Modi refers to five former lawmakers to defend CAA

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi dug into the history books and cited at least five former legislators to argues that the idea of a law to help non-Muslims

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi dug into the history books and cited at least five former legislators to argues that the idea of a law to help non-Muslims from Pakistan or Bangaldesh get Indian citizenship was always a part of the discourse on both sides of the border.

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Replying to the debate on the President’s speech in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on Thursday, Modi cited late PMs Jwaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shatri, socialist icon Ram Manohar Lohia, and even two Hindu lawmakers who later migrated from Pakistan to India: Jogendra Nath Mandal and Bhupendra Kumar Datta.

Modi referred to Nehru’s letter which he wrote to then Assam chief minister Gopinath Bordoloi, asking the latter to differentiate between Hindu refugees and Muslim migrants. The Prime Minister told Lok Sabha that Nehru expressed the view that even laws can be changed in this regard. “I want to ask the Congress if Nehru was communal, or if he wanted to create a Hindu Rashtra?” Modi asked. He also pointed out that the Nehru-Liaquat Agreement did not include all citizens but mentioned only “religious minorities”.

The pact, signed on April 8, 1950, said: “The Governments of India and Pakistan solemnly agree that each shall ensure, to the minorities throughout its territory, complete equality of citizenship, irrespective of religion…”

But the Prime Minister also targeted Nehru. In a bid to put the onus of the Partition on the country’s first Prime Minister, Modi said that it is natural for everyone to aspire to become the PM but as “someone” wanted to be the Prime Minister, “a line was drawn and the country was divided”.

Modi read out a part of the resignation letter of Jogendra Nath Mandal, the nation’s first labour and law minister in the Liaquat Ali Khan government. “Pakistan is no place for Hindus to live in and that their future is darkened by the ominous shadow of conversion or liquidation,” Mandal’s letter was quoted by Modi to underline the need to protect non-Muslims of Pakistan. Mandal, a Dalit, stayed back in Pakistan after Partition but returned to India in 1950.

Modi also spoke about Bhupendra Kumar Datta, another Hindu MP of Pakistan after Partition, who opposed the Pakistan government’s repeated attempt to impose Urdu in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). “I want to ask to the Congress leader, have you heard the name of Bhupendra Kumar Datta? He spent 23 years in jail. After partition, he stayed back in Pakistan,” Modi said, “When the work on Constitution was on, he said in the Constituency Assembly (of Pakistan): ‘so far as this side of Pakistan is concerned, the minorities are practically liquidated. Those of us are here to live, represents nearly a crore of people still left in East Bengal living under a total sense of frustration’.”

Armed with the quotes from Datta’s speech, Modi argued that, from the very beginning, minorities faced a troubled future in Pakistan, further justifying why CAA is needed to open the doors for India for them.

In Rajya Sabha, the Prime Minister invoked Shastri and Lohia and quoted their parliamentary speeches to contend that non-BJP leaders in the past have expressed worry about the fate of minorities in Pakistan. He mentioned a resolution moved by Shastri that said, “this House is of the opinion that in the view of the insecurity of life, property and honour of the minority communities living in the Eastern Wing of Pakistan” the Indian government should relax “restrictions in migration” to India and consider “steps for enlisting world opinion”.

Modi even referred to a resolution adopted in the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in 1947, which called for “full protection for all those non-Muslims from Pakistan who have crossed the border and come over to India or may do so to save their life and honour.”

Author Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay said: “1947 to 1950 is such a multilayered period... There is no single truth. And the Prime Minister is purely following footsteps of those who see only one aspect of history. Remember, after July 1948, a large number of Muslims went to Pakistan and they, too, faced hardships there but couldn’t come back.”