudderless. He scored the rare triple century for the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, leaving opponents gripped with morbid fear of irrelevance.       

Shah was among the first few to occupy the chair in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan when Modi took oath for his second term. The men and women in the council of ministers largely consisted of the aids of Shah. It was apparent that Modi had chosen his second in command and possibly the heir. Shah proved soon that he was in a hurry. In a swift and sudden move, Shah wrote a new script for Jammu and Kashmir. He made it simple to disbelief of even his supporters that the Article 370 could just be wished away with a Parliamentary resolution. Shah endeared to the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS) with one bold stroke. To the delight of the RSS, he owned up the moral ownership of the Citizenship Amendment Bill, and grabbed a narrative for the next five years by becoming vocal on the NRC.    

In a matter of six months, it's not Modi but Shah who is being talked about in the country. With his alter ego Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India, accounting for one-sixth population of the country, the BJP-RSS brass know that the Hindutva would stay at the center stage of the popular discourse in the coming years.

Lok Sabha had passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill in 2018. The CPI (M) MP Mohammed Salim and AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi made the obvious noise. There were hardly any noteworthy protests on the streets of New Delhi. The Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the 16th Lok Sabha. The 17th Lok Sabha inaugurated with the BJP led government going in a tearing hurry to gain Parliamentary approvals to host of legislative bills, with government not shying away from pushing the contentious legislation. The NDA being in minority in Rajya Sabha proved no hindrance to Shah. From legislation against the practice of triple talaq (instant divorce) within the Muslim community to the dilution of Article 370, besides the Citizenship Amendment Act, flew with the Parliamentary favours with ease. The BJP under the watch of Shah in the government was seen possessed with the might to rewrite the Constitution o India by the opponents.    

The battle lost in Parliament and elections for long have been waged on the streets.

Ayodhya verdict: Epochal leap of faith

The responsibility laid on man as a rational being, to integrate himself, to relate the present to the past and the future, to live in time as well as eternity has become acute and urgent -- S. Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upanishads.

THE Supreme Court has taken off the poison in the air with its unanimous Ayodhya judgment. The political class had failed in its principal mandate to reconcile social contradictions. The religious leaders lacked mandate to rise above their identities. The politics of India used religion to polarise communities. Minorityism nursed identity politics, while the people were pushed into ghettos. Demographic transformation afterwards transcended identities. Political might of minorityism was firmly put down on the mat. The stage was set for the Supreme Court to shun judicial shyness to tread on the tricky path of faith and pronounce verdict to conclude explicit acrimony of over three decades. 

UNION Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had brought leaders of the Muslim community face to face with a few top functionaries of Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS). The objective was to prepare grounds for the acceptance of the impending Supreme Court verdict on Ramjanmabhoomi title suit. Both sides talked necessities of the co-existence. One Muslim scholar 's word, however, hung on to the ears of the RSS functionaries.

"Mulk bachega to Mazhab bachega (Religion will survive only if the nation stays)," said the Muslim scholar. Four days later, the RSS functionary, while recalling the remark, noted: "The Muslims always professed their religion above the nation. That remark was significant, signalling change in thoughts even if shared by only a few. We've to see how does it go forward,"  said the RSS functionary.

The saffron outfit would await the Muslims to take further initiatives for dialogue. The RSS and its various socio-cultural-politico wings now genuinely argue that they want dialogue with the Muslim community leaders. It's not that they've just been talking. They have, indeed, been doing this for a while behind the closed doors. They just want that secrecy to go away.

Mohan Bhagwat, RSS supremo, after the Supreme Court verdict.

INDIA'S partition is still fresh in the collective memory of the people. That was on the basis of religion. The liberal politicians of India embraced the Muslims who chose to stay in India. The Congress leadership, drawing from the pool of the battery of freedom struggle leaders, steadied the nation on the path of peaceful coexistence of all communities. The talent pool fast became depleting, and the demise of Lal Bahadur Shastri brought curtains on the golden age of India's selfless politics. The consequent phase saw the birth of self-centred politics. The Muslims harbouring minorityism were the convenient hunting grounds for the proponents of identity politics. The Congress in 1970-80s evolved potent potion to win elections, with Muslims at the core of the social engineering consisting also of the upper castes and Dalits. The 1990s saw the arrival of aggressive politics around social justice. The Congress' potent electoral potion passed on to scores of identity based political outfits. They firmly pushed the Muslims into the ghettos.  

