“The combination of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the National Population Register and the National Register of Citizens is designed to deprive Muslims of equal rights under Indian law and in Indian society. Using the CAA as a tool of divisiveness against people of certain religions is against the reality of India and stands on legally unstable ground,” said Justice A.P. Shah (Retd.), former Chief Justice of the Madras and Delhi High Courts.
Justice Shah said the government was using the tool of ‘othering’, labelling dissenters as anti-national, anti-Hindu or anti-democratic. “But the enemy is something that exists only in their heads,” he said at a public discussion on CAA-NRC-NPR at the Music Academy on Monday.
“They are searching for new enemies every day. The leadership forgets its duty is to govern rather than be an agency whose role is to gather and pander to vote banks and indulge in identity-based politicking,” he said.
Justice Shah said the CAA was morally reprehensive, plainly unconstitutional and violated the fundamental right to equality before the law, under Article 14 of the Constitution.
“The Constitutional protection requires that any kind of State classification of persons must be reasonable and must have a rational and just object. But the CAA introduces a classification without any reasonable basis. Restricting the definition of persecuted minorities to non-Muslims is irrational,” he said.
Justice Shah said that despite the attempts being made to divide and rule, the people, especially the youth, had risen up in an unprecedented collective movement to protest against this. “Students in particular are the torch-bearers of Constitutional principles,” he said.
‘Illegal exercise’
Usha Ramanathan, a legal scholar, noted that the government had claimed that there was no connection between the NPR and the NRC, and that the NPR will not lead to the NRC. “If that is true, then the NPR is an illegal exercise. There is no law other than the Citizenship Act that allows for an NPR or for collection of this data. So if it is not under the Citizenship Act, this exercise cannot be allowed to carry on,” she said.
Ms. Usha said Aadhaar was at the centre of the NPR exercise. Since the UID (the Aadhaar project) began, the citizens were being told that they belonged to the State, along with their data and the biometrics, she said, adding, “We don’t belong to the State. The State owes us an obligation, responsibility. We don’t owe the State that.”
She said when the government claims that people don’t have to submit every document for the NPR exercise, they will decide whose documents to verify. “It’s an executive exercise. Even in Assam, there were people who produced documents, and they (government) said they won’t accept it,” she said.
Describing the protests against the CAA as a peaceful mass revolt, N. Ram, Chairman, THG Publishing Pvt. Ltd., said, “I don't think we need to exaggerate this movement against this unjust and indeed outrageous piece of legislation. There is no question that the students have come to the fore in this movement.”
Mr. Ram said the CAA-NPR-NRC signified the BJP’s Hindutva agenda which directly challenged the principles of secularism. “We haven't quite put a finger on what prompted the people (those protesting against the CAA) to move...the first time, there's a direct challenge to government that is not only communal, but also authoritarian,” he said.
Journalist Rohini Mohan presented her field work on the NRC process that was undertaken in Assam, and explained how it disenfranchised a large number of people. At the end of the meeting, Justice Shah led the gathering in reading out the Preamble of the Constitution.
