Right way is to step back and know why people oppose CAA

At a time when the Deputy CM of Bihar on Sunday upped the ante in the debate on the amended Citizenship Act by asserting that the updation process of the National Population Register (NPR) will be carried out in the State from May 15, notwithstanding the decision by a few governments to put the exercise on hold in their respective states, former union minister P Chidambaram says that the BJP-led government should not go ahead with the exercise.

The Centre should “pause” and “step back” on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and introspect as to why people are opposing it, Chidambaram said. The former Home Minister, who had overseen the rolling out of the NPR exercise during the UPA government’s time, also said that the government was committing a “grave mistake” by digging in their heels on the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). In an interview to DT Next at his Jor Bagh residence in New Delhi, the senior Congress leader, who has his roots in Tamil Nadu, further shares his views on the controversial Act, the difference in the NRC under the UPA government, the state of economy, and more.    

That you should ask the BJP-led government.  They have brought it in order to polarise the electorate, especially in north India. In north India, there is an underlying friction between the Hindu and the Muslim communities.  Having suffered setbacks in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand [in the Assembly elections] and finding no way to make inroads into the south Indian States, they have decided to polarise the electorate in north India. And they think that the CAA/NRC will help them do so. 

See, Assam is a complex problem. Assam does not want any law which allows anyone, be it Muslims, Hindus or anyone, to claim a right to settle down in the State.  So the objection of the Assamese is on a different plane, unlike the objections in the rest of the country which is to the discriminatory law.  So, the State’s issue has to be settled in accordance with the Assam Accord.  My suggestion is let’s keep Assam aside. The BJP doesn’t care whether it retains or loses Assam. It is a small State which sends only 14 members to Parliament. The BJP’s goal is to capture Bengal which sends 42 MPs. They think that this issue will polarise the Hindus against the Muslims of Bengal and therefore, they can win a substantial number of seats there.  But my hunch is their calculations about Bengal are wrong.

I am surprised that they are digging in their heels.  You see, perhaps they are encouraged by some stray surveys which say that there is a significant section which supports the CAA.  I think they are making a grave mistake by digging in their heels. The correct approach is to pause, step back and try to understand why people are opposing the NRC and the CAA. By digging in their heels and making a statement every day, both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister are only making the divide deeper and causing anxiety among many countries of the world.  For example, you may have seen the statement of former NSA Shivshankar Menon that India is increasingly isolated in the world because of the government’s stubborn positions on the CAA and NRC.

Absolutely. They are clear on pushing the Hindutva agenda very quickly, although it surprises me why they should it do in the first year of their second term. Whatever it is, they are pushing the Hindutva agenda so aggressively. They have got five years. I am surprised. One would have thought they would devote the first three years to economy development, infrastructure, etc. and push the political agenda closer to the elections.  But they seem to have reversed it.  They are pushing the Hindutva agenda from Day One.  First, they started with the triple talaq, followed it by the Jammu and Kashmir dismemberment, the Assam NRC, and then CAB (Citizenship (Amendment) Bill).  It is quite clear that everything else has been put on the back-burner. The Hindutva agenda is occupying their time and energy.

We never talked about the NRC. We only did an NPR. We gave the NPR exercise to the Census Commissioner and Registrar General to do it in select States.  We remember it was done in 12 or 13 states.  It was done as an aid to the Census of 2011.  Once the census was completed, we stopped the exercise. We didn’t take it any further; we never did anything close to an NRC. 

The goal, as I said, is to polarise.  See, the NRC exercise in Assam first identified over 40 lakh people as foreigners in Assam. Ultimately, it identified 19,06,657 people as foreigners. They are stateless people-roughly one half of them are Muslims, and roughly one half of them Hindus.  An NRC all over India will inflate this number to several crores and a very large chunk of them will be Muslims.  As this exercise rolls out and you begin to identify the so-called stateless persons and conflicts erupt all over the country, they think it will polarise the electorate and that polarisation will benefit them. They know that nobody can be thrown out of this country.  For example, the 19,06,657 people identified as stateless- where will you send them? How will you send them? By ship, by train, by plane? Where will you send? Which country will take them? They know that this exercise will meet a dead end. But still they are performing the exercise. Why? The only motivation can be to polarise the electorate.

