The passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in December 2019 by the Indian parliament has resulted in an influx of people-smuggling along the India-Bangladesh border.
The CAA grants Indian citizenship to minorities from three neighbouring Muslim-majority countries, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. As a result of the Act, 1.9 million migrants, half of whom were Muslims, were left off the National Register of Citizens list in Assam. With over two million Bangladeshis living in India, many flee the country fearing that they would otherwise be sent to detention camps. Smugglers describe how 40 to 60 people are moved across the 4,000-kilometre border each night.
Whilst members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (B.J.P) are in support of the CAA, with the B.J.P’s general secretary, Kailish Vijayvarjiya calling for the enactment of the policy to “prevent nefarious designs of illegal immigrants, who pose a threat to India’s internal security.” Bangladeshi Muslims, some who have lived in India for decades, complicate this image. Many Bangladeshis have grown up in India and carry viable work permits upon their parents’ migration into India in 1947 and 1971, during the independence of India and Bangladesh respectively. Yet, negative attitudes towards the Bangladeshis living in India persist. An Assamese minister, for instance, suggested sending “illegal Bangladeshis residing in Assam” back to Bangladesh, echoing the sentiments of those who claim that there are too many Bangladeshi immigrants with a round figure of 20 million being cited. In reality, the number of people born in Bangladesh and living in India reduced from 3.7 million in 2001 to 2.7 million in 2011 as found by the Hindu Business Line.
Even so, numerous studies have shown that mainly Hindus, not Muslims, have been moving into India from Bangladesh – the “kind of migration…Hindu nationalists usually welcome,” as suggested by the New York Times. Though officials may depict the issue as one of vast illegal migrations into India from Bangladesh via Assam, with nearly 1,000 Bangladesh nationals being detained for living in India “illegally” in 2019, it is the “convergence between Assamese nativism against Bengalis and the B.J.P.’s Hindu-nationalist agenda against Muslims” that is sparking widespread outcry. Despite Prime Minister Modi’s denial that a nationwide NRC (National Register of Citizens) had ever been considered, announcing that “since [his] government has come [in]to power…there has been no discussion on even the word NRC” at an election rally in New Delhi, the anti-Muslim rhetoric has become stronger than ever.
Prior to India’s general elections in 2019, the president of the B.J.P. had referred to immigrants as “infiltrators,” further threatening to “throw them into the Bay of Bengal.” He continued that the “first step in implementing that plan is to leave Muslim Bengalis off the register in Assam and try to strip them of their citizenship,” a move that has triggered protests particularly amongst Indian Muslims – protests that have already seen 15 Bangladeshis shot dead by Indian border forces in January 2020 despite India’s promise to stop using live ammunition.
Although the NRC predates the rise of the B.J.P, with the idea originating from 1951, a peace deal between the central government and anti-immigrant Assamese protesters in 1985 alongside further insistence by Assamese activists in 2013 secured a Supreme Court decision calling for the completion of this process. As the B.J.P. won the national general election in 2014, subsequently gaining control over the provincial government in Assam in 2016, $130 billion was allocated toward creating a NRC. The process of compiling the census, which took several years, was not without fault. In particular, officials faced the complex task of verifying documents from before 1971, where official records were incomplete or badly kept.
Aside from the threat it poses toward India and Bangladesh’s initially stable partnership, the CAA and NRC has ultimately created a hostile environment for Muslims by making religion a marker of citizenship in an officially secular country. Just last month, the Indian authorities demolished a slum in Bengaluru city inhabited by Indian citizens after it was believed to be resided by Bangladeshis, rendering hundreds homeless. In addition, there have been nearly 100 deaths in detention centres, of which there are six operational ones in Assam alone. Deaths have been primarily attributed to suicide, especially as a result of the isolated environment created by 20 feet walls surrounded by an outer six foot one.
Not only have international bodies such as the United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch condemned the CAA, but local officials including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have opposed the construction of detention camps particularly in West Bengal and Kerala. Though foreign countries such as the U.S.A. have taken action against the CAA, with two cities passing resolutions against the act, it is ultimately up to local officials to take a stand against the violence and racism incited by the CAA to prevent further violations against the human rights of migrants.
SOURCE: The Organization for World Peace
