New Delhi: When Northeastern states unanimously stood against the new Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, nobody expected that the protests would spread like fire all across the nation. Citizens grilled the government, some on the exclusion of Muslims, while others on its constitutional validity.
Moreover, the protests gained momentum after the incident of "brutal police violence" faced by students at Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia and the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in Uttar Pradesh, which was condemned by massive population. Nearly 60 petitions have reached the Apex court challenging the act and January 22 has been fixed as the date to conduct the hearing.
As the unrest prevails, ETV Bharat called upon CAA Petitioners Patal Kanya Jamatia, founder of Tripura Peoples Front (TPF) and Matiur Rahman, working president of Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha, to understand more about what is happening in the Northeast region.
Q1. Why do Indigenous people of Tripura feel endangered?
Tripura's history is an elaborate one. Tripura was merged with India on 9 September 1949, and the administration was taken over on 15 October 1949. During that period we were in majority but within 70 years we became a minority. In a total population of 50 lakhs, the number of native people comes down to just 11 lakhs. This resulted due to the lack of border security which facilitated illegal immigration from neighbouring countries especially Bangladesh. No political party till now has addressed our issue or understood our sentiments. It's sad that we are going through all this; fighting for our rights in a nation that is diverse, federal, democratic and secular. We have always been neglected both by the government and the national media. Our population is deprived of constitutional fundamental rights as well as the rights of indigenous peoples under international law. Forget talks on development, at present, we are struggling for survival in our own land.
Q2. What is the current situation of Tripura?
Whenever we have carried out peaceful protests, police have been violent to us. Illegal immigrants enjoy more political rights and support as compared to us. We experience a lot of injustice which is barely covered by the media. Today, when we are voicing a protest against CAA, we have to justify our stand. My question is- Will the CAA supporters stand for it if their states' identity gets threatened by infiltrators? I, on behalf of my people, appeal to everyone in the country to support and stand for us, before other states of the country start facing similar issues. Although we live in an independent nation, we don't enjoy independence in all true sense. We are opposing CAA not because we are against any particular race, religion or caste, but because we strongly oppose illicit infiltrators belonging to any religion. If CAA is being pushed to make India into a place where being Indian is synonymous with being Hindu, then it's a deplorable situation. If today, the Indian government is surrendering to the needs of illegal immigrants then a genuine question arises- Will India surrender to Chinese too in future? In fact, the government should be happy if we are trying to protect our nation from such immigrants.
Q3. Last week you had a meeting with Union Home minister Amit Shah. What did you discuss?
We met Union Home minister Amit Shah twice on this issue. The first meet happened when the Bill was introduced in Parliament and we pointed out our concerns and its negative impact. On our second meet, we requested him to disperse such immigrants to other states proportionally, if he supports such immigration. The Bill states that the provisions on citizenship for illegal migrants will not apply to the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, or Tripura, as included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution. It will also not apply to the regions protected by the Inner Line Permit (ILP). This is nothing but a tactic of divide and rule to create a vote bank. Areas that are around the Bangladesh border were not excluded which clearly indicates that this Act clearly came into existence to give citizenship to 'outsiders' settled in these areas.
Q3. Apart from CAA abrogation, what all are Tripura's demands?
First of all the government should implement an updated NRC as per the Indian constitution. Secondly, CAA should be abrogated. Thirdly, we should be given all our constitutional rights. Sometimes a political decision may be wrong, in that case, the government should hear out the genuine plea of the civilians.
Also Read: CAA stir in Delhi: Eight arrested for Seelampur violence
