Modi govt modulates CAA line: No mention of NRC, frames law as ‘justice for persecuted Hindus’

THE FRAMING of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) as a means to save “persecuted” Hindus from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries, assurance that no Indian citizen will lose their citizenship, and a complete silence on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) — this is how the Narendra Modi government is defining this time the contours of the controversial law, the rules of which were notified Monday.

While talking about the CAA as “justice for persecuted Hindu (and Sikh) immigrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh”, the Modi government is hoping that delinking it with any nation-wide NRC will address fears of Muslims that the CAA was a step towards rendering many of them Stateless, if their documents were not found in order.

In that sense, it is a course correction from the earlier clubbing of the NRC and CAA, with Union Home Minister Amit Shah himself saying in 2019 that the NRC would follow after the passage of the Act. That had triggered massive protests across the country, primarily by Muslim groups and their supporters. In contrast, speaking in Hyderabad on Tuesday, Shah underlined that the new law has no provision for stripping any Indian of citizenship.

All through Tuesday, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) of the government also kept putting out messages seeking to bust “myths” about the CAA, and assuring that Indian Muslims did not stand to lose in any way due to it.

In fact, right from the passage of the Act in Parliament in December 2019, PM Modi has been consistent in his stand that it would not affect any Indian citizen. He also said at the time that his government had done nothing so as to induce “NRC fears”. “Lies are being spread about the NRC. It (the commencement of the exercise in Assam)