The BJP patriarch L K Advani has claimed that the Ramjanmabhoomi movement was the second biggest mass mobilisation after India's freedom struggle. He's seemingly not far from the truth, though JP (Jaiprakash Narayan) may disagree for having given India the third generation of leaders with his clarion call for 'Sampoorna Kranti'.             

Yet, the spate of communal riots across the length and breadth of the country for one and a half decades since 1989, with a few sporadic reported from the western Uttar Pradesh very recently, was by all accounts due to the virulent explosion of  the politics of exclusion. Both the secularists and the BJP practised the politics of exclusion to perfection. The idea of India conceived by Mahatma Gandhi was unmistakably dead.

LORD Ram is India's foremost cultural icon. He transcended religion. His celebrations in the East Asian culture despite majority Muslim population are loud testimonies to Ram's transcendental appeal. Ram breaths in lives of the people who were shipped to scores of islands by the British for sugarcane cultivation in faraway lands. Thousands of such people clung on to the copy of Ramayana. Indian life is incomplete without Ram.    

Ram is an embodiment of supreme sacrifice. He weaves magical spell with His unconditional acceptance of all on the path of Dharma. That man has to coexist in harmony with animal, plants and all is an overwhelming lesson of Ramayana. There's no other cultural icon in India who comes closer to Him in transcending scores of India identities, including caste and creed. Mahatma Gandhi swore by Ram.

If Ram can't have a temple at His birthplace in Ayodhya, then where else was the question which electrified millions of youth across the country in the early 1990s. The Muslims already co-opted by the identity politicians proved myopic. They threw their weight behind Babur, who despite the best efforts of the NCERT book was seen by the majority of the population as an aggressor whose successors unleashed religious persecution of not fully documented proportions. That there stood a mosque in the name of Babur at the birthplace of Ram was seen as an affront to the collective cultural conscience of the Hindu population.

The Muslims in the early 1990s could have owned up India's greatest cultural icon and handed over the land to the Hindus. That would have shut the political shops of many. India wouldn't have missed two decades to the communal embers. They missed the bus in 1990s. Second chance rarely comes in lives of the mortals. The Supreme Court verdict has imposed a choice on the Muslims, which by and large has been accepted by the community. But they can't by a bystander. They must board the bus.

PEOPLE in secular countries don't live in ghettos. Indian interests are harmed by communities embracing exclusion. The Supreme Court has only opened the doors. Hindus and Muslims now must walk in together.

Bravo Kejriwal, but buck stops with you

DELHI chief minister Arvind Kejriwal deserves all the plaudits, for he's making the right noise against pollution. Union Minister for Environment and Forest Prakash Javdekar is worth yawn, if not derision, for ticking off Kejriwal for doing politics over pollution. Tight lid over Delhi's gas chamber has now firmly been clasped. National Capital Region (NCR) is gasping for breath. Executives have shown thumbs to Supreme Court and Rule of Law. Turning deaf ears to orders of the apex court against instruments of pollution is now a policy and administrative habit. Could the Right to clean air become a clarion call in the mainstream political discourse?

An Una-Delhi journey lasts not more than four hours. Foothills of the mighty Himalaya astonishingly have the worst air. The city spaces soak in fumes and thick dust whipped up by vehicles. Only a few kilometers earlier in the descent, Himachal Pradesh stays in the lap of pristine nature. Slipping into the vast expanse of Punjab and Haryana in the Winter months, farm fields on fire and smouldering embers give a stunning sight shock. A few minutes in the open turn eyes irritable and throat soar even while locals continue their chores nonchalantly. Closer to Delhi border, thick blanket of smog take the horizon with frightening proportions. Possibly, journey from heaven to hell lasts only a few hours.  

