The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) are a single entity and not separate entities. The enactment of the CAA has become a necessity to give citizenship to non-Muslims excluded from the Assam NRC. Thanks to them, all except Muslims can acquire citizenship by virtue of their religious identity —‘except Muslims’ being the operative words. As a mutually complementary mechanism, the CAA-NRC combo sifts out Muslims. It amounts to legalisation of religious discrimination and segregation, pure and simple. It is a betrayal of our common humanity that Muslims are being singled out for denial of citizenship because of their religious faith. It is wrong that masses of people should be pigeon-holed as ‘us-and-them’ on the basis of religion. The present government’s policy on citizenship hastens India’s retreat from secularism. Hence it must be opposed with all the strength we can summon up. Secularism is the legacy of the freedom movement and the talisman that keeps our multi-religious country united and its repudiation will be a recipe for balkanisation and disintegration. Making select religions the gateway to citizenship hammers the nail into the Constitution and India’s pluralist democracy. As Yogendra Yadav has so admirably put it, what India now needs is not a National Register of Citizens, but a National Register of the Unemployed.
G. David Milton,
Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu
