During his Vijayadashami speech on October 25, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat has invoked the controversial Citizenship Am...
During his Vijayadashami speech on October 25, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat has invoked the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act. He said that “before the issue could be discussed further, the focus shifted to coronavirus”.
Five days earlier, Bharatiya Janata Party president JP Nadda had asserted that the coronavirus delayed the implementation of the CAA and it would be implemented soon.
It is obvious that the BJP and the RSS want the new citizenship law – which introduces a religious test for Indian citizenship for the first time – back in the political discourse, what with assembly elections due in West Bengal next year.
The argument that the divisive CAA should be reconsidered in the face of enormous opposition to it and especially since India is facing a serious threat at the border from China is unlikely to have any effect on the RSS and the BJP.
However it is important that we ponder over one dimension of the CAA that has not received adequate attention – that the majoritarian impulse behind the CAA undermines and in fact damages India’s stated positions of fighting radical Islam.
Hostility to secularism
If there is one thing that western liberal democracies have been doing consistently and that has well served their purpose of fighting radical...
