Observe Human Rights Day Dec 10 as Protest Day Against CAB, all India NRC, and the Assaults on Universities, Students and Teachers

THE Citizenship Amendment Bill just approved by the Cabinet and due to be introduced in Parliament, is an attempt to effect a backdoor entry to the RSS notion of Hindu Nation.

1. The pretext of the Bill is that it will allow refugees from minority communities in countries neighbouring India to apply for Indian citizenship. The question is - why does the list exclude persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries, such as Rohingya Muslims, Sri Lankan Tamils, Tibetan Buddhists or Uyghur Muslims, as well as persecuted political groups like atheist rationalists from Bangladesh, many of whom are of Muslim origin? Why does it adopt a definition of refugees from persecuted minority groups based on faith and nationality? Why does it restrict itself to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan alone?

2. The aim of the CAB is not to benefit refugees and persecuted communities. Rather, it is to exclude Muslims from the definition of Indian citizenship. That is the only rationale behind excluding Muslims from the CAB.

3. The BJP is aware that its all India NRC plan has backfired, and instead of the  communal division they sought to achieve, there is instead unity of Hindus and Muslims against the all India NRC. BJP has admitted that it was this united rejection of NRC that resulted in their losses in the recent Assembly by elections in West Bengal. But the Modi-Shah duo hope that CAB can be used to break up this unity, and assure Hindus that even if they are excluded from all India NRC, they will be protected by the CAB. But this too is a communally motivated lie.

4. All India NRC threatens all India's poor citizens with exclusion. The poor cannot even prove they are poor and are therefore excluded from BPL lists - how can they find documents to prove their ancestors were citizens in 1951? The fact is that NRC threatens all Indians with statelessness. Meanwhile CAB says that while Muslims excluded from NRC will remain stateless and be "thrown out", non Muslims excluded by NRC will get refugee status and be allowed to apply for citizenship. In other words, the choice facing the majority of Indian citizens if all India NRC and CAB become a reality, is a choice between statelessness, and refugee status! All India NRC + CAB turns every Indian citizen bearing inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution, into a supplicant, begging for citizenship.

5. The NRC+CAB disaster can be compared with Modi's demonetisation disaster. Demonetisation claimed it would get rid of black money. Actually black money is pouring into BJP's funds through Electoral Bonds! Demonetisation scrapped currency notes and destroyed India's economy. Likewise all India NRC+CAB will scrap people's citizenship and destroy India's Constitution.

6. Indians are not suffering today because of "illegal immigrants" - there is no evidence at all that there is any large-scale influx of undocumented immigrants in India. Indians are suffering joblessness and deprivation today, not because of immigrants, but because of the devastation of the economy, jobs, and society by the Modi-Shah Government.

Indians must unite to reject and resist the all India NRC and CAB, which are an all out attack on India's secular Constitution.

CPIML has called for December 10, International Human Rights Day, to be observed in India this year, as a day of protest against the assaults on India's Constitution and people's rights, in the form of all India NRC, CAB. Human rights day will also be an occasion to express solidarity with the struggling teachers and students in JNU, DU and so many other Universities and educational institutions, who are facing and fighting assaults by the Central Government.

- Prabhat Kumar for CPIML Central Committee