It was decades ago when this columnist came across Mamata Banerjee. He was impressed by her forthright demeanour and simple attire, by the fact that despite being a Parliamentarian, she wore rubber sandals unselfconsciously. Although by then a well-known figure in the country, Mamata Didi, as she is known, lived in an unpretentious dwelling in Kolkata, not shifting to the much more ostentatious quarters she was entitled too. And yet, somewhere along the way, the Chief Minister of Bengal appears to have missed the central point of public life, which is to ameliorate the condition of the suffering. Mamata Didi opposes what, from 2019, ought to have been termed the Minorities Protection Act rather than the Citizenship Amendment Act, the CAA. The simplest of mathematics would show the horrible way in which Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh have treated Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and Buddhists. Their number has dwindled to practically zero in Afghanistan, and to the low single digits in Pakistan. In Bangladesh, the inheritors of the tradition of those who stood with Yahya Khan’s army as it was killing, raping and looting what subsequently became Bangladesh turned their attention to committing the same atrocities as Pakistani troops had. Only this time, it was non-Muslims in Bangladesh who suffered, so much so that the population of Hindus in that country is rapidly dwindling to the single digit stage. Sheikh Hasina seems helpless to stop the slaughter, intimidation and rapine that motivated Taslima Nasreen to write an epochal book, “Lajja” (Shame). Since then, Nasreen has lived in constant danger of death at the hands of the fanatics she infuriated by being truthful about their depredations.
More than 15 million Muslims have come across the border from Bangladesh to India and settled in this country. Chief Minister Banerjee has not expressed any reservations about such an influx. Yet she is unhappy, as are others in various political parties, that the CAA has become operational, so that the many who are going through the horrors of genocide in the three countries named in the legislation find refuge in India. That over fifteen 15 million Muslims have moved from Bangladesh and settled in India is a reality that can be witnessed in towns across India, and yet Mamata Banerjee opposes Hindus, Sikhs and Christians from doing the same. Such a discrimination is incomprehensible. Surely the Bengal Chief Minister is aware of the parlous, indeed perilous, situation facing Hindus, Sikhs and Christians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Surely she is aware of the influx from Bangladesh into her own state. Why then should she oppose the giving of citizenship to minorities in the three countries named in the CAA? Perhaps Mamata Didi wants Muslims also to be included within the ambit of the CAA. Given the condition of Afghanistan and Pakistan, were this to be done, more than half the population of Pakistan and Afghanistan would resettle in India, or more than a hundred million individuals. Is such a flood what opponents of the CAA want? A case may be made that rather than just offer sanctuary to persecuted minorities in the three countries named, robust diplomacy from India should ensure that minorities cease to be oppressed in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. With CAA, those in the three countries who seek to expel minorities entirely could redouble their harassment, so that as many members of the minority communities leave the three countries to settle in India as citizens. However, there is no justification for opposing sanctuary to the persecuted minorities of the three countries, which is all that the CAA seeks to achieve.