Guwahati: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, who is in Assam on a two-day visit, said on Wednesday that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) have nothing to do with the Hindu-Muslim divide and the communal narrative surrounding the two issues were being peddled by some to gain political mileage. He further emphasised that no Muslim will face any loss due to the citizenship law.
"After independence, the first Prime Minister of the country had said that minorities will be taken care of, and that has been done so far. We will continue to do so. No Muslim will face any loss due to CAA," Bhagwat said after launching a book here, titled 'Citizenship debate over NRC and CAA-Assam and the Politics of History'. The citizenship law will protect persecuted minorities in the neighbouring countries, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief underlined.
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"We reach out to the majority communities, too, in these countries during a calamity... So if some wish to come to our country due to threats and fear, we will have to help them out," Bhagwat said. Bhagwat further claimed that India was divided by a group of leaders without seeking the consent of freedom fighters and common people, and many found their “dreams shattered as they ended up in Pakistan”.
"After Partition, India successfully addressed the concerns of minorities, but Pakistan did not… That compelled hundreds of thousands of persecuted Hindu, Sikh and Jain families to leave homes and enter India. The CAA supports those refugees; it has nothing to do with Indian Muslims," he asserted. Talking about NRC, he stated that all nations have the right to know who their genuine citizens are; what documents they possess or they do not.
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The government must detect unauthorised settlers so that it can formulate welfare policies effectively for the benefit of its people, he asserted. "The matter is in the political domain as the government is involved in it... A section of people wants to get political mileage by creating a communal narrative around these two issues," he added. If the settlers continue to grow in number and dominate electoral politics among other fields, the original inhabitants will get scared, he pointed out.
"The problem starts when a particular group of people, defying the five-thousand-year-old civilization of the land, wants a single-track religious, linguistic and social practice to prevail… They do not hesitate to use their democratic power with the help of their increasing population. That threatens the culture and social values of the original inhabitants,” the octogenarian leader noted.
India is a land of diversity with each state having its language, cultural activities, rituals and food habits, but "they have always remained connected and will continue to live together," he said. "The systematic migration of Muslim families to India, increase in their population under a specific design, however, is a matter of concern for various communities, including the Assamese," Bhagwat maintained.
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Of late, a large section of people have been demanding all constitutional rights but they are not keen on performing their duties, which is also defined by the same Constitution, he said. The founding fathers of India's Constitution were also liberal and secular, Bhagwat stated. "Secularism, democracy and pluralism are integral to our culture and the people of India do not need to understand the concept of inclusiveness from other nations. This great nation has been practising 'vasudhaiva kutumbakam' (the world is one, we are one) for thousands of years," the RSS leader added.
The CAA was passed in 2019 to expedite the process of granting citizenship to non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who took refuge in India to escape religious persecution. The NRC of 1951 was updated in Assam, leaving out 19.06 lakh people out of over 3.3 crore applicants. Among others, Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma and author of the book, Professor Nani Gopal Mahanta, also addressed the event.
(with agency inputs)
