Govt repels US panel criticism of CAB

Sandeep Dikshit
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 10

India has repelled criticism by  the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)  on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill suggesting sanctions against Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other actors concerned if the proposed legislation becomes law.

India, however, has not reacted to a brief statement by the more influential US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, which has warned of a rupture in shared values if New Delhi went ahead with the CAB. “Religious pluralism is central to the foundations of both India and the US and is one of our core shared values. Any religious test for citizenship undermines this most basic democratic tenet,” said the committee which also uploaded a New York Times article on its Twitter account that described the Bill as a “major step for PM Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist agenda”.

MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar, reacting to the statement by the USCIRF, said it was “deeply troubled” by the religion criterion. He cast doubts on the panel’s even-handedness and pointed out that every nation, including the US, had the right to enumerate and validate its citizenry, and to exercise the prerogative through various policies, adding that its views were “neither accurate nor warranted”. The MEA said the Bill provided expedited consideration for Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from contiguous countries already residing in India. “The legislation seeks to address their current difficulties and meet their basic human rights,” it said and that such an initiative should not be criticised by those genuinely committed to religious freedom.

“The CAB does not affect the existing avenues available to all communities interested in seeking citizenship from doing so. The recent record of granting such citizenship would bear out the Government of India’s objectivity in that regard,” clarified Kumar, adding that it was “regrettable” that the USCIRF,  with no locus standi on the issue, had chosen to be guided by its “prejudices and biases”.

The USCIRF termed the CAB as a “dangerous turn in the wrong direction” which ran “counter to India’s rich history of secular pluralism and the Indian Constitution, that guarantees equality before the law regardless of faith.’’ The USCIRF consists of appointees by US President Donald Trump and majority and minority leaders of both Houses of US Congress. 

The USCIRF saw the CAB in conjunction with the ongoing National Register of Citizens (NRC) process in Assam and nationwide NRC that the Home Minister seeks to propose. Reacting to USCIRF’s fears that the Indian Government was creating a religious test for Indian citizenship, Kumar said, “neither the CAB nor the NRC process seeks to strip citizenship from any Indian citizen of any faith. Suggestions to that effect are motivated and unjustified.”

Pakistan “condemned”  the proposed law as regressive and discriminatory which is in violation of all relevant international conventions and norms, and a glaring attempt by India `to interfere in the neighbouring countries with malafide intent’’. It claimed CAB was also in complete contravention of various bilateral agreements between Pakistan and India. particularly the one concerning security and rights of minorities. The presence of Indian-American Arunima Bhargava as one of the USCIRF Commissioners is of little solace as she spoke in favour of lifting all curbs in the Valley while testifying before Tom Lantos Commission of the US Congress last month.

India has beefed up lobbying at Capitol Hill by appointing a PR agency specialising in US Government affairs for three months at a retainership of $ 40,000 per month.

Hints at sanctions against amit shah

The USCIRF consists of appointees by US President Donald Trump and majority and minority leaders of both Houses of US Congress.

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