---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Sukla Sen <sukla.sen@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 10:05 PM
Subject: India: CAA / NRC / NPR: The Task of the Moment: Resist NPR!
To: foil-l <foil-l@insaf.net>, Say NO 2 UID Core Group <core-group@lists.nouid.in>
From: Sukla Sen <sukla.sen@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 10:05 PM
Subject: India: CAA / NRC / NPR: The Task of the Moment: Resist NPR!
To: foil-l <foil-l@insaf.net>, Say NO 2 UID Core Group <core-group@lists.nouid.in>
Resist NPR!
It's about time that the ongoing protest movements focus on the following specific demands.
CC. The government to issue an ordinance to scrap the current, discriminatory, CAA.
DD. India to confirm adherence to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951, together with the 1967 Protocol.
Till accomplishment, resistance must keep gathering greater, and still greater, momentum.
All efforts must be geared towards that.
The NPR has got to be resisted.
Implications of NRC+CAA
I. The CAA as a stand-alone measure has little significance (except in the North-East and, also, West Bengal), other than symbolic .
II.. It, however, singles out Muslims for exclusion.
The persecuted from the non-Muslim-majority neighbouring countries - Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Tibet/China, Bhutan etc., do not qualify.
Nor the persecuted Muslims - Ahmadiyyas, Shias, Hazaras, Balochs etc., from the Muslim-majority neighbouring countries.
III. But, bundled with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), it is designed to send out the (deceptive and) toxic message that the huge number of Hindus who would, certainly, be filtered out by the NRC process, for want of "documents", have nothing to worry - the CAA would take care of them, and only the Muslims would be stripped of their citizenship and turned stateless.
IV. It's quite another matter that even the filtered out Hindus, and other non-Muslims, in order to be counted as Indian citizens will have to establish the claim of migration, in terms of "documents", from either Afghanistan or Bangladesh or Pakistan, to India, on or before Dec. 31 2014.
(Ref.: <https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/migrants-wont-get-citizenship-automatically/articleshow/72799784.cms?fbclid=IwAR3A5mMc4F2JD1NXCHfQ8V6Xn8Gm9D-LRtYWMVdtPvpPRDtxYrn9pdBvli0>.)
Hence...
NPR: The Vital Link
Chastened by the experience of the NRC exercise in Assam, where 1.9 million, understandably including a large number of Hindus, out of total 33 million applicants have found themselves, eventually, filtered out (ref.: <https://indianexpress.com/article/india/assam-nrc-final-list-bjp-congress-bangladesh-illegal-migration-5954490/>), the Union Government has, this time, opted to, first, carry out a survey in order to prepare a National Population Register (NPR) - containing biometric details of the individuals, as the stepping stone towards the NRC.
(Ref.: <2020 National Population Register to lay foundation for nationwide citizens' register> and <https://indianexpress.com/article/india/npr-nrc-link-amit-shah-central-government-parliament-6183572/?fbclid=IwAR2KCXmxsItXP-7_84-_H_JJi1855x2yvfJvWlABYwAz84IQRMchr1Y8BbM>).
Utility of the NPR
I. It'll help delineate those to be targeted during the NRC exercise proper.
II. It'll create a biometric database to subsequently apprehend those filtered out by the NRC process, from any corner of the land.
Apparent Illegality of the Planned NPR
The biometric data collection, unrelated to any state-run welfare schme (or linking with the PAN) appears to go against even the Aadhaar judgement by the Indian Supreme Court, let alone the (previous) one on privacy, recognising it as a fumdamental right of a citizen.
This deserves to be also legally challenged on the ground of being violative of privacy rights.
Regardless of how the Court is going to respond.
The Real Driver
The real intent and purpose of the CAA-reinforced NRC is, by threatening an ethnic cleansing by specifically targeting Indian Muslims, to trigger and perpetuate a civil war-like situation - by stirring up panic, rage and hatred, across religious divides, in order to mobilise the Hindus as "Hindus" - drowning out all other competing identities linked to gender, ethnicity, language, caste, class, age-group etc., in turn, to dismantle the "India" that had been brought into being by the epic Indian freedom struggle to make way for a "Hindu Rashtra" - a Hindu majoritarian state, denuded of all vestiges of substantive democracy and pluralism.
(Ref.: What Now? and Conclusion in <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/greenyouth/Sukla$20Sen$2C$202019$20Parliamentary$20Poll$3A$20Outcome$3A$20Drivers$3A$20Consequences$20%7Csort:date/greenyouth/jDH-u677CzY/z4ES9B7OBAAJ>.)
Unless all the myriad ongoing protests - sweeping the land, gradually coalesce, grow and culminate into a really effective surge to scuttle the NPR-NRC project, "India" is, for sure, doomed.
Conversely, a powerful counter movement can help "India" bounce back - with redoubled vigour, as had happened in the wake of Indira Gandhi's spectacular electoral defeat, post-Emergency.
In fact, the ongoing mass protests, cutting across religious divides, have already, to a significant extent, have undermined the fiendish scheme of the regime to trigger a religious civil war.
But, finally, the NPR-NRC project has got to be scuttled.
That is only how "India" can be pulled back from the very brink of the abyss it has been dragged to.
United we resist!
Divided we perish!
It's about time that the ongoing protest movements focus on the following specific demands.
