Is India’s BJP Government Set to Create a ‘Hindu Pakistan’?

It’s a formidable yet extraordinary time for India, a moment to be etched in history, as what is unfolding now will determine whether India’s founding principles of pluralism and secularism can stay intact or if the Narendra Modi government will be successful in driving a wedge between the Hindu and Muslim religious communities.

The country has witnessed prolonged and unprecedented protests since the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was passed by both houses of Parliament on December 11, 2019. The Act provides a path to citizenship to communities who fled persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014. Specifically, the act applies to people belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsee, and Christian religions, but excludes Muslims.

So what’s wrong with that? It is perfectly legitimate, even laudable, for a government to expedite the process of granting citizenship to religiously persecuted migrants from neighboring countries. Why is a government’s magnanimous gesture and its show of compassion to unfortunate refugees questioned?

For the supporters of the Act, this is just another case of Modi-bashing. For the dissenters, the Act is exclusionary in nature as it leaves Muslims out and selectively omits refugees from other neighboring countries like Sri Lanka and Myanmar. The use of religion as a differentiator violates the secular nature of the Indian Constitution.

In 1947, at the time of independence when the subcontinent was cut asunder by a violent partition, India resisted defining nationhood on the basis of religion while Pakistan chose to be a Muslim nation. Protesters across the country are fighting the idea of a “Hindu Pakistan,” which would make India lose its soul, for it is in diversity, not homogeneity, that India flourishes.