*WASHINGTON: *The head of a US government advisory board voiced concernover India’s drive to register citizens in the north-eastern state ofAssam, amid fears it could disenfranchise millions, most of them Muslims.
Tony Perkins – chair of the United States Commission on InternationalReligious Freedom, which issues recommendations to the government but doesnot make policy – said that religious pluralism was “a bedrock of Indiansociety.”
“However, we remain concerned with the potential abuse of the NationalRegister of Citizens in Assam and the resulting introduction of a religiousrequirement for citizenship, which are contrary to the ideals of religiousfreedom in India,” he said in a statement.
India has given Assam residents until the end of the month to prove they,their parents or grandparents were in the state before 1971, when millionsfled a war after which Bangladesh was formed.
Home Minister Amit Shah, the right-hand man of Indian Prime MinisterNarendra Modi, has called for the ejection of “termites” from India and,before their Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s election triumphthis year, vowed to take the Assam-style campaign nationwide and “send backthe infiltrators.”
In another move, India’s lower house of parliament passed legislation inJanuary to grant citizenship to people who came from Bangladesh, Pakistanand Afghanistan at least six years ago – but not if they are Muslim.
Perkins is president of the Family Research Council, a conservativeChristian group close to President Donald Trump’s Republican Party that isknown for its opposition to acceptance of homosexuality.
Joining his statement of concern was Anurima Bhargava, a member of thecommission appointed by Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
She said the commission was “troubled” by any actions that targetminorities, saying that the registration “must not become a means to targetand render stateless the Muslim community in north-eastern India.”
The United States rarely criticises India, an emerging ally, and has beenguarded in statements on Modi’s recent stripping of autonomy forIndian-occupied Kashmir (IoK). -APP/AFP