HUE AND CRY AGAINST ALMOST NOTHING
The so-called concerted
agitation of the opposition parties in India against the recently passed/enacted
Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) cannot be characterized in any better terms
than as above. It is ridiculous that earlier at all crucial moments either
having colluded with or kept mum or gone easy on the egregious violations of
constitutional conventions and norms, ostensibly carried away by the so-called
‘public opinion’ and the need to appease their constituencies, they now focus
on this rather non-harmful salutary measure enabling the Hindu/Christian
migrants from the three neighboring countries to get some real relief and early
naturalization. That it has not included Muslim migrants in the process cannot
be totally faulted for many historical, political and security reasons even,
but yet this editor always felt and suggested that the government could have
included the phrase “such Muslims as are politically/culturally persecuted
therein” too in the Bill with more stringent conditions imposed on them in view
of the security aspects. Instead of trying in that direction and negotiating
for a more acceptable arrangement, the opposition parties and misguided
‘leftists’ have just gone wild. The Act only makes such enabling provisions as
consistent with the good old promises/contentions made by our leaders – Gandhi,
Nehru, Patel included and even by Dr. Manmohan Singh – to go to the rescue of
the minorities in those countries who are being continually discriminated
against/persecuted by the religious/fanatic states there and is in no wise
unconstitutional. Only the government should also take into consideration the
sensibilities/sentiments of endangered sub-nationalities like the Assamese, and
North East peoples, who can never agree to being swept away in the floods of
migrants and becoming minorities in their own lands and, as such, specific
safeguards be made that none of these Hindu or Muslim illegal migrants going to
be regularized and naturalized can settle in those regions but have to be
relocated in West Bengal or other regions only. This editor also feels that
whatever the figures revealed now of illegal migrants be, they are only a tip
of the iceberg and millions more have already contrived to infiltrate and settle
by many fraudulent means. No country can tolerate such illegal migrants; any
helpless persons coming for just shelter or livelihood should of course be aided,
but only on due recognition as refugees and through work visas, temporary
permits etc. but not be allowed to barge into and settle as they like. §§§
