RSS backs Centre on Citizenship Bill; says not to be confused with NRC

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 6

Backing the Narendra Modi government on the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, BJP’s ideological fountainhead RSS on Friday said “the attempt to correct a historic wrong needs to be supported by all political parties” and also that “it should not be confused or linked” to the National Register of Citizens—the NRC.

According to a top Sangh functionary, “persecuted minorities cannot be compared with the illegal immigrants in the country and those who are today opposing the legislation are opposing only for the sake of opposition”.

The Sangh has also created a dedicated website on “everything you want to know about CAB”, which, among other issues,  also has “views  expressed by politicians, including from the Congress and Left, on the issue related to granting citizenship to Hindus from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they faced religious persecution”.

Expressing confidence of the Bill sailing through Parliament, including the Rajya Sabha, he said “majority of non-BJP/NDA parties would vote along with the government”.

“We (India) need to come out of soft state we have become. We (BJP/RSS) are not against other minorities (Muslims). Give them a work permit so that they can work in India, that is what most other countries do, but to compare persecuted minorities in other countries to illegal immigrants in India is wrong,” he said on queries on whether CAB was a precursor/part of the NRC, another controversial move that Home Minister Amit Shah plans to execute before the 2024 General Election. 

However, with Shah asserting that the Centre will implement both the NRC and CAB determinedly, the debate over “two interlinked issues” is intensifying.

While detractors see the two legislations as a part of a larger agenda of “Hindutva rashtra”, the Sangh says the two issues cannot be interlinked.

“It is incorrect to align CAB with NRC, they are two separate issues,” the Sangh leader insisted.

Meanwhile, the Sangh leader, who claimed that anywhere between “two and three crore” minority migrants would benefit from India’s move, also added that the CAB “is not an organisation’s or a party’s issue but a national issue. All parties have favoured it at some point in time or other and those who are opposing it need to be exposed”.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is expected to be introduced on Monday and taken up for consideration and passage the next day, sources have said.

The government is in “more than a comfortable position” to ensure its smooth passage not just in the lower house but also the upper house, the Rajya Sabha, the government sources say on the Bill that seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they faced religious persecution.

Though the Shiv Sena has parted ways, it is expected to support the legislation and so is the JD(U) from which a whole lot of resistance was witnessed earlier.

So far as the Rajya Sabha is concerned, the government’s confidence flows on the basis of support from “non-UPA, non-NDA” regional parties that have helped the Treasury Benches through critical moments in the last Lok Sabha. 

While the BJP leaders are claiming support of more than 125 members in the Rajya Sabha where the present strength is 238, the Sangh believes eventually everyone will “support one way or the other”.

The Bill safeguards interests of the people of north-eastern states, in fact it is not a northeast issue at all,” he said on the Bill that has given exemption to the Inner Line Permit (ILP) regime areas like Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.