{"id":484,"date":"2020-03-05T09:47:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T09:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/?p=484"},"modified":"2020-03-05T09:47:37","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T09:47:37","slug":"civilizational-citizenship-homeland-india-for-partitions-accursed-stateless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/civilizational-citizenship-homeland-india-for-partitions-accursed-stateless\/","title":{"rendered":"Civilizational Citizenship : ‘Homeland India’ for Partition\u2019s \u2018Accursed Stateless\u2019 !"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cThe political condition of a stateless person is much worse than that of a political prisoner. The person loses more than his or her freedom…he or she loses the \u201cright to have rights\u201d. A stateless person represents \u2018a new kind of human being\u2019 – the kind that are put in concentration camps by their foes and in internment camps by their friends.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

— Hannah Arendt, political theorist in \u201cOrigins of Totalitarianism\u201d (1951)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c…..the Hindu idea of nationalism was definitely one of\nHindu nationalism. It was not easy….to draw a sharp line between this Hindu\nnationalism and true nationalism. The two overlapped as India is the only home\nof the Hindus and they form a majority there.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

— Jawaharlal Nehru, in\n\u201cGlimpses of World History\u201d, (OUP : 1985, p. 677)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Being stateless\u2019, is indeed, a\ndehumanizing condition which is but a historical fact of bloody partition of\nundivided India on religious ground. Both Muslim League headed by M.A Jinnah\nand the Indian National Congress led by Gandhi-Nehru-Sardar accepted it, after\nexhausting all possible options for mutual reconcialations. But this does not\nnegate the fact that the Congress was as much an equal colloborator with Muslim\nLeague in the process. By accepting communal \u2018separate electorate\u2019<\/em>\nexclusively for Muslims in order to appease the newly created Muslim League,\nfirst given in 1909 via Morley-Minto\nReforms<\/em> and further buttressed by the Congress post-Luknow pact of 1916\nonwards till 1946, sowed the seed of \u2018Muslim separatism\u2019, leading to the\ncommunal partition in 1947. From supporting medievalistic, communal Khilafat<\/em> movement to being silent\nspectator of Hindu genocide by Muslim Moplahs<\/em>\nof Malabar in 1921, Congress did almost everything to appaese<\/em> Muslim\nLeague\u2019s wholly unjustified, insatiable demands one after the other, while\npretending itself to be \u201ctruly secular\u201d, all along, towards India’s own peril !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas Gandhi\u2019s Congress \u201cclaimed\u201d\nto represent the \u2018hopes and aspirations of all Indians across\ncaste-creed-religion\u2019, Jinnah\u2019s Muslim League proudly called itself to be \u201cthe\nsole-spokersperson for all Muslims\u201d across undivided-India, as empirically\nvindicated in 1946 elections. Jinnah called Congress as \u2018Hindu <\/em>Congress\u2019<\/em>,\nrepresenting only the \u2018caste<\/em>-Hindus\u2019\nout to impose \u2018Hindu Raj<\/em>\u2019 on Muslims\n! Hence, Jinnah called for partition of India on the basis of his \u2018Two-Nation\nTheory\u2019, espousing the fact that both Hindus and Muslims are two wholly\n\u2018different people or nations\u2019 with irreconcilable worldviews. Thus, by \u2018agreeing to partition\u2019<\/em>, as Maulana Azad\nwarned Nehru, \u201chistory\u2019s verdict would be\nthat India was divided not by the Muslim League but by Congress.\u201d<\/em> <\/strong>(\u201cIndia\nWins Freedom\u201d, Orient Black Swan : 2018, p 176).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Dr. B.R. Ambedkar\nrealistically argued for mutual, total and doable \u2018transfer of population\u2019<\/em> of religious minorities living across the\n\u2018Radcliffe Line\u2019 in \u201cThoughts on Pakistan\u201d<\/em>, as communal partition\u2019s \u2018natural\ncorollary\u2019<\/em>, which both PM Attlee and Jinnah agreed to but fully opposed by\nGandhi-Nehru as (false) test of Congress\u2019s \u201csecularhood\u201d ! Today, it is costing\nIndia heavily as the \u2018Muslim problem\/question’, the only casus belli<\/em> of\npartition remained unresolved.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following Muslim League\u2019s untold\ngangsterism in Calcutta, masquaraded as \u2018Direct Action\u2019 in August, 1946 threatening\n\u2018accept partition or face more\nbloodbaths\u2019<\/em>, Nehru\u2019s subsequent \u2018Interim Government\u2019 was, thus, become \u2018provisional\ncircus\u2019<\/em>! Consequently, Lord Mountbatten announced \u2018Dicky Bird\u2019<\/em> Plan (\u2018Partition Plan\u2019) on 3rd June, 1947 fixing\nAugust 15, 1947 as day of \u2018transfer of power\u2019 to the both \u2018Dominion of\nPakistan\u2019 (i.e. National Homeland for Muslims) and \u2018Dominion of\nHindusthan\/India\u2019 (i.e. National Homeland for Hindus etc) as hastily and\nwrongly demarcated by Mr Radcliffe, e.g. Chittagong with 97% Buddhists etc\ngiven to Pakistan! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to such uncalled hurry, what\nfollowed was history\u2019s bloodiest refugee crises with over one million people\nrendered \u2018stateless\u2019 overnight and over one million butchered, with India being\nworst hit by incessant flows of persecuted Hindu, Sikh etc refugees pouring\nacross India\u2019s territories. It will be worth reminding here, what the Congress,\nBapu and Nehru said on the \u2018treatment of persecuted Hindus, Sikhs etal <\/em> refugees\u2019 by the Indian State, as Islamic\nPakistan became an ‘accursed State’<\/em><\/strong> for its minorities, so said\nby J.N. Mandal, Pak’s first Law Minister !