What will you do with them? Please answer that question. Alright, you have identified two crore people as illegal aliens. What will you do with them? Why does the government not answer that question? I have asked this question. Are you going to build detention centres all over the country and put all these people in a detention centre? How long will they remain there? Will they remain there for the rest of their lives? What happens to their children?  Where is the money to build these detention centres and to keep them in these centres? Not one question has been answered. What will the Centre do to those identified as aliens? 

We are saying this is a hornet’s nest, and so don’t stir it.  If there are some people who have entered as illegal immigrants, deal with them in a humane manner. Since everybody knows that they cannot be thrown out of the country, why does the Home Minister say I will throw them out by 2024.  How is he going to accomplish that goal of his?  

Naturally. For example, there was some controversy over the Prime Minister’s degree certificate from Delhi University. The Delhi University could not find that certificate.  If the Delhi University cannot find the Prime Minister’s certificate, how does a poor fellow in Assam or in Bihar, who suffers floods every year, find his document that establishes his citizenship in India…

At the moment, the problem is in the lap of the Supreme Court. While street protests will continue and we will mobilise public opinion, we are pinning our hopes on the Supreme Court that they will strike down this law as unconstitutional.

The Opposition will gain strength. It has gained strength since the Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand elections. It will gain strength in the Delhi elections in January/February. One more election will be there later this year in Bihar. There are five elections all over the country in 2021.  In these places, the BJP has no chance in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and most probably, even in Assam. The Opposition will gain strength when the BJP gets defeated in these States. 

I have written and I have said that the Congress will be the rallying point in Kerala, Puducherry and Assam. The DMK will be the rallying point in Tamil Nadu.  In Bengal and Bihar, we will have to wait and see how the parties form coalitions.  In Assam, we have already said we will work with any party that is anti-CAA.

I cannot speculate. [Bihar CM] Nitish Kumar makes conflicting statements.  I cannot read his mind.

You don’t challenge the Prime Minister on national issues in every State election.  State elections are fought largely on local issues as was demonstrated in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand. While national issues will be debated in a State election, the dominant issues will be the State’s issues.  I think Modi and his party can be defeated and will be defeated in Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and perhaps even in Assam and West Bengal.

That is four years and five months away.  I think if you start worrying about [the election that is] four years and five months away, you will be missing the wood for the trees. You will ignore the immediate challenges. And this is the mistake I don’t want the Congress to make.  Let’s take one State election at a time and come to the national elections [that is] four years and five months away.

Uncertainty is in the minds of the media.  We have a leader today and she [Sonia Gandhi] is the president. She is taking decisions.  When the Congress party decides, or she decides, that another person should be elected as the leader, the party will elect a leader.  Why is the media obsessed with the Congress party’s leader? Ultimately, it is the Congress party and its workers who will elect the party’s leader.  People outside the Congress party cannot elect the leader.  And we don’t have to elect a leader to please people outside the Congress party. We have to elect a leader to please our own workers.  There is a president today and she is functioning effectively.

We have made it clear that we are opposed to the CAA. We have also explained that the NRC is completely inopportune and inappropriate at this point of time, especially after the disastrous experience of the Assam NRC.  We suspect the motives of this government.  We don’t believe that their motives are honest or bona fide and therefore, the NRC exercise should be completely abandoned. We have even gone a step further to say that the NPR should also not be undertaken now because the text and the context of the NPR in 2020 are very different from the situation in 2010.  How clearer can the Congress party be on its positions on the CAA, NPR and the NRC.

We have made it very clear that the text and the context of the NPR 2020 are very different from NPR 2010. Therefore, we should not begin NPR 2020. It’s not necessary.  You do the Census of 2021.  The Census Commissioner, Registrar General will carry out the Census of 2021 according to well-established procedures.

I have heard this claim of the government in the last six quarters.  At the end of each quarter, they say it will turn around in the next quarter. Six quarters have passed by. One no longer has too much faith in the word of the government.

Clearly, if the oil situation flares up, it will hurt India.