The change to citizenship law would undermine the secular foundations of Indian democracy
THE IDEA seems anodyne, even laudable. India is amending its laws to make it easier for refugees from neighbouring countries to gain citizenship. The problem is in the fine print. Whereas Hindus, Parsis, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan will be put on a fast track to naturalisation, Muslims, Jews and atheists will receive no such benefit.
After all, Article 14 of the constitution reads: “The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.” To accept religion as a basis for speedier citizenship is to cock a snook at India’s own founding fathers, who proudly contrasted their vision of an open, pluralist society against the closed, Islamic purity of next-door Pakistan.
The only explanation for the bill is politics. The BJP is the offspring of a larger family of Hindu-nationalist groups, whose long-term objective is indeed to subvert India’s secular constitution by redefining the country as an explicitly Hindu state. Politically speaking, the BJP has long profited from driving a wedge between India’s sects, with the aim of consolidating the Hindu vote in its own camp.
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