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Congress Working Committee (CWC)\nadopted a Resolution on November 25, 1947, \u201cThe\nCongress is bound to afford full protection to all those non-Muslims from\nPakistan who have crossed the border and come over to India or may do so to\nsave their life and honour.\u201d <\/em>Bapu \u2018promised\u2019 in his prayer meetings on 16\nJuly and 26 September, 1947, \u201cThe Hindus\nand the Sikhs staying in Pakistan, can come to India by all means, if, they do\nnot wish to continue there. In that case, it is the first duty of the Indian\ngovernment to give them jobs and make their lives comfortable\u2026(India) will be\nto accept them with broth arms and extended to them all legitimate\nopportunities. They should be made to feel that they have not come to an alien\nland\u2019\u2019. <\/em>(CWMG, Vol. 96). Nehru said, \u201cWe\nalso think of our brothers and sisters cut off from us by political boundaries\nand who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They\nare of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in\ntheir good and ill fortune alike.\u201d <\/em>[\u201cIndependence and After\u201d (Selected\nSpeeches of Nehru, Vol. I), 1949, p.14). Further, speaking in Parliament on 5th\nNovember, 1950, PM Nehru said, \u201cThe Hon.\nMembers referred to the question of citizenship. There is no doubt, of course,\nthat those displaced persons who have come to settle in India are bound to have\nthe citizenship. If the law is inadequate in this respect, the law should be\nchanged.\u201d<\/em> (Selected Speeches of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. II, 1949-\u201953). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Participating in the Constituent\nAssembly Debates on Citizenship (11-12 August, 1949), Dr P.S Desmukh said, \u201cI want to make a provision that every person\nwho is a Hindu or a Sikh and is not a citizen of any other State shall be\nentitled to be a citizen of India. …By the mere fact that he is a Hindu or a\nSikh, he should get Indian citizenship because it is this one circumstance that\nmakes him disliked by others….If the Muslims want an exclusive place for\nthemselves called Pakistan, why should not Hindus and Sikhs have India as their\nhome?\u201d<\/em> Rohini Kumar Chauduri, of then undivided Assam, inter alia<\/em>,\nsaid, \u201c…I want citizenship rights to\nthis class of people, who have originally belonged to Sylhet in the province of\nAssam, who, long before the partition, have come to the Assam Valley as a\ncitizen of that province and are staying in the present province of Assam..\u201d <\/em>Also\nthen LoP in Rajya Sabha, Dr Manmohan Singh on 18 December, 2003 and then CM of\nAssam, Tarun Gogoi (Cabinet Resolution of 16 July, 2014) wanted citizenship for\npartition’s ‘stateless victims’, too! Even then General Secretary of Communist\nParty of India (Marxist) Comrade Prakash Karat wrote a letter to the then PM of\nIndia, Dr Manmohan Singh in 2012, strongly demanding citizenship to the\npersecuted religious minorities (comprising mostly Dalit <\/em>or Scheduled\nCaste Hindus viz Sahiwals<\/em>, Namo-Shudras<\/em> etc) from Pakistan and\nBangladesh at the earliest, which was also endorsed by Party’s Kozhikode\nresolution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consistency of ruling Bhartiya\nJanata <\/em>Party(BJP) with Hindutva<\/em> ideology in demanding and\nnow implementing citizenship for the persecuted religious minorities of\nerstwhile undivided India (i.e. pre- 3rd<\/sup> June, 1947 India) is\ntotally in contrast with the volte-face <\/em>of the Congress and the\nCommunist\/Left parties now. If they are now blaming BJP for playing \u201cHindu\nvote-bank\u201d politics, weren’t they be equally blamed with same allegation in\nrecent past ? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To conclude, today the Indian State\nis only fulfilling its historical or civilizational commitment in granting\nIndian Citizenship to the religiously persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists etc\nStateless people or refugees from Islamic States of Af-Pak and Bangladesh for\nwhom India is their only beloved ‘Homeland’ in the world. It is truly\ninclusive, fully secular and in tune with the ‘principle of non-refoulement’<\/em>\n(i.e. the practice of not forcing refugees to return to a country in which they\nare liable to be persecuted) of international law in addressing the question of\nreducing Statelessness globally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the State also has to resolve issues of primordial-identity<\/em> concerns and its full protection, especially that of Assam and the North-Eastern Region (NER). So, while doing so, the State has to equally fulfill its constitutional imperative of safeguarding the genuine and sensitive issues of (protection of )\u2018identity\u2019 <\/em>concerns, as legitimately raised by the people and civil societies of Assam and the NER states, having precarious religious, linguistic and ethnic demography. This calls for re-negotiating<\/em> the latest amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955 with all the stakeholders of the region by the present regime at the Centre, with raising of such issues like a single, uniform inner-line permit (ILP) for whole NER, implementation of ‘Clause 6’ of the Assam Accord etc. Unto this, the Indian State should take a call at the earliest, lest, foreign funded divisive forces will find alibi <\/em>to flare violent mob frenzy in India’s strategic Northeastern region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Assistant Professor, Political Science, D.K. College, Gauhati University, Assam.) <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe political condition of a stateless person is much worse than that of a political prisoner. The person loses more than his or her freedom…he or she loses the \u201cright to have rights\u201d. A stateless person represents \u2018a new kind of human being\u2019 – the kind that are put in concentration camps by their foes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":488,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions\/488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}