EAM Jaishankar defends CAA, challenges critics on their understanding of history

NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday boldly addressed criticism on the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and questioned the global understanding of historical events, adding that the government has an obligation to the people who were let down at the time of partition.

"I am not questioning the imperfections or otherwise of their democracy or their principles or lack of it. I am questioning their understanding of our history. If you hear many comments from many parts of the world, it is as though the partition of India has never happened. And there were no consequential problems which the CAA is supposed to address," he said.

"If you take a problem, remove all the historical context from it, sanitize it and make it into a political correctness argument and say, I have principles and don't you have principles. I have principles too and one of my principles is obligation to who were let down at the time of partition," he added.

EAM firmly defended the implementation of CAA and slammed the critics to reevaluate their own policies before accusing India of introducing policies on the basis of some faiths. Jaishankar highlighted similar instances, including the Spectre amendment for a particular ethnicity from Vietnam and the fast-tracking citizenship of Hungarians after the Hungarian revolution, as well as Cubans in the 1960s.

"I also have a problem when people don't hold up to mirror to their own policies. so if you say, you are picking some faiths and not some other faiths. I will give you some other examples of it. Have you heard the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which is about Jews from the Soviet Union. You would ask why only Jews. There was the Lautenberg Amendment which is about Christians and Jews in 1999 Soviet Union," he said.

"There was a spectre amendment, which was about a law, which was about a particular ethnicity from Vietnam who had a fast track to citizenship because they had fought alongside the Americans. There were fast-tracking Hungarians after the Hungarian revolution.

Thus fast tracking of Cubans in the 1960s. If you were to ask me, have other countries, other democracies fast tracked on the basis of ethnicity, faiths, and social attributes," he added. Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024 enable persons eligible under CAA-2019 to apply for the grant of Indian citizenship and applications are to be submitted in a completely online mode for which a web portal has been provided by the government. The Centre notified the rules for implementing the Citizenship Amendment Act on March 11.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, seeks to grant Indian citizenship to refugees who had sought shelter in India before December 31, 2014, due to religious persecution in three neighbouring countries--Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, of six minority communities there. The CAA removes legal barriers to rehabilitation and citizenship and gives a dignified life to refugees "who have suffered for decades".