Fearmongering Over Citizenship Amendment Bill: How Fake News Is Being Peddled To Create Hysteria

The Lok Sabha on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday (9-10 December) passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) which seeks to provide refuge to persecuted minorities who have fled Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

These persecuted minorities include, “Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis and Christians”.

One of the salient features of the CAB is said to be a possible step towards India becoming a natural home for Hindus and also other minority religions persecuted in neighbouring countries.

While the BJP and its ideological supporters have firmly backed the bill, it has seen a severe backlash at the hands of opposition parties, journalists and a section of “intelligentsia”.

This opposition though has not been limited to the criticism of the bill and various personalities decided to spread fake news in a possible bid to create hysteria against it.

Whipping Up Hysteria Against CAB

Various journalists yesterday and today took to Twitter to claim that they are now receiving messages from Muslim relatives who are worried to death about their future in the country.

The journalists also implied that the citizenship of Indian Muslims would be called into question thanks to this bill and they may even face deportation.

Another senior journalist also questioned the message being sent to Indian Muslims as a result of this bill.

Some journalists also alleged that this bill will turn India into an ethnocracy and Indian Muslims into second-class citizens.

Incidentally, earlier in the day AIMIM chief and Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi even compared the bill to the Nuremberg Race Laws enacted by Nazi Germany in 1935.

He then took things to the next level by alleging that Amit Shah would now find himself in the same league as Adolf Hitler and Israel’s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion.

Busting The Fake News Against CAB

First and foremost the Citizenship Amendment Bill has nothing to do with Indian Muslims - that is Muslims who are citizens of India.

The only scope of the bill is to aid persecuted minority refugees (worded as illegal immigrants in the bill) who are living in India for years and have not been able to become official citizens.

The bill also does not address the issue of illegal Muslim immigrants like Rohingyas - its scope comes under the NRC.

Home Minister Amit Shah too assuaged these fears by asserting that Indian Muslims have nothing to fear. He added that no Muslim needs to be scared and no discrimination will befall them due to CAB as it has no connection with “Indian minorities”.

“There are Muslims here. They are living here without any problem...I want to assure you today to all brother-sister. No one needs to be scared. We will not discriminate. I assure you. We have no hatred towards Muslims. Do not create one. There is no connection of Indian Muslims with the bill”, Shah was quoted as saying.

Shah also answered the question, “why are Muslims excluded from the list of groups eligible for citizenship” by pointing out that as the bill only covers minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and as Muslims are not a minority in these countries, they are not included.

Conclusion

The statement by Home Minister Shah does enough to bust the hysteria peddled by aforementioned individuals.

Firstly, Indian Muslims have nothing to fear from the bill and it is neither designed to make them second class citizens or threaten their citizenship.

Secondly, the bill is in no way similar to the racist Nuremberg Race laws enacted by the Nazis as the legislation’s target group were Germany’s Jewish citizens who were stripped of their Reich nationality.

The bill also does not seek to create an “ethnocracy” as besides Indic religions, also included in the list of eligible minorities are Christians.

The bill also only addresses the issue of “providing citizenship” and not “deportation” as being claimed by certain individuals.

The CAB will be tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday (11 December). It is expected to be a tough battle for the BJP in the upper house as unlike in Lok Sabha it does not enjoy a simple majority.