ISLAMABAD – From Germany to Chile and South Africa, nations have had toendure painful reconciliation processes to heal themselves, put the pastbehind them, and draw lessons from violent brushes with history to preventtheir recurrence. India has chosen to beat a reverse path.
Tired of the country’s stable democracy, preserved for seven decades aftera blood-soaked independence, its muscular new caretakers are urgentlypoking old wounds in the hope of stirring up India’s demons to take it downthe same road to perdition it long ago escaped.
Despite being born in a frenzy of religious violence accompanying thepartition of independent India into a Hindu-majority Indialink and a Muslim-majority Pakistanlink in 1947 – which left up to 2 milliondead and 14 million displaced – the new Indian nation chose to become asecular republic in which people of all religions would have just as muchright as Hindus.
This idea of India ran up against the country’s increasingly assertivemajoritarian politics this week, and came up short on the floor of itsHouse. But the resultant friction between the two ideas of India has joltedthe foundational arrangement of a complex nation, triggering panic andprotests nationwide, in what could well be a prolonged period of social andpolitical unrest.
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Amid opposition protests and marathon debates, Prime Minister NarendraModi’s link Hindu nationalistBharatiya Janata Party (BJP) this week pushed through a bill in parliamentthat will give Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan,Bangladesh link and Afghanistanlink. The Citizenship (Amendment)Bill, or CAB, which became an act on Thursday with the president’s assentafter it was cleared by both Houses of Parliament, allows for the firsttime in constitutionally secular India a citizenship provision based onreligion link. Modi himself wasconspicuously absent throughout the House debates and let his closest aideand Home Minister Amit Shah lead the government side in piloting the bill.