People in northern parts of India have seemingly made peace with their fate to co-exist in the blanket of dust and fumes. That remains a constant in life notwithstanding change of seasons. Slowing of wind speed and dip in temperature only worsen the prevailing battered air. Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana coupled with mass hysteria to burn firecrackers sent the air in the NCR to the abyss. Law of hypocrisy shifts focus on others, while dimming own complicity. Farmers, thus, in Haryana and Punjab are currently the whipping boys in the popular narrative of the national capital region.   

Stubble burning before the Rabi crop season has defied all measures of the government. Doles of incentives and sticks with police actions have yielded no results. Farmers in Punjab and Haryana have, incidentally, lit more this year than previously. From harvesting of Kharif crops to the onset of Rabi season, farmers have a small window to clear their agricultural land. Mechanised farming isn't yet the hallmark of Indian farmers, with hands in plenty to do the jobs, which could, otherwise, have been done by machines. Subsidies to farmers to buy machines to harvest their crops have found least takers. Farmers feel least enthused with prospects of machines lying unused for most of the year. With 80 per cent of the farm land holding less than four acres, the policy thrust to extend subsidies to individual farmers could only have been worked by the babus in the country.     

NITI Aayog had commissioned a study on stubble burning, which three years ago submitted the papers, with recommendations that the farmers be incentivised for not burning crop residues along with long term roadmap for setting up infrastructure to process the biomass with the involvement of the private players. The studied solution roadmap, sadly, remains tucked away from cognitive attention of the policy makers. 

The Narendra Modi government only a few weeks ago unveiled enhanced Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for Rabi crops. The government with MSP increase wants farmers to grow more foodgrains. Ironically, India is a foodgrain surplus country, while there are few takers for the export. A huge pile rots, while rodents feast on them. Intermediaries make fortune out of the MSP driven grain production and its further pushing into the monstrous public food distribution system, accounting one-twentieth of the Budget of the country. Farmers survive for another year, slipping into firm grip of village money-lenders, while intermediaries fatten. If financial strain wasn't enough to break their bones, they also face with the prospects of Haryana and Punjab becoming the cancer bowls of the country. 

India Gate lost to smog.

DELHI by all accounts is a policy sterile city. It has exploded with population after India's partition in 1947. First, the city hosted the migrants from eastern and western Pakistan. Later, the Kashmiris descended. Afterwards, the pulls of economy drove millions of people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and hilly states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh to the national capital. Many came for government and public sector jobs, with Centre anchoring headquarters of almost all the PSUs in the small confines of the city space. Delhi alone, unofficially, is now staring at a population close to 30 million. Rising wave of population drove enterprising builder-politician-bureaucrats nexus to squat on public lands to carve out colonies, which from beginning boasted of sub-human conditions.

Delhi is a city of construction. Buildings get demolished to pave way for fresh constructions. Mass of dusts swirls in the air for want of enforcement of building construction norms. World's most dense city generates more than 10,000 metric tonnes of solid waste daily, half being the organic waste. Only 10 per cent of the waste is processed. Rest is dumped at landfill sites or burnt. Burning of leaves and garbage in Delhi was banned many years ago. But people in Delhi know well that laws are made to be read only in papers.

Vehicular population may, arguably, leave behind its human counterpart. That's incumbent for a city of livelihoods. Yet, Delhi has added least infrastructure after the 2010 Commonwealth games to speed up traffic. The mass transport system, first growing leaps and bounds with whole-hearted support to Delhi Metro by the Sheila Dikshit dispensations till 2013, slowed afterward, with buck largely stopping with the Kejriwal government in the city. Ring Rail in Delhi has now gone idle, with the city government paying no attention to repeated pleas of the Ministry of Railways to provide linkages with Metro stations and Bus stops.              

