While the nationwide protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) have proved to be the result of a concerted campaign by the Opposition parties, particularly the Congress, to instigate masses by much use of lies, there has been some apprehension about how these two moves may affect India-Bangladesh relations.
In one of his recent articles, India’s former high commissioner to Bangladesh, Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, expressed concern over the CAA and its possible fallouts as its passage only allowed illegal migrants other than Muslims to easily obtain Indian citizenship. He is reported to have expressed his anxiety about the possibility of reverse migration, which may encourage Islamists and anti-Indian lobbies in Bangladesh to target Hindu minorities there, besides adversely affecting the bilateral relationship. He stated that: “India has always maintained that the NRC in Assam is a domestic issue whenever concerns were raised in Bangladesh. The NRC undoubtedly is a domestic issue and so is the CAA, which is an amendment to India’s Citizenship Act of 1955. The CAA states that designated non-Muslim persecuted minorities will not be treated as illegal migrants if they have entered India by December 31, 2014, and fast-tracks the grant of Indian citizenship via naturalisation after 6 years.” The Bangladesh government too has reportedly acknowledged that the CAA and the NRC are India’s domestic issues but have rejected the CAA’s provisions that Hindus are a “persecuted minority”. Bangladesh’s leaders have also said that if India provides a list of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, it will take them back after due verification. Read More…
