Now Modi govt has proved that it not only talks like Pakistan, it thinks and acts like it – ThePrint

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In a flourish of the brute majority the Bharatiya Janata Party enjoys in the Lok Sabha, after a marathon seven-hour debate that went past midnight, the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill or CAB waspassedin Lok SabhaMonday with 311 voting in favour,and theopposition, despite a spirited and reasoned critique, putting together just 80 noes. The Rajya Sabha followed suitWednesday, with a tighterscoreline125 to 105. In passing this communally tinged legislation,the Narendra Modigovernment has successfully managed to setIndiaon a dark path from which we may struggle to return.

The Bill that was debated, considered and passed, is by design, fundamentally antithetical to everything our country has historically stood for. By essentially declaring that one community is valued less in the eyes of their government, theamendmentis not just an affront to the basic tenets of equality and religious non-discrimination that have been enshrined in our Constitution, but an all-out assault on the very idea of India that ourancestorsgave their lives for during the nationalist struggle. We have now, in the words ofPratap Bhanu Mehta, taken a giant step to officially convert a constitutional democracy into an unconstitutional ethnocracy.

Also read: Why CAB-plus-NRC fantasy is BJPs next Ram Mandir-plus-Article 370 gambit

In parts ofIndia, particularly in thenortheaststates, therepercussionsof this conversion are already being felt, with mass protests, state-wide bandhs declared and internet and telephone services suspended in certain areas. JustTuesdayevening I received an email from a worried Bengali Hindu third-generation student in Assam who pointed out that they are living in fear of reprisals against them by the local Assamese people who are worried that thisbillwill create an additional burden on them.

The fact is that the implications are not limited to the clauses of the bill in itself, for in introducing such a piece of legislation, especiallyinconjunction with a new national NRC, the BJP will unleash an atmosphere of fear and a climate of bigotry that will sweep across the country, claiming Indian citizens as victims, generating chaos in the name of nationalism.

Also read: CAB protests a battle for India either we are a secular state or we arent India at all

Through this exercise,the BJPhasallowed two individuals to have the last laugh. The first of course is their own ideological forefather, V.D. Savarkar who first spoke of dividing our country into a Muslim India and anon-Muslim India. In 1940, this idea was reflected in the Pakistan Resolution adopted at the Lahore session of the Muslim League. At the twilight of our nationalist struggle, our own freedom movement split on the issue of whether religion should be the determinant of nationhood. Those who believed in that principle were those who advocated the idea of Pakistan.However,Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad,B.R.Ambedkar believed the oppositethat religion had nothing to do with nationhood.Their idea of India wasa free country for all people of all religions, regions, castes and languages, in utter repudiation of the two-nation theory. Our Constitution reflects this basic idea of IndiathattheModigovernment now seeks to betray.

As I said in my parliamentary debate, the passage ofCABwill mark the definitive victory of Jinnahs thinking over Mahatma Gandhis. The BJP cannot both reject Pakistan and advocate the same logic as Pakistan. How ironic that it should bethat Hindutva BJPnow seeks to ensure the final vindication of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. And how ironic that Prime Minister Modi shouldaccusehis Congress critics of talking Pakistansinlanguage, when it is hisgovernment that not just talks like Pakistan, but acts like Pakistan and worst of all, thinks like Pakistan.

How ironic, too, that theHindutvaparty hasaggressivelypushedfor alegislation that betrays millennia of Hindu civilisational practice and abandons a historic legacy that Hindus were proud to lay claim to. Swami Vivekananda had famouslysaidin his 1893 Chicago speechthat he was proud to speak for a land that had always offered refuge to the persecutedfromall nations and faiths.We lived up to that legacy when we gave shelterto Tibetan refugees, the Bahai community, Sri Lankan Tamils, and Bangladeshis without ever asking about their religion. Now, thisgovernment wants to single out one community andrefuse themasylum from oppression on the same conditions as other communities. And they are also ensuring that members of the same community within India will be subject to a climate of fear and oppression that will get worse in the wake of this exercise.

Also read: Indian liberals & Hindutva supporters, stop dragging Jinnah into Citizenship Bill debates

The right thing to do would have been to produce a religion-neutral Citizenship Bill, as many parties, including the BJPs own ally the Akali Dal, suggested in the Lok Sabha.It is a shameless performance by agovernmentthat has evenlast year refusedto discuss and createa National Asylum policy, which I had proposed in a Private Members Bill and shared personally with then Home Minister, hisministersand his home secretary.If theModi and Amit Shah governmentgenuinely cared about refugees, why has it consistently refused to accept the need for an objective asylumpolicy orcome up with one ofitsown? Suddenly,itclaimsto be going the extra mile in granting citizenship tosomerefugees, whereas in reality, they dont even wantto do the basicas required under international law to improve the determination of refugee status or ensure decent treatment of refugees.

A little more than a year ago,I received a great deal of opprobrium for saying that an election victoryforthe BJP in 2019 would begin to usher in a Hindutva version of Pakistan. The ruling party protested loudly and its members rushed to sue me for defamation; aKolkatajudge even issued an arrest warrant against me for the remark. Sadly, I now sound prescient. A Hindutva version of Pakistan is just what, under BJP rule, our India is becoming.

The author is a Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram and former MoS for External Affairs and HRD. He served the UN as an administrator and peacekeeper for three decades. He studied History at St. Stephens College, Delhi University and International Relations at Tufts University. Tharoor has authored 19 books, both fiction and non-fiction. Follow him on Twitter @ShashiTharoor. Views are personal.

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Now Modi govt has proved that it not only talks like Pakistan, it thinks and acts like it - ThePrint