By Matters India Reporter

Mumbai, Feb 5, 2020: A group Catholic priests and nuns working among the poorest and most marginalized communities in Maharashtra has opposed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as unconstitutional.

“The CAA is the first instance of religion being overtly used as criterion for citizenship under Indian nationality laws and therefore fundamentally discriminatory and divisive in nature,” says a press release from 36 representatives of 16 Catholic congregations that oppose the act.

The group called Justice Coalition of Religious that met in Mumbai recently also opposed National Population Register (NPR) and National Register of Citizens (NRC).

They said these laws are at odds with secular principles enshrined in the Constitution and contradict Articles 13, 14, 15, 16 and 21 that guarantee to every citizen the right to equality, equality before the law, and non-discriminatory treatment by the State.

The group attended on January 16-18 a capacity-building workshop titled, “Rights-based Advocacy in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).”

These religious work with urban and rural poor, Dalits and Adivasis, street children, women in prostitution, homeless populations, persons with disabilities and other poor and marginalized communities.

“As citizens deeply committed to a just and rights-based implementation of the SDGs, we strongly oppose the Citizenship Amendment Act as unconstitutional and therefore counterproductive with respect to SDG 16,” their statement asserts.

It expresses their deep concern about the negative fallout the proposed all-India-level National Population Register (NPR) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) will have on the people of the country, “disproportionately harming the poor, vulnerable, and marginalized and thereby nullifying efforts toward SDG 10 among others.”

Citizenship in India, they pointed, has always been based on the non-negotiable principles of equality and nondiscrimination. “When our country became independent in 1947 and when it gave itself a Constitution in 1950, laying the edifice of our proud Republic, it accepted that people of all faiths, creeds, castes, languages, and genders are Indian equally and without discrimination,” the statement says.

The grassroots workers also noted that the new law undermines India’s commitment to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and other human rights treaties to which the country is a signatory.

The CAA fast-tracks Indian citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhist, Christians, Parsis and Jains who arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014, from its Muslim majority neighbors, namely Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.

“By giving special privileges to migrants from these religious communities, the government has singled out Muslims for exclusion. As citizens and members of the minority Christian community in the country, we are dismayed that a statutory attempt is being made through the CAA to privilege peoples of certain faiths while relegating another, Muslims, to a secondary status.”

Muslims and Christians, the Catholic religious noted, have been experiencing “a deep sense of vulnerability and insecurity with the rising tide of majoritarian nationalism in the country and actual violence perpetrated against minority communities particularly Muslims.”

The group warns that in the present context the CAA would be used, along with the National Register of Citizens, “to render many Muslim citizens stateless due to inability to meet stringent birth or identity proof requirements.”

The Catholic religious also explains that the CAA also “unfairly” disadvantages Muslim groups, such as Hazaras and Ahmadis who have historically faced persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh from seeking refuge in India. “It leaves out Sri Lankan Tamils who form the largest refugee group in India residing here for now almost three decades,” they add.

The CAA also excludes the Rohingya Muslims, the “world’s most persecuted minorities,” from Myanmar with whom we share a border. The country needs a proper law on refugees and so we appeal to the government to develop a sustainable refugee policy that is non-discriminatory and compliant with international conventions, like the UN Refugee Convention, 1951 and the 1967 Protocol to which India is not a signatory.

“As citizens working with the poor and marginalized we are deeply concerned about how the NPR, which is the first step of NRC, and the proposed All-India NRC will affect many other groups at the margins of society,” the coalition warns.

Because birth/identity proof and permanent residence documents remain the privilege of the moneyed and few, a significant percentage of the poor and marginalized, irrespective of faith, lack these documents leaving them out of government schemes. The poor are certain to become enmeshed in an interminable, costly bureaucratic exercise if their citizenship status comes under doubt under the NPR or NRC.

“The most affected will be women, children, landless laborers, the homeless, transgender persons, urban poor, Adivasis and Dalits,” the religious explains and warns that the NPR and NRC exercises will end up disenfranchising many people.

Another problem the Catholic priests and religious sees the vast powers vested in the bureaucracy at junior levels. These officials have the power to include or exclude a person from the local that would unleash arbitrariness, discrimination and corruption.

According to them, such abuse had taken place in Assam where the laws were first implemented.

Since 2013, the northeastern Indian state “has been reeling under the impact of an ill-conceived NRC exercise. Apart from the huge material costs, the human costs have been immeasurable.”

Suicides, families torn apart, detention camps and foreigners tribunals; fear and specter of statelessness – this is what ordinary people, especially women, children, the poor and minorities have had to suffer and continue to suffer.

According the Catholic coalition, the NPR and the NRC are unnecessary and wasteful exercises that will cause hardship to the public at large and entail public expenditure that is better spent on schemes benefiting the poor and disadvantaged sections of society. The exercise at the national level will cost the country billions of rupees.

Such an expenditure is unjustified at a when the economy is at a 45-year low and unemployment levels at an all-time high, the Catholic religious coalition says.

“This money could be better spent to improve access to quality education, provide universal health care; strengthen food security, create jobs, promote gender justice and end caste-based discrimination,” they say.

The group reminds the government its commitment to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 169 associated targets, which comprehensively cover social, economic, and environmental dimensions of development and focus on ending poverty in all its forms and dimensions.

“The CAA, NPR and NRC will take away precious resources required for the successful, just, rights-based implementation of the SDGs. They will also cause division and disharmony in society, reversing gains made towards the Goals thus far,” the group warns.

The Catholic religious expressed their solidarity with those engaged in peaceful protests and other forms of nonviolent resistance across the country “to preserve an idea of India based on Constitutional values and principles.”

They condemned “the use of violence and brute force by the police against students and others engaged in peaceful demonstrations in different parts of the country.”