CAA Given Teeth in India

It was on 9th December 2019 that Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) entered the legal framework of India. As it was on this day that the Lok Sabha passed the law and two days later it was passed by the Rajya Sabha as well. And the President of India gave assent on 12th December, 2019. But it was on Monday that is 11th March 2024 that it was given teeth when   the Union Home Ministry notified the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) rules. This Act has faced opposition from the day it was conceived to give refuge to the minorities from neighbouring countries stranded in India. These include Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The continued persecution of the minorities in these countries has led to political simmering in India. Human rights record of these countries is not satisfactory. The co-religionists of these minorities in India have always shown the concern for the genocide of these minorities who got trapped in these nations created on the basis of religious theo- fascism. It enabled the ruling dispensation of these nations to use minorities as political hostages to browbeat India and instigate the communal violence. When India was partitioned in 1947; it created more fault lines. Instead of solving the communal issue it sowed the seeds of balkanisation of India and enabled the hostage theory.  The community that was a majority in the undivided India ended as minority in Pakistan. And this logic then extended to Bangladesh as well. That was carved out of Pakistan due to the atrocities on the Bengalis of East Pakistan by its military junta. As it did not recognise the mandate given to the Sheikh Mujib –ur –Rehman, a Bengali. India facilitated the deliverance of the Bengalis in East Pakistan as it helped the Mukti Bahini to secede from Pakistan. But who would have imagined that Bangladesh that was carved with India’s help to safeguard the human rights of its people will end up as the state enabling the genocide its minorities leaving them hapless. It behaves akin to Pakistan and is torturing the minorities. As is being done by Pakistan to weed out the minorities with radical society ruling the roost. On the contrary India emerged as the democratic and inclusive nation not distinguishing on the basis of religion but giving equal opportunities to people of all hues to live their life with dignity and honour having the religious freedom. As such the implementation of the CAA must be seen as the balancing act. It is meant to uphold the human rights of the people who are held as hostages of the communal politics and used as sand bags and guinea pigs in these nations to strangulate India. India is the natural homeland for these persecuted people as they have the civilizational moorings rooted in undivided India. They were unfortunate people of undivided India. As these people were denied to make the tryst with destiny at the stroke of the midnight on 14-15th August 1947.They had no say. No rights. CAA and its implementation is the realisation of the desire of the founding fathers of the constitution to develop modern India as a progressive nation that works on the principle of justice for all. Time has come to rectify the Himalayan blunders that were done in 1947 leading to the religious cleansing of the people. This law will pave the way for course correction. Much needs to be done to deliver justice to the people who were caught on the wrong side of the fence due to no fault. The next step that will ensure the complete justice to the people who later got affected by the extension of gruesome strategy of balkanisation of India   due to Pakistan patronised terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir to further partition has to be the adoption of the Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Bill as the law to reverse genocide and penalise the genocide enablers. Let us hope that the Indian parliament introduces this bill and then takes it to the logical conclusion as the enactment of the law and sends a strong message to genocide enablers.