There has been widespread protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (hereafter CAA), which seeks to provide Indian citizenship to members of minority communities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh that have fled religious persecution. These communities include Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis, all of whom are in minority, and whose numbers have fallen drastically in each of the three countries.
The protestors, mostly belonging to minority community and the liberal-secular cabal of the country, have argued that this is an attack on the “secular” character of India. As far as one’s imagination can run, the CAA is an act which will correct historical injustice to the people ‘born on the wrong side of history’.
The minorities born in the areas what later became West Pakistan and East Pakistan (which later became Bangladesh), had not voted for an Islamic nation. Historical research by Partha Chaterjee has unearthed the fact that majority of the people living in these areas were not even aware at the time of partition that they would be living in an Islamic nation in next few days.
The minority communities belonging to upper caste and class moved to India but, the poor and lower-class people- without financial resource or sociopolitical connection-were forced to live in an Islamic country.
These people had not chosen their destiny, as those were times of limited franchise- only rich and educated Men (Women were not allowed to vote in British India), constituting less than 10 per cent of total population- and majority of the people left on the other side of the border had not voted in 1945 general election.
The idea of Pakistan- a fantasy of educated Muslims of Northern India- was forced on the minorities living on the people living in Bengal and Western provinces of British India.
After 10 years the constitution, in 1956, Pakistan declared itself an Islamic state, despite the fact the bill was opposed all legislators of minority community. Bangladesh, whose independence from Pakistan was based on secular ethnic principals, declared itself an Islamic state in the 2011 constitution.
The poor minorities, living in Pakistan and Bangladesh, became the victim of the brute Islamic majority.
More than 85 per cent of the Hindus living in Pakistan are reportedly Dalits, and they have also emerged as the biggest victims of the anti-minority Islamist polity in Pakistan. They are the worst victims of discrimination, kidnapping for ransom, rapes, false blasphemy cases and poverty. In fact, the two million-odd Hindu-Dalit population in Pakistan faces extreme deprivation.
A few years after the creation of Pakistan, Pakistan PM Liaqat Ali had told Indian High Commissioner “who would clean streets and latrines of Karachi if they are allowed to leave?” And now Pakistan is actually getting Dalits to carry out menial jobs in line with what Liaqat Ali had planned at that time.
The dignity of these poor lower caste people needs to be protected by India, which is only Hindu country capable of giving refuge to these oppressed people, who are suffering just because they were born on the other side of the border, and had no chance to migrate to India- their Natural home.
These people stayed back in Pakistan owing to their financial problems hindering their mobility and the myth of Dalit-Muslim unity, which was demolished as early as 1950 itself when Pakistan’s first Dalit minister and the face of Dalit-Muslim unity, Jogendra Nath Mandal not only had to resign but also had to leave Pakistan to live in India.
The myth of Dalit-Muslim unity had thus was obliterated and it had also become clear way back in 1950 itself that Pakistan was no country for Hindus, and was even more detrimental when it came to the oppressed classes within the Hindu community. While India went on to enact strong and successful measures for Dalit empowerment, Pakistan treats the Dalits as sub-humans. They face human rights violations of the worst kind and even face slavery at the hands of feudal landlords in the inner pockets of Pakistan.
Therefore, the opposition to Citizenship Amendment Act is anti-Dalit, anti-minority, anti-liberal, and moral bankruptcy. Every logical person-except the Islamist and morally bankrupt Indian ‘secular-liberal’ cabal- will support a law which seeks to provide a dignified life to oppressed people of neighbouring Islamic nations.
