Why there should be a fuss about CAA

With the President’s assent, the Citizenship Amendment Bill (2019) is now a law. BJP might project it as a major victory but the problematic nature of this bill goes beyond the aspect of religion and includes culture as well.

The Modi-Shah duumivate tried to defend this bill on the grounds of helping those who have faced religious persecution in three neighbouring countries, but “religious persecution” is not present in the text of the bill. Yes, it is important for the government to look after those who had to leave their homeland to seek shelter and this bill will open a new chapter in many lives. But limiting it to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh and not including Muslims and Athiests makes this bill very problematic. Pakistan does not identify Ahmadiyya muslims as a community, anti Ahmadiyya violence, anti Shia violence in Pakistan or the persecution of Atheists in Bangladesh present a different picture, In January 2013, Asif Mohiuddin, a self-styled atheist blogger (rational, gentle and Anti-Islamist), was stabbed near his office in Dhaka. In a similar incident in 2015, another blogger Ananta Bijoy Das was attacked and murdered by masked men wielding machetes. She was the editor of the science magazine Jukti.

 If CAB is portrayed as a bill that promotes brotherhood and humanity and if religious persecution is the ground then ‘their’ exclusion say a lot of things about it. Persecution of Tibetans in China or Rohingya’s in Myanmar or Tamilians in Sri Lanka are all sidelined and thus this bill will provide citizenship on segregatory grounds.

The agitation in the North East is not limited to the exclusion of Muslims and other communities in the bill, but on how this bill poses a threat to their culture and language. The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 was a major reform of the boundaries of India's states and territories, organising them along linguistic lines. Assam has seen a major influx of Bengali immigrants since 1971 due its volatile border with Bangladesh. 

Their dissent becomes valid when there is a threat to Assamese speaking population which might get into minority in future by the presence of other languages in the state. According to the 2011 census, percentage of Assamese Speakers in Assam further declined to 48.38 in 2011 from 48.80 in 2001. Percentage of Bengali Speakers increased to 28.91 in 2011 from 27.54 in 2001. Number of Bodo Speakers declined to 4.53 per cent of the total population in 2011 from 4.86 per cent in 2001. Number of Hindi speakers increased to 6.73 per cent in 2011 as compared to 5.89 In 2001. These aren’t just numbers but an indication that language and culture can get diminished if not preserved. 

If their protest is termed as Xenophobic and nationalist, then we need to realise that in a diverse country like India which is a holding together federation, language and culture is intrinsic to a citizen’s identity through which he can associate himself to a social system which forms this culture. Its preservation is important, but there is no space for violence in dissent, it is morally reprehensible.