CHILDREN in Delhi schools must write letters to "Captain uncle" and "Khattar Uncle". They should also write letters to Kejriwal uncle, for Delhi government has only taken cosmetic steps to curb causes of pollution in the past few years. Yet, Kejriwal must be lauded for politics over pollution. That helps bring the discourse to the center-stage of popular consciousness.

Assembly elections: Identity slingshot

Democracy by all accounts is India's greatest sociopolitical leveler. Electorate in Maharashtra and Haryana reassured all that India isn't on a course to turn into a ruthless one party politico-administrative Chinese system. That people have least appetite for vindictive politics has also been loudly told. Drum beating and cult worship aren't essentially preferences of the Indian electorate. The popular verdict in Maharashtra and Haryana is laced with clear message for the Opposition -- Believe in your strengths.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would stay in power in Maharashtra and Haryana. Yet, the outfit isn't exultant. Faces of party leaders turned long, after the full import of the verdict in the two states became clear. It evidently dawned upon BJP leaders that the party cannot dictate the agenda to the people. Democracy is all about the vice versa -- people dictating agenda to parties. 

The BJP essentially drummed being the sole custodian of the spirit of nationalism. Dissenting voices on even procedural matters were hurriedly branded anti-national. Leading voices of the BJP displayed penchant to ask for certificate of nationalism from Opposition leaders. The BJP campaign was all about commanding electorate to cast their votes to party's nominees since rivals had suspect nationalistic credentials. 

The electorate had grown bored of nationalism shrill. The neighbourhood shops weren't selling enough goods. Youth came home after losing contractual jobs. Farmers still sold produces at one tenths of the market prices. Elders watched over the idling youth spend days and nights staring at mobile phone screens with earplugs stuck in perennial entertainment trance. 

Economy has fallen flat. Spin doctors seek succor in food delivery boys running around. A few start ups create "Wows". Policy mandarins in Narendra Modi dispensation talk like business honchos. For them, India is all about a few metropolitan cities. The BJP has to bear the slingshot pain.

Victories mostly sober politicians. V P Singh hadn't sent Rajiv Gandhi to Tihar jail after the 1989 win. Atal Bihari Vajpayee also hadn't shown cells of Tihar jail to the Opposition leaders. But the 2019 Lok Sabha verdict opened the floodgate of vindictive politics. The pack of enforcement directorate (ED), CBI and others were sent on hunting grounds against Opposition leaders. Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar talked ED in his whirlwind rallies, and people said enough is enough. Same goes for Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Dushyant Choutala in Haryana. 

Identity politics has demonstratively made a strong comeback in Indian politics. The Lok Sabha verdict had spurred obituaries for identity politics. Politics in regions identified with dominant castes. Smaller castes rode piggyback to partake in the game of power. The BJP's poll mascot Narendra Modi sought to challenge this set political template. The party worked for consolidation of other castes. The ploy paid rich electoral dividends. It turned the political social engineering of a number of regional outfits on its head. But that worked when national narrative found resonance with the electorate. 

Tangible gains with welfarism push had cheered the vulnerable. Dominant castes, though, had nothing to gain from Modinomics, which is nothing but targetted delivery of subsidies. They became aware that they are staring at the prospects of a lost decade, with wealth being knocked away and income drying. Dominant castes sought to regain the lost political space. The BJP, indeed, co-opted them. But they were slotted to supporting roles. They, however, sought centrestage.  

The Congress stays in defeatist mode. The grand old party of India is yet to come to terms with the political erosion of the clout of the Gandhi family. With Sonia Gandhi back in the saddle, the reigns in regions are slowly being restored to old warhorses. That has been the Congress' political character. But that was also sought to be undone by the Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi. The Maharashtra and Haryana poll verdict makes it evident that the electorate want the Opposition to believe in their strengths and shun their doubting Thomases.

Jats in Haryana and Maratha in Maharashtra backed their trusted parties to the hilt. They have sent signals to Yadavs in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to flock to caste outfits in the two states. The economic slide may loosen smaller castes from the BJP glue. And that could open up the prospects for revival of regional outfits.