New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs has said the statement given by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an American federal body, on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is “neither accurate nor warranted”.
Responding to the commission’s statement that the US should impose sanctions on Home Minister Amit Shah and other leaders of the Narendra Modi government if the bill is passed by both houses of Parliament, MEA Official Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said the USCIRF has “little knowledge and no locus standi” on the matter.
“The Bill provides expedited consideration for Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities already in India from certain contiguous countries,” Kumar said, adding it “seeks to address their current difficulties and meet their basic human rights.”
He said the initiative should be welcomed, and not criticised, “by those who are genuinely committed to religious freedom”.
Kumar also said the bill does not affect the existing avenues available to all communities who want to seek citizenship.
“The recent record of granting such citizenship would bear out the Government of India’s objectivity in that regard.”
He clarified that neither the CAB nor the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process seeks to strip any Indian citizen of any faith of citizenship.
“Suggestions to that effect are motivated and unjustified. Every nation, including the United States, has the right to enumerate and validate its citizenry, and to exercise this prerogative through various policies,” Kumar said.”
Stating that the USCIRF’s position is “not surprising given its past record”, the MEA said it is, however, “regrettable that the body has chosen to be guided only by its prejudices and biases on a matter on which it clearly has little knowledge and no locus standi”.
What the USCIRF had said
The USCIRF came down heavily on India hours after the bill was passed by the Lok Sabha around Monday midnight.
The federal body said it is “deeply troubled” by the fact that the Lok Sabha passed the Bill, adding that it is a “dangerous turn in the wrong direction” and completely opposite to “India’s rich history of secular pluralism and the Indian Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law regardless of faith”.
It also said it is concerned that the CAB along with National Register of Citizens (NRC) process in Assam and other states will “strip citizenship from millions of Muslims”.
Also read: Religious freedom in India under attack in Modi era, says US govt body
MEA should learn to ignore s!lly people.
India should also form similar Commission and start giving advise to the US about how it treats native Indians in the Reserves, hispanics, costaricans and mexicans.
Actually. These sort of American “bodies” are losing their relevance but continue to be darlings of Indian media.
A testing time for India’s diplomats, widely regarded as among the best in the world.