What does the Parliamentary Standing Committee really say about giving citizenship to those persecuted in Bangladesh and Pakistan?
BJP has been citing a parliamentary standing committee on Citizenship Amendment Act 2003 to prove that the Congress and the left had concluded that religious minorities in Bangladesh and Pakistan should be given citizenship. And religious minority in these countries cannot be Muslim.
I would like to clear this narrative by citing statements directly from the report.
- Firstly, this committee although headed by a Congressman Pranab Mukherjee, had members of all parties including the BJP. From Assam, it had the BJP MP, Rajen Gohain. It had the very powerful BJP leader, Pramod Mahajan. So we cannot conclude that the remarks in the report were of Congress and the left. BJP spokespeople like Sambit Patra demeans a parliamentary committee by making it one party voice.
- Secondly, the very objectives of the report had these two exact statements - 1) making acquisition of Indian citizenship by registration and naturalisation more stringent and 2) preventing illegal migrants from becoming eligible for Indian citizenship. These two points very clearly make the report against giving citizenship frivolously without much thought on rules, processes and overall implementation strategy.
- The 107th report of course mentions large number of representations from different organisations expressing concerns that people being persecuted in Bangladesh and Pakistan and forced to leave their ancestral homes would now be detected & deported under CAA 2003. It was pleaded by the petitioners for grant of citizenship and other facilities to such migrants by the Government of India. To this concern, the report said this exact statement, “While expressing sympathies for such refugees, Members were of the view that instead of granting citizenship to these refugees, it would be better if this problem was tackled as per the international law and convention”. The report suggested a two pronged strategy which is in no way supports CAA 2019. It wrote exactly this. “Adoption of a two-pronged strategy to deal with the problem was favoured. On the one hand, Members were for extending all humanitarian assistance to such ‘REFUGEES’ (emphasis added by author) while on the other, they wanted the Government to put pressure through diplomatic channels on the governments of the countries from where these refugees were coming, either as a result of religious persecution or civil commotion, to create conducive atmosphere in their countries for early return of the refugees.
- Presently, many BJP members are also citing the commitment made by the national leaders at the time of partition to facilitate the entry of Hindus from Pakistan to India with a view to save them from religious persecution in Pakistan. Even this point was discussed in this parliamentary committee. The report wrote exactly this, “This commitment, they felt depended on circumstances but, was, however, not an unending or open-ended one. They believed that it would be extremely difficult for India to accommodate such refugees, as its own citizens were feeling the pinch of growing population, poverty and unemployment”.
- The exact statement that BJP cites is this line, “Citizenship should be granted only to Bangladeshi minority refugees and not to refugees belonging to majority community”. This is quite interesting because this line is from section 3.2 which deals in the major points received via memorandums from various organisations against a press ad asking for representations and memoranda. These are points from other organisations and not of the report!! We must see some of the other points received by the committee: 1) Indian citizenship should be granted to Bangladeshi and Pakistani minority refugees. 2) Refugees, who entered India after 25 March 1971, should be treated as legal migrants. (Author note: This point if agreed would cancel out Assam Accord) 3) Citizenship should not be available to Bangladeshi minorities.
See the contrasts in the points and it proves the plurality of representations.
So clearly, the Congress and the Left are not saying anything different today. The parliamentary committee is being cited wrongly by the BJP with malafide intentions of distracting the population.
