The split wide open: India is at risk of alienating allies by going ahead with citizenship programme
Vappala Balachandran
Ex-special secretary, cabinet secretariat
Ex-special secretary, cabinet secretariat
The crescendo in
US-India relations which reached its zenith with the ‘Howdy, Modi!’ event in
Houston on September 22 has crashed into a diminuendo within three months after
the August 5 crackdown in Kashmir, passage of Citizenship (Amendment) Bill
(CAB) and the possibility of nationwide NRC. The reason is the growing
perception that India is a violator of human rights and religious freedom.
The US Congress, its
committees and commissions, whose members were paraded during the PM’s Madison
Avenue event, and at ‘Howdy, Modi!’, are now being accused of interfering in
our domestic affairs. US congressional circles have found it difficult to
accept our official spokesperson’s statement in response to the United States
Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) release on the CAB.
His defence that the Bill was meant to benefit ‘persecuted religious minorities
already in India’ was unacceptable as it excluded Muslim refugees in India from
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, Rohingya and Sri Lankan Tamils. The
USCIRF had complained that the CAB, which lays down a pathway to citizenship
that specifically excludes Muslims, was a dangerous turn and would ‘strip
citizenship from millions of Muslims’, together with the NRC process.
The passage of the CAB
was greeted by violent protests in the Northeast. Even BJP MPs from there
publicly admitted that there was a lot of misunderstanding about the Bill.
Mature voices had advised Home Minister Amit Shah not to hurry up with the Bill
unless the provisions were explained to the affected people. There was also a
request to refer it to a select committee. That the BJP, with its fabled
propaganda prowess, is not able to counter rumour-mongering is evident by the
statement of its MP from Tezpur that lakhs were pouring into Assam through the
broken Bangladesh border gates.
Meanwhile, our
continued crackdown in Kashmir would be discussed by the US House of
Representatives through a congressional resolution, urging India to ‘end
restrictions on communications in J&K as swiftly as possible and preserve
religious freedom for all residents’. The discussion is taking place at a time
when their sympathy with India for Pakistan-sponsored terrorism is being
replaced by deep anxiety over continued detention of even pro-Indian Kashmiri
politicians.
The continued lockdown
has almost killed Kashmir’s tourism. A report said domestic tourist arrivals
were only 32,000 between August and November, whereas it was 2.49 lakh during
the same period last year, a drop by 87%. Foreign tourist arrivals had dropped
by 82%. The approach to the revered Srinagar Jamia Masjid was opened only on
November 23 for the first time in 109 days, although the mosque was shut
because the Mirwaiz was under house arrest... read more:
see also
Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Discrimination, not justice: Hope this generation does a better job of navigating the struggle than the one that came before
