Prime Minister Narendra Modi did well to allay the widespread apprehensions, expressed particularly by the minority Muslims, about the National Register of Citizens (NRC), during a lengthy rally in Delhi on Sunday. His two main points were that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) would not adversely affect any genuine Indian citizen, whether Hindu or Muslim, and that a nationwide NRC had not even been discussed by the government, implying that the contentious citizenship count was not on the agenda, at least for the time being. This was followed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s assertion after the Union Cabinet cleared the proposal for updation of the National Population Register (NPR) that there is no link between the NPR and the NRC. Irrespective of how the Opposition views the clarifications given by the PM and the HM, in the larger context and in the interests of the country and its plurality, they need to be welcomed.
To recall the sequence of events, the Home Minister did say on the floor of the House that an NRC exercise similar to the one in Assam will be taken up across the country. Opposition parties then linked the CAA with the contentious NRC and injected fear in the minds of the Muslims, resulting in protests, till then confined to Assam and parts of Bengal, spreading to the rest of the country. The CAA is controversial in Assam and West Bengal as it clearly distinguishes between refugee Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and others who are minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh besides Afghanistan and Muslims who constitute the majority in those countries.
A peek into history is required in the overall context. Congress stalwarts in the past, beginning from the 1950s, have had on multiple occasions emphasised on the need to protect and offer citizenship to persecuted minorities in other countries. Former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru told Parliament on 5 November 1950 that there should be no doubt that all those displaced persons who have come to settle in India are bound to have citizenship and if the law is inadequate in this respect, it should be changed. Former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi went to the extent of naming them as well—Hindus, Christians and Buddhists. So it was clear that the Congress was not against protecting the interests of the minorities elsewhere who have migrated to this country following persecution. The communists too stated their position: the CPM raised the issue in Parliament on 25 April 2012, and followed it up by passing a resolution in its Calicut Congress (4-9 April 2012), in which it urged the prime minister to honour the assurance given by him to consider the legitimate demand of a large number of Bengali refugees belonging to SC communities, who fled from the erstwhile East Pakistan now known as Bangladesh.
Whether the exclusion of the non-minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan from the CAA is unjustified as claimed by the Opposition (particularly the Congress and the Left, which in the past never took such a position) and violates the spirit of the Indian Constitution is better left to the highest court of this country to deal with. As for the NPR, the country needs to be reminded that it was during the first term of the UPA in 2004 that the Citizenship Act was amended by inserting Section 14A providing for compulsory registration of Indian citizens and issuing of national identity cards to them. The exercise was conducted in 2010 along with the house-listing phase of the Census when P Chidambaram was the Union home minister. While the Centre has now clarified that the NPR data shall not be used for the purpose of citizenship, the fact remains that the 2003 rules of the Act, not changed by the UPA, too, provide for the preparation of a list of persons with doubtful citizenship. No doubts were raised then! Either to assuage the ruffled feelings or for other reasons, the government has now said that no such list shall be prepared, which means that the rules need to be changed when they are framed afresh as per the amendments passed in the recent session of Parliament.
Though the stated position is that the NRC has not been discussed either in the Cabinet or in any other official forum, whether it is needed at all for the rest of the country (other than Assam where it has already been done and needs correction) should be debated and a consensus reached. Consultations are a hallmark of democratic functioning and the government of the day will only do itself a lot of good if it embarks on such an exercise. Till then, we will trust that the government would not unilaterally move, as in the present situation that can lead to greater misunderstanding about the intentions.
