CAA may lead to further persecution of minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh

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The CAA, they say, also opens up the possibility of further persecution of minorities by Islamic fundamentalists in these three countries.
CAA may lead to further persecution of minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh
3 min read . 22 Dec 2019Omkar Khandekar

• The CAA, they say, also opens up the possibility of further persecution of minorities by Islamic fundamentalists in these three countries
• Even in wholly Islamic countries, there isn’t any such law offering citizenship to only Muslims facing persecution

CAA

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) passed by Parliament two weeks ago proposes citizenship to only non-Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. There’s enough evidence of Muslims being persecuted in these countries, Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen being one of the prominent examples, but the Act excludes them from its purview.

(From left) Afghan filmmaker Pritpal Singh; advocate in Bangladesh’s Supreme Court Jyotirmoy Barua, and professor of Punjabi at the Government College University in Lahore Kalyan Singh.

Mint reached out to members of the minority communities—Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists—from the three countries the CAA refers to. Those interviewed expressed concern about the eroding fabric of secularism in India. The CAA, they say, also opens up the possibility of further persecution of minorities by Islamic fundamentalists in these three countries. A prominent human rights activist from the Hindu community in Karachi said: “In Pakistan, the era of the dictator Zia ul Haq in the 1970-80s was the time radical Islam spread in Pakistan. Today, we see India is being Modi-fied. We are worried to see them turning into the ’70s and ’80s of Pakistan."

Kalyan Singh, professor of Punjabi at Government College University, Lahore, said: “I don’t like the fact that India makes religion the basis to grant citizenship. We have a history of religious conflicts in India affecting us in Pakistan. When Hindu fundamentalists had destroyed Babri Masjid in 1992, there were riots here. Temples and gurdwaras were destroyed. There was a junoon (madness) in the air. It went out of control. We have experience of living in a religious state. We’re now trying to get rid of it. We opened the Kartarpur corridor even as the Indian Supreme Court gave the Babri Masjid verdict. Thankfully, there was no adverse reaction against us then. All these years, we’ve looked up to India as a secular nation, the world’s biggest democracy. Now that you’re trying to target on religious grounds, you’re losing the face of India. A lot of people have relatives across the border. What if the doors are shut on them?"

Pritpal Singh, an Afghan Sikh filmmaker who sought asylum in the Netherlands in the 1980s, said: “I got Dutch citizenship within a few years of moving to Europe. It allowed me to work and live across Europe. However, there was a sense of frustration among the Afghan Sikhs who had sought refuge in India. They had to pay bribes to start a business, buy a house. The Act comes as a relief to a lot of Afghan refugees in India. As a friend of India and an Afghan Sikh, I welcome India’s new citizenship move but I wish they could have extended this also to the Muslims fleeing the conflict in Afghanistan. When I went to the Netherlands, I wasn’t asked about my religion before being granted asylum and, subsequently, a citizenship. They looked at our asylum cases and allowed us to live on humanitarian grounds. India has a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-religious identity. I’d have expected them to show no discrimination. Someone from a war-torn country should be assessed on a case-by-case basis."

Jyotirmoy Barua, an advocate in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, said: “There is a long history of fundamentalists in Bangladesh saying the Hindus here don’t love our country. In my investigations, I’ve found that it is more about grabbing land than religious reasons. Whoever is in power use the religious and ethnic identity to grab lands. We’ve been facing that since 1971. This new nationality law in India makes the Hindu community in Bangladesh more vulnerable. Now people here can say, go to India. Even in wholly Islamic countries, there isn’t any such law offering citizenship to only Muslims facing persecution. In Bangladesh even those born as Muslims are facing persecution for many reasons."

www.livemint.com/v/s/www.livemint.com/news/india/caa-may-lead-to-further-persecution-of-minorities-in-pakistan-bangladesh/amp-11577036501203.html