The Rajasthan-based Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) has condemned the recent passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Parliament, while affirming that it compromises the integrity of democracy and promotes a “Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-driven pro-Hindutva agenda”.
The MKSS said the exclusion of Muslims was an insult to the intent of the Constitution.
“The deliberate exclusion of the Muslim community and enabling the expedited citizenship for others is a politically motivated and ideologically biased decision that will also fuel the growing State-sanctioned anti-Muslim sentiment in the country,” said the MKSS in a statement released here on Sunday. The Bill was a planned and blatant violation of equality of all religions, it added.
The voluntary group, which works among the peasants and labourers in the villages of central Rajasthan, said the legislation justified communal division of India, beginning with the granting of citizenship by naturalisation to all major non-Muslim groups on “humanitarian grounds”.
The signatories to the statement were MKSS founder member and Magsaysay Award winner Aruna Roy and activists Shankar Singh and Nikhil Dey, who are also members of the group.
‘Flawed logic’
The MKSS said the justification offered by the government that many persons of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities had faced persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh was a “flawed logic”, as there were persecuted minority communities within the broad religious groups in every country.
“A refugee policy cannot be selective to either country or religious communities. The Indian State’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims is a clear demonstration of the flaws of this policy as well as the hypocrisy of the government's claim,” said the MKSS.
It asked on what basis could the Bharatiya Janata Party claim concern for persecuted refugees if it disallowed Rohingyas from seeking shelter and asylum in India. “The BJP’s motivation is clearly rooted in its partisan vote bank politics. The consequences of destroying social harmony and constitutional principles seem to find no space within its concerns.”
The “pernicious amendment” had created an obvious category of a persecuted and discriminated minority, with the sanction of the State for the first time in India’s constitutional history, said the three activists. “This is a tragedy of immense proportions... the BJP is squarely to blame for initiating legalised discrimination and injustice,” they said.
