CAB is a tool for invasion, marginalisation, colonisation and annexation: ATRPFM

IMPHAL | Feb 12

All Tribal Rights’ Protection Forum Manipur [ATRPFM] vehemently opposed the passing and enforcement of Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB), 2016. India should first secure the rights of the citizens of India before looking beyond its boundaries.

A statement by the forum noted that the Human Rights Watch, in its World Report, New York, January 18, 2018, has explicitly referenced that the Indian government neglected to stop or solidly research vigilante assaults against minority religious groups during 2017.

Many senior leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) freely promoted Hindu supremacy and ultra-nationalism to the detriment of basic rights for all Indians. Fanatic Hindu gatherings, many professing to be associated with the  ruling BJP, carried out various attacks against Muslims, Christians and other minorities in the name of religion which is against the spirit of secularism and basic structure of the Constitution is being defeated. There was somewhere around 38 such assaults in 2017, and 10 individuals were murdered, the report said.

Hence, it is shameful and hypocratic on the part of Indian government to rehabilitate minorities from outside the country without securing the rights of the minorities in India, said the forum.

Members of civil society and religious minorities in India were concerned over minority communities feeling “increasingly vulnerable” due to Hindu nationalist groups engaging in violence against non-Hindu individuals and their places of worship.

It shall be noted that indigenous people from North East Region, Dalits, Muslims, and Christians were feeling increasingly insecure in India. Under such circumstances, the action and inaction of the Indian government to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan is highly unfair, unjust and against the interests of the indigenous North East people.

The population of India is extremely high except NE Region and populace from other parts of India have reached and settled in the region. The cities in other parts of the country are already congested and if Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016 becomes an Act, the illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan automatically choose NE region as their resident.

“That will certainly affect the distinct history, identity, race, culture, religion, topography, language and would invade the rights of indigenous minority people of the NE region. It might wipe out the indigenous people from their own land” it added.