New Delhi: In a strongly worded disapproval to the Centre’s recent move to bring the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the National Population Register (NPR) and possibly a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC), former National Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon on Friday said that through such moves India has only achieved “a hyphenated relation with Pakistan as a religiously driven and intolerant state”.

The former diplomat stated that by deciding to proceed with these exclusionary processes, “We have gifted our adversaries platforms to attack us”.

“When we assisted the formation of Bangladesh, the global opinion was on our side. What is happening now is quite another scenario. We are increasingly being isolated, we have no international support apart from a section of Indian diaspora and some extreme right MEPs [Members of the European Parliament].”

Menon also criticised the Narendra Modi government’s decision to cancel a meeting with a US Congressional delegation because it included the Indian-origin member Pramila Jayapal, who is opposed to India’s clampdown on Kashmir after Article 370 was diluted. “We had a chance to rebutting (her charges) but we chose to duck it.”

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“Now what we see is Jayapal is getting 29 co-sponsors (to her resolution in the House seeking easing of restrictions on Kashmir). A Democrat, she is getting support even from the Republicans.”

Menon was among several prominent members of civil society who assembled at New Delhi’s Press Club of India on January 3 at the call of Karwan-e-Mohabbat and the Constituional Conduct Group to conduct a public briefing on how “unconstitutional, nationally divisive and an international disgrace” the CAA-NRC-NPR are.

To a pointed question from the media as to whether these moves would affect India’s foreign policy, Menon replied, “In diplomacy, you don’t have to tell the truth. So the calculation of the countries would be, how they can promote their interests (through it). They will not fight for your human rights. So, we have given them a platform to use, a lever, to pressurise us to get what they want. This, I think, was unnecessary and a self-inflicted goal.”

He said such a stand of the international community would, in turn, be presented within India to claim that “nobody is saying anything”.

'No security concerns'

Joining him at the event to look at the possible international implications of these moves was another retired diplomat, Dev Mukarji.

Mukarji, who served as India’s ambassador to Bangladesh, said it would be wrong to say that Hindus in that country have never been persecuted but added that it was not to the extent that has been presented by the government. He pointed out that certain prominent persons have also been suitably punished in that country for committing crimes against Hindus.

“In 2015, a politically powerful man, an advisor to a former prime minister [Khaleda Zia], Sallahuddin Quader Chowdhury, was hanged for committing war crimes against the Hindus in 1971.”

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“And what can I say, when in India we look at our record for crimes committed in 1984, 2002,” he added.

Mukarji, though, discounted any security concerns springing out of the CAA-NRC-NPR. “As long as this government (Awami League) is in Bangladesh, I don’t see either our (Indian) security concerns compromised by (allowing) insurgents (from Northeast) to operate from there or allow the fundamentalist forces to have a free run within the country,” he stated in response to a query from the media.

Among others who held up for the assembled audience various nuances of the CAA-NRC-NPR, were academics Zoya Hasan, Mohsin Alam Bhat, Navsharan Singh, Niraja Jayal, and former United Nations undersecretary for economic and social affairs Nitin Desai, constitutional expert Faizan Mustafa, lawyer Gautam Bhatia and civil rights activist Harsh Mander.

Stating that the “NPR and NRC are closely connected”, NALSAR vice chancellor Faizan Mustafa said the NPR itself would give the government digitised data on citizens and non-citizens, even before embarking on a nationwide NRC. “So it is basically getting a count of oranges and apples. Getting the count of oranges would just be a click away,” he added. He urged the government to drop “those eight questions” as reportedly being part of the NPR questionnaire to be filled by the public, which also includes a question on the birthplace of his/her parents.

While the government has been saying that the NPR would be an extension of the decadal Census data, Mustafa countered, “They are two different processes and therefore the funds allocated for each is different. The NPR is not conducted under the Census Act.”

Academic Mohsin Alam Bhat pointed out, “While in Assam, there was a single set of rules (documents) for everyone and a court-appointed NRC coordinator to oversee them, it was a transparent process. But in the case of NPR, a local government official would be empowered to decide who is a doubtful citizen. In NPR, deciding one’s citizenship would be a completely executive discretion, left to the government, not a judicial process.”

While Niraja Jayal said Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan found mention in various previous orders of the government such as amendments to the Passport Act and the Foreigners Act, before it went for the CAA, Navsharan Singh called for India to adopt a refugee policy “as a civilised member of the global community”.

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Zoya Hasan termed the ongoing protests against the CAA as “the biggest civil disobedience” in recent history. “It is not a fight for Muslim rights, but for democracy.”

Lawyer Gautam Bhatia said the CAA is not inclusive and pointed out, “Nowhere in the world have I seen religion as a basis for granting citizenship.”

Nitin Desai elaborated the inclusive nature of India’s universal adult suffrage. “The question then (in 1950) in front of the bureaucrats was, how do we include those sleeping on the streets. It was then decided that their address would be attributed to the nearest building. So inclusiveness is the foundational principle of our citizenship. It gives a sense of equality to our citizens at least once in five years. But what we are seeing now is a departure from where we started.”

Former IPS officer K.S. Subramanian, who served in the Northeast, and present among the audience, though pointed out that the public briefing didn’t include the concerns of Assam and the Northeast, even though the civil disobedience movement against the Act began in the region, before spilling over into other parts of India.

Mander wrapped up the public briefing by adding, “Assam’s was not a communal project, but the NPR-CAA and a nationwide NRC are. The immediate challenge is, from January 1, the NPR process was rolled out in Karnataka. From April 1, it would be nationwide."

He added, "We have to remind ourselves what Gandhi said when a government makes a law that we won't accept. He said disobey it publicly and performatively. That was the reason he made a fistful of salt in Dandi; it became a powerful image of civil disobedience, for which he was arrested and so were 60,000 other Indians.”

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