AA. A formal statement from the PM assuring no NRC - given his public denial, blatantly false though, that the issue has ever been discussed by the regime (ref.: <https://www.altnews.in/pm-modis-speech-on-caa-nrc-a-combination-of-falsehoods-and-half-truths/>) and, also, the fact that already as many as 11 state government representing more than half of India have taken stance against the NRC (<https://theprint.in/india/11-state-govts-representing-56-of-india-have-now-taken-a-no-nrc-stance/340213/?fbclid=IwAR0H3SkokMtg0lp5eCfXAwGwljcvM60ufjlfcwNq_rlBEmYKvX-r53WSHSE>), to be, subsequently, backed up by a declaration by the government on the floor of the parliament to that effect..
BB. Scrapping of the NPR - the officially designated "first step towards the creation of a National Register of Citizens" (ref.: <http://www.censusindia.gov.in/vital_statistics/crs/crs_division.html>); only routine census to be undertaken, as per schedule.
CC. The government to issue an ordinance to scrap the current, discriminatory, CAA.
DD. India to confirm adherence to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951, together with the 1967 Protocol.
Till accomplishment, resistance must keep gathering greater, and still greater, momentum.
All efforts must be geared towards that.
The NPR has got to be resisted.
Implications of NRC+CAA
I. The CAA as a stand-alone measure has little significance (except in the North-East and, also, West Bengal), other than symbolic .
II.. It, however, singles out Muslims for exclusion.
The persecuted from the non-Muslim-majority neighbouring countries - Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Tibet/China, Bhutan etc., do not qualify.
Nor the persecuted Muslims - Ahmadiyyas, Shias, Hazaras, Balochs etc., from the Muslim-majority neighbouring countries.
III. But, bundled with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), it is designed to send out the (deceptive and) toxic message that the huge number of Hindus who would, certainly, be filtered out by the NRC process, for want of "documents", have nothing to worry - the CAA would take care of them, and only the Muslims would be stripped of their citizenship and turned stateless.
IV. It's quite another matter that even the filtered out Hindus, and other non-Muslims, in order to be counted as Indian citizens will have to establish the claim of migration, in terms of "documents", from either Afghanistan or Bangladesh or Pakistan, to India, on or before Dec. 31 2014.
(Ref.: <https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/migrants-wont-get-citizenship-automatically/articleshow/72799784.cms?fbclid=IwAR3A5mMc4F2JD1NXCHfQ8V6Xn8Gm9D-LRtYWMVdtPvpPRDtxYrn9pdBvli0>.)
Hence...
NPR: The Vital Link
Chastened by the experience of the NRC exercise in Assam, where 1.9 million, understandably including a large number of Hindus, out of total 33 million applicants have found themselves, eventually, filtered out (ref.: <https://indianexpress.com/article/india/assam-nrc-final-list-bjp-congress-bangladesh-illegal-migration-5954490/>), the Union Government has, this time, opted to, first, carry out a survey in order to prepare a National Population Register (NPR) - containing biometric details of the individuals, as the stepping stone towards the NRC.
(Ref.: <2020 National Population Register to lay foundation for nationwide citizens' register> and <https://indianexpress.com/article/india/npr-nrc-link-amit-shah-central-government-parliament-6183572/?fbclid=IwAR2KCXmxsItXP-7_84-_H_JJi1855x2yvfJvWlABYwAz84IQRMchr1Y8BbM>).
Utility of the NPR
I. It'll help delineate those to be targeted during the NRC exercise proper.
II. It'll create a biometric database to subsequently apprehend those filtered out by the NRC process, from any corner of the land.
Apparent Illegality of the Planned NPR
The biometric data collection, unrelated to any state-run welfare schme (or linking with the PAN) appears to go against even the Aadhaar judgement by the Indian Supreme Court, let alone the (previous) one on privacy, recognising it as a fumdamental right of a citizen.
This deserves to be also legally challenged on the ground of being violative of privacy rights.
Regardless of how the Court is going to respond.
The Real Driver
The real intent and purpose of the CAA-reinforced NRC is, by threatening an ethnic cleansing by specifically targeting Indian Muslims, to trigger and perpetuate a civil war-like situation - by stirring up panic, rage and hatred, across religious divides, in order to mobilise the Hindus as "Hindus" - drowning out all other competing identities linked to gender, ethnicity, language, caste, class, age-group etc., in turn, to dismantle the "India" that had been brought into being by the epic Indian freedom struggle to make way for a "Hindu Rashtra" - a Hindu majoritarian state, denuded of all vestiges of substantive democracy and pluralism.
(Ref.: What Now? and Conclusion in <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/greenyouth/Sukla$20Sen$2C$202019$20Parliamentary$20Poll$3A$20Outcome$3A$20Drivers$3A$20Consequences$20%7Csort:date/greenyouth/jDH-u677CzY/z4ES9B7OBAAJ>.)
Conclusion
Conversely, a powerful counter movement can help "India" bounce back - with redoubled vigour, as had happened in the wake of Indira Gandhi's spectacular electoral defeat, post-Emergency.
In fact, the ongoing mass protests, cutting across religious divides, have already, to a significant extent, have undermined the fiendish scheme of the regime to trigger a religious civil war.
But, finally, the NPR-NRC project has got to be scuttled.
That is only how "India" can be pulled back from the very brink of the abyss it has been dragged to.
United we resist!
Divided we perish!
Peace Is Doable
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