The NRC or the talk of NPR is the another ploy of this government to deflect the attention of public from real issues, say speakers
Abdul Bari Masoud | Clarion India
NEW DELHI — The national convention on NRC on Saturday flayed the BJP dispensation at the center particularly Home Minister Amit Shah for raking up the non-issue of citizenship. The Convention asked the people to understand politics behind the NRC and NPP as the ruling party wants to divert attention of the public from its utter failures on all the fronts. It also said there is no need to press the panic button on the issue.
In the wake of Assam’s NRC exercise and government functionaries’ statements on extending this exercise to the whole country, Welfare Party of India organised the convention on ‘NRC – Myth and Catastrophe’ here in which leaders, experts and intellectuals put forth their views.
Dr SQR Ilyas, National President of Welfare Party of India, said NRC or the talk of NPR is the another ploy of this government to deflect the attention of public from real issues.
“The BJP government at the Centre is using NRC as a tool to polarise people and create fear and is destroying the delicate social fabric in the country.”
In his presidential remarks, he said the Welfare party has organised this convention with the aim to disseminate correct information and true picture about the NRC exercise in Assam and to put rumours and fears to rest and to build a strong national consensus on it.
“The process of updating the National Registration of Citizenship recently in Assam to maintain a register for Identification of Indian citizens under the supervision of Supreme Court was a mammoth exercise involving crores of rupees and it was shoddy, complex and contentious, yet it refuted the claim that there was a huge influx of Bangladeshis in Assam”, he added.
While 3,11,21,004 crore people made it to the final list of NRC, 19,06,657 lakh were left out and were asked to appeal within 120 days in the Foreigner’s Tribunal and if rejected here were further asked to appeal at the high and supreme court and this entire procedure is cumbersome and taxing on the poor.
Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind ( A) president Maulana Arshad Madani flayed the Home Minister’s statement on citizenship issue and adding that the statement is a clear violation of the constitution which does not discriminate on the basis of one’s religion or language. After the Home Minister made this irresponsible statement at Kolkata, Maulana said he contacted top leadership of the RSS and asked them how can a government functionary made such statement ignoring a 200 million religious group.
“Those in responsible positions should refrain from giving irresponsible statements and give unconstitutional statement after taking oath on the very constitution,” he added.
He said Indian Muslims are part and parcel of India. There are Thakur, Brahmin, Gujjar etc amongst Muslims too as their forefathers accepted Islam and now after all these years they are deprived citizenship just because of their religion is shameful. It is sad to say that Muslim do not follow the divine law of giving a share in inheritance to their women folks as the Muslim women in Assam faced lot of problems to establish legacy linkage with their families, he underlined and asked the community to take this lesson seriously in the rest of the country.
Noted lawyer and activist, Prashant Bhushan spoke on the legal framework of NRC and the discrepancies found in the present system. He said the onus of establishing the citizenship should be with the State and not with the individual. Highlighting the evil designs of the BJP, he said the ruling party wants to deny voting rights and citizens rights to Muslims. NRC is a serious issue and we need to see it in totality and needs to be challenged at every stage, he added.
Speaking on the occasion, Christian leader and journalist, Dr John Dayal said Islamophobia and the divide are brought about by the BJP government which wants to polarize the society on religious line to remain in.
Jamaat-e-Islami Hind leader Engineer Mohammed Salim said the ruling BJP is using NRC as diversionary tactics and wants to keep a section of population under constant fear.
Trinamool Congress MP and editor of Kalom Daily, Imran Ahmed Hassan said why the government did not give citizenship to Tamils who migrated from Sri Lanka, because of persecution there, who have been living in the country for last 30 years. He said the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee categorically said that her government won’t implement NRC at any cost in the state. Referring to Aryan invasion, he said those who first came to India they must go first.
Supreme Court advocate Sanjay Hegde underlined that India is a country of immigrants and he himself migrated from Karnataka to Mumbai first and then settled in New Delhi. He warned that the idea of India is under threat because of the advent of communal and fascist forces on the national horizon. NRC is a local issue of Assam and we should not allow it to spill into other parts of the country, he added.
Gauhat High Court advocate Hafiz Rashid Chowdhary said the people in the rest of the country should take lesson from Assam NRC excercsie. He also pointed out the proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill ( CAB) is just a ploy to befool Hindus in Assam and elsewhere. If one goes into the clauses of the bill, it does not automatically make an illegal immigrant as citizen of India, he or she needs to pass a long-drawn process for this, he added.
On those left in the final list of NRC, he said there is great concern over the future of these people, whose deportation is neither feasible nor a desirable option. He pointed out how the myth was spun by the political parties in Assam and the discrepancies found in the NRC list only explains that the political parties want to keep NRC still alive.
AAMSU leader Aziz ur Rahman said introduction of Citizenship Amendment Bill is anti constitutional and anti-Muslims and it will make NRC more discriminatory and communal.
Prof Apoorvanand warned that NRC issue should not be made as Muslim-centric as the BJP wants it for its political gains. He pointed out that Indians who migrated to America and European countries are vying for plum posts and positions in governments while in our country, the ruling party wants to make a large religious group as its second class citizen who have been living here for centuries and this is shameful.
Human right defender Ravi Nair said mere legal battle is not enough to tackle such issues. Calling for civil disobedience movement, he said we should take lesson from the history of Germany and South Africa in this connection.
