Divide to thrive

After the Supreme Court of India on March 11, dismissed a plea by the State Bank of India (SBI) to extend the deadline for providing details of electoral bonds purchased anonymously and their encashment by political parties to June 30, 2024; the next day, on March 12, whether coincidentally or not, the Union Home Ministry notified rules for the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), introduced by the Narendra Modi government and passed by Parliament in 2019. In the dynamic landscape of Indian politics, the timing of policy implementation often carries as much significance as the policy itself. This is particularly true in the case of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a contentious piece of legislation that has been at the centre of national discourse since its enactment in December 2019.The CAA aims to provide Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014. The applications for citizenship will be submitted entirely online through a designated web portal. The Modi government’s decision to notify the rules for the CAA just before the 2024 general elections has reignited the debate and protests across India over the Act and its implication. The CAA, apart from granting citizenship to the biggest block, Bangladeshi immigrants in West Bengal and Assam, including Hindu and Sikh migrants settled in Delhi, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir after partition. As it appears to be, the CAA does not suggest it would effectively take away the Indian citizenship of Muslims in the country. By rejecting citizenship to any Muslim from the above countries who have come to India on or before December 31,2014 , the CAA has only one objective- to accord immediate citizenship to Hindus who have infiltrated to India from Bangladesh. The CAA is particularly very crucial in West Bengal where the Matua community identified as Hindus, is spread over the border areas of West Bengal with Bangladesh. They are said to have migrated after the partition of the country because of persecution. Estimates of the population of the Matua community vary from one crore to three crores. They have significant influence in about 10-12 Lok Sabha seats. On the other hand, the new citizenship rules also pose a dilemma for the lakhs of Hindus in Assam who didn’t make it to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which was updated in 2019. After the CAA rules notification, while communities in West Bengal are rejoicing and celebrating, Assam is not. Assam has a long, violent history of agitations against Bengali-speaking immigrants. On March 12, 30 non-political organisations and the powerful All Assam Students Union (AASU) called for peaceful mass protests. In Assam, for NRC, people asserted being bona fide Indian citizens, while CAA require applicants to declare themselves to be either refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan or Afghanistan. A section in Assam, a state unique in having conducted the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercises, views the CAA as a direct threat to its demographic and cultural identity. In Assam, illegal immigrants are both Hindus and Muslims. There have been demands in the state since the 1960s to identify and deport illegal immigrants, who are mostly Bengali-speaking people. The BJP believes its political fortunes are wedded to communalism but the consequences are a serious threat on the nation’s interests.