Various organisations held a protest over the CAA and NRC here on Monday held a protest near Mahatma Gandhi statue in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office under the aegis of the Humanity Foundation. They said the CAA should be done away with to save the secular fabric of our Constitution. Later, foundation president Swati Malagi submitted a memorandum addressed to the Chief Justice of India to M. Deepa, DC.
The memorandum stated that the CAA was fundamentally discriminatory. Although the CAA aims at granting citizenship to religious minorities of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians — fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who have been entered into India till December 31, 2014, it does not extend the same protection to Muslims, including minority sects. Even the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed serious concerns that the amended law would appear to undermine the commitment to equality before the law enshrined in India’s Constitution and India’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, to which India is a State party, which prohibit discrimination based on racial, ethnic or religious grounds, it said.
This Act violates article 14, 15, 21 and 25 of the Constitution. Religion cannot be a basis in giving or depriving a person from the citizenship. The whole idea behind the Act is to divide the nation on religious and sectarian lines. It creates fear among Muslims. It also compels Muslims to leave their faith and adopt some other religion to save their citizenships. This is a totally divisive and unconstitutional Act, they said.
Moreover, it is repeatedly said that that the CAA will be implemented along with the NRC. “We have seen the result of NRC exercise in Assam, where about 19 lakh are kept out and among them 14 to 15 lakh belong to Hindu communities. The exercise had been painful and affected people from Dalit, tribal, OBC, Muslim and poor communities,” it added.
Members of other groups led by Dharwad Janajagruti Abhiyana held a separate protest at Swami Vivekananda Circle. Addressing the gathering, Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) party district secretary Ramanjanappa Aldalli said the statements of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah on NRC contradict each other. While Mr. Modi said on Sunday that the NRC would be limited to Assam, Mr. Shah said on the floor of the house that it would be made applicable to the entire nation.
