Central Hall – Blissful Ignorance

Central Hall – Blissful Ignorance

Mumbai:

Although the framers of our Constitution gave it upon us the right to universal adult franchise right at the start without the people fighting for it, going by the way we as adults react to politically sensitive issues, only underscores the point that we still lack in political and electoral maturity. That is why we tend to hyper-ventilate on issues like Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Farm loan waivers, infrastructure development and on social security issues without fully understanding both the sides. The political masters and the powers that be are well versed in the art of keeping the public engaged in a head-banging exercise with little collateral damage to them.

Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), 2019 in the Rajya Sabha on December 11, 2019, which later after the Presidential approval became the CAA. Since then the whole of India has been dealing in acronyms of CAB, CAA and NRC or the National Register of Citizens, with anybody knowing little about the law and its differentiations. It is the ignorance, half-baked knowledge and misinformation that are the root cause of the current unrest over the issue.

The Constitution is very clear as far as the laws enacted by the Center for subjects under the Union List in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution the state governments cannot refuse to implement it. Ignorance of the law and constitution is not only a crime; it is all the more dangerous in the larger national interest, as vested foreign powers inimical to India.

The simple example of it is the recent cancellation of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Assam to launch an infrastructure project due to the recent unrest there. It has been embarrassing for the BJP government, on the other hand the Chinese must have been over-joyed as it suits its designs of blocking any development in the North-Eastern state’s of India where it is making illegitimate claims on Indian territory. The lack of development has also been used the other way to fuel unrest.

The tragedy is that the government has been unable, hesitant and reluctant to counter what it feels is a negative and misleading propaganda unleashed by its opponents. Neither are the protestors in most cases unaware of the fine print of the law. Because, the social media is one such headless chicken that is leading its faithful dangerously on an collision course. Most of the protestors are not aware of the provisions of the law, which the forces are out to exploit it to their advantage.

The government and the BJP as a party has been unable to communicate with the masses that the CAA relates to providing citizenship to illegal persecuted minority immigrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists and Christians who have fled persecution in neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The law has limited scope of granting citizenship rights to these persecuted minorities who have fled from these three countries. The law nowhere state’s that it is going to take away the citizenship rights of minorities in India.

Now, as far as the NRC is concerned it is the by-product of the Assam Accord signed between then Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi and P K Mahanta of All Assam Students Union (AASU) on August 15, 1985. It is enshrined in the Clause 6 of the Accord, which is now again known by another acronym “Clause 6”.  It was meant to detect illegal immigrants and deport them back to the countries from where they had come. For the next 28 years till 2013, when the Supreme Court of India under then justice Ranjan Gogoi mandated the Center and the Assam government for updation of the NRC for Assam and began monitoring its progress.

The final updated NRC for Assam was published on August 31, 2019 in which out of the 33 million people, names of 31 million people figured in the list, leaving out the names of 2 million people. Here again the government failed to do any damage control and is now left grappling with a problem. It has not been able to counter the narrative that has created fear psychosis in the minds of the minorities that there rights are being trampled upon. It is an ideal situation for hostile countries like Pakistan and China to exploit.

Even though the Supreme Court of India (SC) has refused to stay the implementation of the law, nobody is in the mood to listen to the apex courts observations that violence needs to stop, students need to go back to their studies and normalcy returns. The SC is yet to give its final verdict on the CAA next month, in the new year.

Problems have only been escalated further when Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the debate on the CAB in the Parliament expressed the government’s resolve to implement NRC all over the country. Those who wanted to milk the situation and derive political mileage out of it have mixed the two issues creating a deadly divisive concoction.

Since then the government has been unable to convince the people, clear their doubts, misconceptions and misinformation about the CAA and the difference with NRC. The misinformation on the Social Media has only inflamed public passions leading to arson, mayhem and agitation. So far the government has made no efforts to clear the doubts and counter the misinformation being spread around.

What the government or the BJP has not been able to tell the people, that the NRC is needed for the government to have the exact number of registered citizens, a proper Census to get a complete demographic picture of the population. Without an accurate NRC or the Census, no government can formulate public welfare schemes for the weaker sections or intended sections of the society, design infrastructure projects, implement social security and other measures aimed at the larger public good,

Mere allying apprehensions that the CAA and NRC are not going to take away the citizenship rights any born and brought up citizen of India, is not going to help. Add to that the assembly elections in Jharkhand and February 2020 assembly elections in New Delhi have only heightened the atmosphere. Unfortunately like a hysterical mob has no head or toe, the Social Media too is behaving like a head-less chicken. The need of the hour is to clear the misconceptions and rebut the misinformation and reassure the people that their rights are adequately safeguarded.