Dear Editor,
WE refer to the news report titled “A mob out for blood: India’s protests pit Hindus against Muslim” in your February 28, 2020 edition of the newspaper.

The article sourced by your esteemed newspaper has been written with complete bias and prejudice against the Government of India. One should be careful not to fall prey to the propaganda by various elements that are pushing a narrative against India. In any hugely diverse society such as India, pockets of dissent and dissatisfaction are a fact of democratic life. The report is one-sided and has not taken into full consideration of the facts that have emerged out of a detailed investigation being carried on by the Police and judicial authorities in India. The violence seems to have been pre-meditated with an intention to create disturbances and claim worldwide media attention especially during the recent successful visit of President Donald Trump to India.

The Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) allows persons belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Christian faiths who have illegally migrated into India over the last 65 years from three neighboring Islamic countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan), to acquire Indian citizenship on a relatively fast track basis. The CAA was necessitated by the precarious lives these religious minorities had been living for many years, deprived of the benefits of Indian citizenship. It was a situation that could not be redressed without amending the existing citizenship law. These minorities entered India for many reasons – persecution, discrimination, physical insecurity, threat of forcible conversion, protection of their womenfolk. They could only migrate to India, as no Muslim country would either accept them or give them citizenship.

In 1947, the non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan mostly Hindus and Sikhs, constituted about 23 percent of the population; today they constitute about 5 percent, with Hindus at about 1.65 percent. In 1971, at the time of Bangladesh’s creation, Hindus constituted 19 percent of the population, whereas in 2016 they constituted only 8 percent. This should be contrasted with the number of Muslims in India: according to the 1951 post-partition census, there were 35 million; their estimated number today at about 200 million (rising from 9.8 percent of the total population in 1951 to 14.2 percent in the 2011 census). Not only that, Muslims have occupied the highest positions in the country in all domains; the Indian constitution protects the rights of all minorities; and Muslims, along with other minorities, are given special rights in managing their religious and educational institutions.
The government has repeatedly clarified that the CAA aims to grant citizenship on a one-time basis to a particular group of persons with no alternative options, and not to revoke the citizenship of anyone, much less an Indian Muslim. The CAA has a cut-off date of December 31, 2014, after which no illegal immigrant, whether Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Christian or Muslim would be eligible for citizenship under the amendment. In this larger sense, the CAA is by no means anti-Muslim. India is probably unique amongst major powers in not having a citizenship register; the system of national identity cards does not exist. This is an anomaly for a country that has open border of 1758 km with Nepal, a longer porous 4096 km porous border with Bangladesh, a 4056 km un-demarcated border with China and a 3323 km contested border with Pakistan. Ironically, all these neighboring countries have citizenship rolls of their own. All this necessitates, for sovereignty and security reasons, that India has a proper citizenship roll. For good governance, to ensure that the beneficiaries of government schemes are genuine citizens, for maintaining social harmony, and to prevent illegal migration in the future as well, such a roll is essential. India also has to plan for the future, for the repercussions of climate change, including the triggering of mass cross border movement into India. Outside observers need to better understand the dynamics of internal politics in a raucous democracy like India. But they’re not trying to understand the issues dispassionately.

In the process, they themselves show disrespect for India’s democracy. They forget that Prime Minister Modi was elected as India’s leader through the largest-ever democratic exercise in human history, winning more than 550 million votes, in an electorate of 830 million. The leaders of western democracies do see shared values of democracy, pluralism, human freedoms and private enterprise with India as a strong basis of partnership at a time. These shared values are constantly highlighted when India and western leaders meet and issue joint statements.

India continues to be a major victim of cross-border terrorism from Pakistan. Sea-borne Pakistani terrorists caused mayhem in Mumbai in 2008, in which several Israelis too were brutally murdered. The shocking April 2019 terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists in Sri Lanka are a reminder of India’s vulnerabilities in its south. Muslim extremists are active in Bangladesh too. With the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, its links with Pakistani agencies, the emergence of ISIS in Afghanistan, India’s concerns about the spill-over of religious extremism and terrorism from the Pakistan-Afghanistan soil have got exacerbated.

We wish to give an update on the issue:
The Minister of Home Affairs of India took stock of the prevailing law and order situation in Delhi. The Home Minister appealed to citizens not to believe in rumours and fall prey to evil designs of miscreants and groups interested in precipitating communal tension. Only 12 Police Stations out of the 203 PSs in Delhi (about 4.2% of the geographical area) have been affected by these riots, while normalcy and communal harmony has prevailed elsewhere in the National Capital. Delhi Police is mandated and obligated to provide security to all sections of society irrespective of caste and religion. Prime Minister Modi also appealed for calm and said that “peace and harmony are central to our ethos. I appeal to my sisters and brothers of Delhi to maintain peace and brotherhood at all times. It is important that there is calm and normalcy is restored at the earliest. Police and other agencies are working on the ground to ensure peace and normalcy”.

Major Highlights on the current status of the situation are:
No major incident has been reported in the last 36 hours in any affected Police Station of District North-East.
• Prohibitory orders under Section 144 will be relaxed for a total of 10 hours tomorrow in view of improvement in ground situation.
• So far, 48 FIRs, pertaining to clashes, loss of lives/property, etc., have already been registered and further FIRs would be registered in due course.
• Police has detained/arrested 514 suspects for questioning so far. Further arrests would be effected in the course of investigation.
• Delhi Police has separately set up two Special Investigation Teams (SITs) for investigating serious offences.
• Nearly 7,000 Central Para-Military Forces have been deployed in the affected areas of North-East District since February 24. Besides, Delhi Police has also deployed three Special Commissioners of Police, six Joint Commissioners of Police, one Additional Commissioner of Police, 22 Deputy Commissioners of Police, 20 Assistant Commissioners of Police, 60 Inspectors, 1,200 other ranks and 200 Lady Police under the overall supervision of Commissioner of Police to effectively guide and supervise Police response so as to contain and normalise the situation.
• 35 persons have lost their lives in these tragic incidents since February 24. Situation is slowly returning to normal.
• Citizens are requested not to lay credence to any rumour. Delhi Police has set up helplines for round-the-clock assistance. These helpline numbers are being given adequate publicity so that information about miscreants and any emerging situation may be conveyed to the Police.
• Two Security personnel sacrificed their lives in the line of duty to restore law and order. Besides, nearly 70 Police personnel and senior officers have been injured in these unfortunate incidents. Adequate steps have been taken to ensure medical support to the injured.
• As a confidence-building measure among different sections of the society, Delhi Police has started holding Peace Committee Meetings across Delhi to normalise situation and improve inter-community harmony. Such Peace Committee Meetings would continue till situation normalises. So far, nearly 330 Peace Committee Meetings have been organised in various districts of Delhi in the last two days. Apart from this, meeting with Residents Welfare Associations (RWA) and Market Welfare Associations (MWA) have also been convened in several areas. Such Peace Committee/RWA/MWA have been attended by different sections of the society including Civil Society Groups, representatives of different political parties including Congress, AAP, BJP, etc.
• East Delhi Municipal Corporation has already initiated steps to clean the streets and repair damaged public properties in riot-affected areas. Other civic agencies are also ensuring the civic amenities to the citizens is restored as soon as possible. Movement of traffic on the highway and connecting roads is returning to normal.
Regards,
Vijayakumar K.
Counsellor (Com. & Dev. Projects )
High Commission of India